Exploring Life-Course Trajectories in Local Spatial Contexts Across Sweden

Abstract

This article explores typical life-course trajectories based on annual observations of educational participation, employment, and establishing a family from age sixteen to age thirty. Using latent class analysis, we identify seven different trajectory classes that capture the different life courses experienced by individuals born in 1986. Examples of trajectory classes are (1) an early partner and childbearing trajectory; (2) a trajectory that mixes employment and a long postsecondary education into the later twenties; and (3) a trajectory involving low activity, very little employment, very little postsecondary education, and not starting a family. The classes identified correspond closely to trajectories found in earlier qualitative studies using life-history interviews, but in contrast to these studies that each encompass a few dozen individuals or less, our approach identifies trajectories for the individuals of an entire birth cohort. This allows for analysis of the geographical distribution of trajectories across regions, municipality types, and neighborhoods. Individuals following long postsecondary education trajectories were heavily concentrated in metropolitan areas and university towns. At the same age, individuals following early childbearing trajectories were concentrated instead in peripheral, rural areas. Individuals from nonmetropolitan areas also tend to follow more gender-polarized trajectories. Moreover, we find that there is more trajectory-based segregation at age thirty than at age fifteen. Theoretically, our study gives support to the idea that places are structured on the basis of life-course trajectories. Local context influences how individuals are linked into different trajectories and, at the same time, the spatial sorting of trajectories will shape local contexts.