Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
December 15, 2013
Summary:
Life course sociologists are increasingly concerned with how the general character of biographies is transformed over historical time – and with what this means for individual life chances. The individualization thesis, which contends that contemporary biographies are less predictable, less orderly and less collectively determined than were those lived before the middle of the 20th century, suggests that life courses have become both more internally dynamic and more diverse across individuals. Whether these changes reflect expanding opportunities or increasing jeopardy is a matter of some debate. We examine these questions using data on the employment, marital and parental histories, over the ages of 25–49, for five birth cohorts of American women (N = 7150). Our results show that biographical change has been characterized more by growing differences between women than by increasing complexity within individual women's lives. Whether the mounting diversity of work and family life paths reflects, on balance, expanding opportunities or increasing jeopardy depends very much on the social advantages and disadvantages women possessed as they entered their prime working and childrearing years.
Published in
Advances in Life Course Research
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 18 , p.296 -318
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcr.2013.09.003
ISSN
10402608
Subjects
Notes
Open Access article
#521246