The life course perspective

The life course perspective, also known as the life course approach, is a theoretical model that looks at how chronological age, relationships, common life transitions, and social change shape people’s lives from birth to death (Hutchison,2010). The life course approach especially focuses on individual’s life history to explain how early events influence future decisions and events, such as marriage and divorce (White and Klein, 2008, p. 122). In its simplest form, the life course of an indi-vidual can be defined as “a sequence of socially defined events and roles that the individual enacts over time” (Giele and Elder, 1998). In this context, examining the life course is about analyzing changes (Hendricks, 2012). In addition, a key point of the life course approach is also to focus on the connection between individ-uals and the historical and socioeconomic context in which these individindivid-uals lived (Elder et al.,2003). Indeed, although both time and individual characteristics are two significant dimensions of human behavior, the environment in which the person lives also play a part (Hutchison,2010).

In the early 1960s, the sociologist Glen Elder Jr. analyzed data from three pioneering longitudinal studies. Thanks to the longitudinal design, he identified a strong impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s on individual and family pathways (Elder,1974). Glen Elder understood the important influence of histor-ical events and began to call for research that looked at the influence of historhistor-ical forces on family, education, and work roles. Since, the life course approach has been emerging over the last 45 years across several disciplines of social sciences such as sociology, demography, psychology, biology, and history (Hutchison,2010).

Although the life course perspective is still relatively young, its popularity is grow-ing. In recent years, it has begun to be used to understand the pathways of families (E. D. Widmer and Ritschard, 2009; Huinink and Feldhaus,2009; Macmillan and Copher, 2005), police organizations (King, 2009), social movements (Della Porta and Diani,2009), health outcomes (Burton-Jeangros and E. D. Widmer,2009; Cul-lati et al.,2014), professional careers (Moen and Sweet,2004; Pavalko et al.,1993), transition to adulthood (Shanahan, 2000; Bynner, 2005), evolution of cognitive abilities (Richards and Deary, 2005; Kok et al., 2006) and is increasingly used in gerontology to understand how old age is shaped by events experienced earlier in life (Browne et al.,2009; Ferraro and Shippee,2009; Gabriel et al.,2015). However, although collaborative and interdisciplinary works already helped to give the life course approach an holistic shape (Mortimer and Shanahan, 2007), the definition of conceptual foundations of the life course as well as methodologies of empirical research from a life course perspective is still an active field (Corna, 2013; Heinz, 2016; Kelly-Irving et al.,2016).

2.1.1.1 Basic concepts of the life course perspective

There are, however, some basic concepts that are common to most life course approach conceptualizations. Firstly, it is natural to think of the life course as a

2.1. The life course and vulnerability frameworks 21 path. But it is important to note that it is not a straight path. It is a path including different dynamics such as continuities, minor changes, and major discontinuities (Hutchison, 2010). Let you think for example how straight your own life path or your relative’s life path has been. To model life paths and their dynamics, the literature refers to several concepts including (1) roles, also called states, (2) life events, (3) transitions, (4) trajectories and (5) turning points.

Elder (1977) introduced that individual live paths are strongly shaped by the rolesindividuals had to play in their respective life history. These roles occur both successively and concurrently leading individuals to assume multiple roles at the same time. Being a child, being a son or daughter, being a brother or a sister, being a student, having to find employment, being responsible for a family, are examples of roles that most individuals experience and that drive our behaviors.

Roles are age-differentiated as biological factors and social positions shape our expectations and available options. In addition, role meanings are associated with socially recognized age categories, grades, and social classes; therefore, they vary across cultures. Childhood, adolescence, youth, and old age are life stages within roles have a strong influence. When going on an analysis level, and in particular in sequence analysis, roles are often referred as states (Ritschard et al.,2009a).

A life event is a significant occurrence involving a relatively abrupt change.

A life event usually has direct and short-term impacts (Settersten Jr. and Mayer, 1997) but may also produce serious and long-lasting effects (Settersten Jr.,2003).

Although negative events seem to have a stronger influence on the life path (Bren-nan and Spencer,2009), trajectories can also be explained by positive events (Og-den et al.,2009; Garcia and Siddiqui,2009). There is a high diversity of life events that can turn out to be significant for individuals’ lives such as getting married, a change in residence, a change in responsibilities at work, a personal injury or illness, troubles with the boss, a marital reconciliation with the mate, the death of a spouse. Making an exhaustive inventory of life events, and classifying them according to their significance in term of positive or negative impact for individ-uals, is not an easy task. The suggestion of Settersten Jr. and Mayer (1997, p.

246) is to classify life events along with several dimensions: “major versus minor, anticipated versus unanticipated, controllable versus uncontrollable, typical versus atypical, desirable versus undesirable, acute versus chronic”. While the key feature for a role or a state is the duration, a state being expected to continue for a while, usually as long as nothing happens, the key feature for an event is its ability to change states (Ritschard et al.,2009a).

Atransition is a change in consecutive roles that represents a distinct depar-ture from prior roles (Alwin and McCammon, 2003; Settersten Jr.,2003). Com-mon transitions include starting school, entering puberty, graduation from college or university, leaving school, finding employment, leaving home, retiring, and so on. Many transitions relate to family life: marriages, births, divorces, remarriages, deaths (Carter and McGoldrick,2005; Hagestad,2003). A transition is often trig-gered by a set of one or several life events. For example, the transition “getting married”, involving moving from the role “single” to the role “married”, is triggered by the single event “wedding”. But events can also co-occur and therefore the same event can participate in different transitions. For example, the event “wedding” can

be immediately followed, or at least occurring during the same observation period, with the event “childbirth”. Both events trigger the transition “getting married and becoming a parent” involving the move from the role “single” to the role “married with a child” (Ritschard et al., 2009a). In addition, a transition often involves associated transitions for social network members. In the previous example, the role changes not only for the married individual but also for the family of origin as well as the marriage family (Hutchison,2010).

From a life course perspective, roles and transitions must not be understood as isolated units but as components of a larger concept: trajectories. The changes involved by transitions are discrete and bounded: when they happen, an old phase of life ends and a new phase begins. In contrast, a trajectory involves a longer view of successive patterns of stability and changes in a person’s life, involving multiple roles and transitions (Elder et al., 2003). In the previous example, the transition “getting married” can lead to a long marital pathway before involving other transitions along the way, such as starting parenthood. Roles and transitions are always embedded in trajectories (Hutchison,2010; Cheng, 2014). Trajectories can either be represented as the succession of the roles or the succession of the set of events respectively constituting each transition. In the former case, the representation is called a state sequence while in the latter case the representation is called an event sequence (Ritschard et al.,2009a).

Based on these concepts, and according to Elder (1977), thelife course, orlife pathway is defined as a set of multiple trajectories, each defined by a succession of transitions driven by a particular timetable and event sequence. The set of trajec-tories that have to be considered for accurately representing one’s life course has no formal definition and may vary depending on the research discipline. According to Glen Elder, trajectories to be considered when studying people’s lives include education and work life, marriage and parenthood, residence, civic involvement (Elder,1977) and health (Elder,1985).

I previously reported that a life course is made of continuities, twists, and turns. According to how a life course was formalized, it can be understood that these patterns of stability and change will reveal themselves within the concept of trajectory. At some times during the life path, a trajectory will experience signif-icant shifts in its flow of transitions. This can also apply to several trajectories simultaneously. In practice, as Hutchison (2010) notes, inertia tends to keep us on a particular trajectory. For example, it can be expected someone who is addicted to alcohol to continue to organize his or her life around that substance unless an im-portant event leads to start recovery (Hser et al.,2007). Such an event is a turning point in the addiction problem trajectory. More generally, aturning pointis either an event or a transition that adds turns or even reversals to a particular trajectory and produces a lasting shift in the life course. According to Rutter (1996), three types of life events can serve as turning points: life events that (1) either close or open opportunities, (2) make a lasting change on the person’s environment and (3) change a person’s self-concept, beliefs, or expectations. Some crucial events can even qualify as all three types of events, as, for example, a migration to a new country (Jasso,2003). For Hareven (2000), a transition can become a turning point under five conditions: (1) when the transition occurs simultaneously with a crisis

2.1. The life course and vulnerability frameworks 23 or is followed by a crisis, (2) when the transition involves family conflict over the needs and wants of individuals and the greater good of the family unit, (3) when the transition is “off-time,” meaning that it does not occur at the typical stage in life, (4) when the transition is followed by unforeseen negative consequences and (5) when the transition requires exceptional social adjustments. Most life course pathways include multiple turning points, some that send life trajectories off track and others that bring life trajectories back on track (Hutchison, 2010). In prac-tice, as significant as they are to individuals’ lives, turning points usually become apparent only as time passes (R¨onk¨a et al., 2003).

2.1.1.2 Temporal dimensions of the life course

The life path, and its composing items described in the previous Section, are embed-ded in several dimensions of time and temporality. The notion of time is complex in its own owing to its nature of both a physical dimension and a human perception (Hendricks, 2001). When talking about time here, I refer to the time as it is nat-urally perceived by human beings as the regular ticks given by clocks. This time is the time often discussed when working on life courses. It operates on a number of distinct dimensions simultaneously that makes them hard to separate except for purposes of conceptualization. In a life course perspective, three dimensions of time are generally discussed: historical, societal and biographical.

Thehistorical timerefers to the periods in the human history in which indi-viduals spend their life. The location of a life course in the history acts as a general frame that changes the meanings of life course roles (Elder,1977). Being alive 2000 years ago or 200 years ago led to far different life courses than being alive today.

Technological shifts change occupation types, modes of production, work conditions as well as the pace of life. Advances in medicine make life expectancy longer leading people to adapt their family and work trajectories. This implies changes in the def-inition of childhood, adulthood, and older ages (Hendricks,2012). Climate change that is currently observed may lead in the future to a significant change of the frame of the life course requiring individuals to change their lifestyle and behaviors to adapt to new environmental living conditions. The historical time directly calls for the concept of cohort. Acohort is a group of persons who were born during the same period of time and as such experience the same sequences of historical changes and at the same ages. Cohorts differ in size, affecting cohort’s opportunities for education and work. For example, when the large “baby boom” cohort entered the labor force, the labor market was unable to absorb all this excessive workforce and unemployment increased (Pearlin and Skaff, 1996). Cohorts also differ in sex ratio, affecting cohort’s marriage rates, childbearing practices, crime rates, and family stability (Hutchison, 2010). Some historical events lead to changes in the social environment. For example, World War II is the event that led in the United States some years after to produce the massive “baby boom” cohort. However, co-horts may develop strategies in response to the particular circumstances they face (Newman, 2008). For example, “boomers” could have responded to the economic challenges of their demographic bubble by delaying or avoiding marriage, postpon-ing childbearpostpon-ing, havpostpon-ing fewer children, and increaspostpon-ing the presence of mothers in

the labor force (Hutchison,2010). The notion of historical time also refers to social history and shared cultured. For example, individuals who were 20 in 1952 look at the world through a lens different than those aged 20 years in 2012 (Hendricks, 2012). The culture in which individuals are immersed influences lifestyles and life expectations. When a cohort develops some shared sense of its social history and a shared identity, it is usually referred to ageneration (Hutchison,2010).

Social structures have implicit or explicit temporal dimensions. There are social representations of the periods of life that should reasonably be dedicated to study, such as participating in the labor force, found a family, career and retire.

Such social representations participate in making roles and events age-differentiated (Elder, 1977). Thesocietal time, also called social time or extra-individual time, refers to these temporal benchmarks and timetables that are integrated into all societies. These social clocks are defined by social consensus, and both exert nor-mative influences over individual lives and structure the pace of life (Hendricks, 2012). Individuals may at a certain point disconnect of this time by experiencing certain events or transitions outside the normative parameters. Marriage may oc-cur before economic independence or the completion of education, and parenthood before marriage. Such asynchronies often have many implications on individual identity, related to public approval, and on opportunities (Elder,1977).

The biographical time, also called individual time or personal time, refers to the timing of events and transitions a individual experiences. The biographical time is firstly biological. From birth to death the process of aging changes our body and our mind, our capabilities and opportunities. The biographical time is also perceptual. As individuals move through life, the way they think about time’s tense and ourselves may shift and refocus our priorities (Hendricks, 2001). Both biological and perceptual aspects of the biographical time influence the type of events individuals are prone to experience. They also influence the degree or type of change resulting from the event. The timing of an event is as crucial as the occurrence of the event (Elder, 1977). In addition, people think back and think ahead. Past events and transitions, as well as the perception individuals have of them, participate to shape cumulative and continuous processes. In the same way, how individuals will deal with futures event and how they want to design our future also shape our life course (Hendricks, 2012).

2.1.1.3 Environmental dimensions of the life course

In developmental psychology, the idea that, the entire environmental system in which growth occurs needs to be taken into account to understand human develop-ment, has been progressively introduced since 1970 by Urie Bronfenbrenner under the name of ecological systems theory. Although initially focusing on child develop-ment and the impact of social forces in this developdevelop-ment (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), the model is still relevant for describing the general process of human development.

In the context of the life course perspective, I find it reasonable to illustrate how individual life is continuously shaped by the interaction between individuals and their social environment.

Figure2.1illustrates the layers composing Bronfenbrenner’s ecological

frame-2.1. The life course and vulnerability frameworks 25

Figure 2.1 –Illustration of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework for human development.

work for human development. As shown, the theory postulates that an individual is embedded in a social environment composed of several layers of influence. At the very center lies the biological and genetic aspects of the individual. This biological constitution participates in shaping the person’s own psychology. Themicrosystem refers to the institutions and groups that most immediately and directly impact the individual’s development including family, close friends, neighbors, and peers.

All of us are connected to others through a network of social relationships and travel through life as if in a convoy (Antonucci and Akiyama, 1987). From those relationships, individuals derive a great deal of what may be regarded as social cap-ital. This concept of microsystem has been stressed in the life course theory under the notion oflinked lives (Elder, 1994), meaning that our lives are linked to oth-ers around us. In particular, lives of individuals and their close relatives become interdependent leading to scheduling problems (Elder, 1977). These scheduling problems will involve the timing, spacing, and arrangement of events, such as the bearing of children, employment, and material acquisitions, across respective life paths. For example, in studying career paths, S.-K. Han and Moen (1999) found that the notion of couple is critical to understanding the dynamics of the work-family interface over the life course. This finding advocates for an alternative to the

individual as the unit of analysis, suggesting the importance of couples, families, or households as the appropriate unit of analysis in modeling career paths. When talking about family, it is important to stress that the identification of who are our family members varies across individuals, leading to different family configurations according to the importance given to partnerships, friendships, step-parents and parents’ relatives (E. D. Widmer,2006).

The microsystem shares its history and interacts within amacrosystem (Bengt-son and Allen, 2009). The macrosystem refers to the cultural contexts in which individuals live. Cultural contexts include developing and industrialized countries, socioeconomic status, poverty, and ethnicity (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). In Bronfen-brenner’s ecological system, two layers make the link from the microsystem to the macrosystem. The first layer, called the mesosystem, refers to interconnections between elements of the microsystems, such as relationships between the family and individual’s peers. The second transition layer, the exosystem involves links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role and the individual’s immediate context. In the original context of child development the framework takes place, an element of the exosystem could refers, for example, to how a child’s experience at home may be influenced by a parent’s experience at work. The parent might receive a promotion that requires more travel, which might decrease the time devoted to taking care of the child.

Micro and macro social world are often studied in isolation. Bringing those two worlds together is a core issue of the life course perspective. To date, however, adequately linking the micro world of individual and family lives to the macro world of social institutions and formal organizations remains a challenge (Hutchi-son,2010; Leisering,2003; Dannefer,2003a). For Billari (2015), the key challenge is to understand the transition from micro to macro. It requires an understanding of the mechanisms through which the aggregation of micro-level behaviors shapes

Micro and macro social world are often studied in isolation. Bringing those two worlds together is a core issue of the life course perspective. To date, however, adequately linking the micro world of individual and family lives to the macro world of social institutions and formal organizations remains a challenge (Hutchi-son,2010; Leisering,2003; Dannefer,2003a). For Billari (2015), the key challenge is to understand the transition from micro to macro. It requires an understanding of the mechanisms through which the aggregation of micro-level behaviors shapes