Life Course Theory

Life course theory focuses on the social pathways of human lives, nestling these pathways in historical time and place.

Life course theorists conceptualize “social pathways” in terms of the ways life histories and trajectories are shared among groups

This sharing of historical events can product “cohort effects”: in which you see similar life patterns among people of the same age cohort who have faced similar experiences.

Key assumptions of the life course perspective are:

1) People’s lives – and this means individual development, experiences, decisions, and life trajectories – are influenced by historical and biographical contexts that are ever-changing.

• Examples include: the experience and life course of a student who decided to get a job right after graduating from high school may differ from another student who goes to university and pursue higher education.

2) The impact and consequences of life transitions, events, and behaviours vary according to their timing in a person’s life (what Elder calls “the timing of lives”).

• Examples include: an individual who gets married at the age of 20 is more likely to have a relatively early transition of having a baby, raising a baby and sending a child away when a child is fully grown up in comparison to his/her age group.

3) Human lives are embedded in social relationships across the life span (Elder calls this “linked lives”).

• Examples include: Parents' divorce will affect the development of children. For instance, parent's divorce is likely to impede the developmental needs of a child by being absent or unable to provide sufficient financial support as a breadwinner of the family.

4) The role of human agency is important for understanding people's life coursese. People make decisions within the options and constraints of the contexts they find themselves (Elder (1994: 6) writes that “within the constraints of their world” people “are planful and make choices among options” around them).

• Examples include: Within the boundary of options and constraints given by the society, people choose based on what they believe is more rational. People attend university because they think getting a degree would enable them to have better employment.