Life Course: Innovations and Challenges for Social Research

Abstract

Recent developments of life-course theory and research are discussed in a comparative framework. With accelerating social change, the life course has become a topic that centres on the interplay of personal and institutional dynamics through the life span that provides the temporal and social contexts for biographical planning and stock-taking. Modern life-course analysis asks to what extent biographies are losing their structural embeddedness in favour of negotiations among individuals, opportunities, institutions and social networks. First, a historical account about European and North American traditions of life-course research is presented, delineating the cohort/life-event and the life-history approaches. Second, three conceptual frameworks are illuminated that focus on the relationship between social change and human lives: linking mechanisms, structuration and institutional arrangements (with a focus on age and gender). Concerning methodology, longitudinal studies that use quantitative as well as qualitative methods are necessary to understand the interrelationships between social change and biography. Third, innovative themes for research are presented, relating to the issues of agency and institutions, the timing of transitions and linked lives. The article concludes with a call for more cross-cultural life-course research.