Current issues after twenty years of quantitative life course research

Abstract

Twenty years have passed since quantitative sociologists launched life course research in the mid- 1980s. A large number of life course researches are roughly classified into two types in terms of characteristics of data set. The first type is studies based on surveys that followed up life histories of unique groups. This paper describes the life history data of three famous studies: Children of the Great Depression, Freedom Summer, and Crime in the Making. The second type is studies based on standardized life history surveys that allow us to compare birth cohorts. The German retrospective life history study, which started in 1981 and completed in 2004, is a typical example. This paper introduces research methods that the German life history study has developed, and discusses results of the current study that analyzed quantitative life histories of German women and men born in 1964 and in 1971. In order to develop quantitative life course studies furthermore, it is necessary to conduct comparative studies that examine the influence of contemporary social changes on life course. Path dependency and reconstructing individualism are two key concepts to clarify the current state of the post-war Japanese life course regime from a comparative perspective.