An Observatory for Life Courses: Populations, Countries, Institutions, and History

Abstract

The study of life courses has been fragmented into research on various transitions and life phases, specific life domains, specific countries and different historical periods. Moreover, research on life courses tended to be analytically and topically divided between a number of disciplines like demography, economics, sociology, and psychology. In recent years, however, longitudinal data has accumulated rapidly and therefore it is now or very soon possible to establish a comprehensive observatory for life courses. By this I mean a data base which would represent highly representative samples of (national) populations as a yearly series of birth cohorts followed through the whole life, for a good number of countries, across a fairly long historical period, covering trajectories in different life domains.