Introduction

The study of lives represents an enduring interest of sociology and the social sciences, reflecting important societal changes and their human consequences. Most notably, developments after World War II called for new ways of thinking about people, society, and their connection. In the United States, pioneering longitudinal studies of children born in the 1920s became studies of adults as the children grew up, thereby raising questions about the course they followed to the adult years and beyond. The changing age composition of society assigned greater significance to problems of aging and their relation to people's lives. Insights regarding old age directed inquiry to earlier phases of life and to the process by which life patterns are shaped by a changing society.

This essay presents the life course as a theoretical orientation for the study of individual lives, human development, and aging. In concept...