873240

research-article2019
FISXXX10.1177/1044389419873240Families in SocietyHutchison

Article
Families in Society: The Journal of
Contemporary Social Services
An Update on the Relevance 1­–16
© The Author(s) 2019
of the Life Course Perspective Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
for Social Work DOI: 10.1177/1044389419873240
https://doi.org/10.1177/1044389419873240
journals.sagepub.com/home/fis

Elizabeth D. Hutchison1

Abstract
In recent years, the life course perspective has received increasing support from researchers
across a number of behavioral science disciplines. The purpose of this article is to examine the
relevance to social work of selected findings of the last 15 years of empirical investigation of life
course concepts and themes. This discussion is organized around five basic concepts (cohorts,
transitions, trajectories, life events, and turning points) and six interrelated themes (interplay
of human lives and historical time, timing of lives, linked or interdependent lives, human agency
in making choices, diversity in life course trajectories, and developmental risk and protection).
Implications of life course theory and research for social work are overviewed.

Keywords
evidence-based /evidence-informed practice, modes of practice, theory /conceptual models
applied to practice, development across the lifespan, subjects of practice, disparities/ social
determinants of health, equity issues/ human rights /social justice, family systems and functioning

Manuscript received: May 22, 2019; Revised: July 23, 2019; Accepted: August 6, 2019

Disposition editor: Sondra J. Fogel

In the early 1990s Germain (1990, 1994) recom-
mended that social workers use the emerging
life course perspective (LCP) for under-
standing human behavior. She and colleague
Gitterman applied the LCP to the ongoing
development of a social work practice model
they called the life model (Germain & Gitter-
man, 1996). In 2005, Hutchison provided an
updated report on the LCP and suggested that
the perspective has promise for assisting social
workers to bridge the micro and macro worlds
in their practice. Since that time, researchers
across several disciplines have continued to use
the main themes of the LCP to add breadth and
depth of understanding of individual and collec-
tive human behavior and the ways in which
they are connected. The basic concepts and
major themes have not changed in the past 15
years, but they have been elaborated by ongoing
research. This article provides an updated
understanding of the LCP and its implications
for social workers.
The LCP looks at how biological, psycho-
logical, and socio-cultural factors act inde-
pendently, cumulatively, and interactively to
produce great diversity in life course journeys
and shape people’s lives across family gen-
erations. It is a relatively recent attempt to
contextualize human behavior, to understand
how people and their environments influence
each other and change over time. A primary
1
PhD, professor emeritus, Virginia Commonwealth
University
Corresponding Author:
Elizabeth D. Hutchison, School of Social Work, Virginia
Commonwealth University. Mail: 3275 Iris Rose Drive,
Reno, NV 89509.
Email: ehutch@vcu.edu
2 Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 
contribution of the LCP is its focus on the life
course as a whole, on how what happens in
one period of a person’s life is connected to
what happens in other periods of that person’s
life. For example, it calls attention to the ways
in which what happens in adolescence is
influenced by what happened in childhood
and also influences the long period of adult-
hood (Johnson, Crosnoe, & Elder, 2011).
In the past 15 years, the LCP has grown in
popularity across a broad range of disciplines
(Alwin, 2012). It has been used to understand
the pathways of families (Min, Silverstein, &
Lendon, 2012), organizations (King, 2009),
and social movements (Della Porta & Diani,
2006) as well as individual life journeys. It has
potential for understanding patterns of stability
and change in all types of social systems. Ger-
ontologists increasingly use the perspective to
understand how old age is shaped by events
experienced earlier in life (Seabrook & Avison,
2012), but it has also become an increasingly
popular perspective for considering adolescent
and young adult transitions. The LCP has
become a major theoretical framework in crim-
inology (Prior, 2013) and the leading perspec-
tive driving longitudinal study of physical and
mental health (Bauldry, Shanahan, Boardman,
Miech, & Macmillan, 2012; Evans, Crogan,
Belyea, & Coon, 2009). It is also being used to
understand patterns of lifetime drug use (Lind-
ström, Modén, & Rosvall, 2013).
The LCP was developed from and contin-
ues to be amplified by empirical research. The
early roots came from two different streams of
research: Glen Elder, Jr.’s (1974) analysis of
three pioneering large-scale longitudinal stud-
ies, and inquiry by social historians of how
families change and adapt under changing his-
torical conditions (Hareven, 1978). Research-
ers in both of these traditions were interested in
the social, cultural, and economic contexts of
human behavior. The social historians were
interested in telling the historical story from the
point of view of ordinary people rather than
from the traditional vantage point of elites and
focused particularly on the extraordinary cop-
ing mechanisms families have used in the face
of adversity. In the ongoing development of the
LCP, large-scale national longitudinal studies
have continued be a dominant method of study,
and new methods of quantitative data analysis
have been designed for studying specific con-
cepts (see Elder & Giele, 2009). The social
history tradition of using life stories and other
qualitative methods to study the context of
human behavior continues to play a role in
ongoing LCP theoretical development (Sprague,
Scanlon, & Pantalone, 2017).
In keeping with these traditions, the most
common method of empirical research cited in
this article is large-scale panel national longitu-
dinal study (12 studies) following the same
people over time, using representative samples,
convenience samples, and stratified probability
samples. Seven of the cited studies report on
repeated cross-sectional studies using large-
scale nationally representative sample studies
taken at different time points to track trends in
social life. Four of the cited studies analyze
cross-sectional surveys based on convenience
samples. Other cited research includes three
studies based on qualitative interviews, two
experimental studies, two large-scale cross-
sectional random surveys, two population-
based studies, and one cross-sectional national
representative sample study. Consistent with
trends in life course research, two cited studies
use mixed methods, triangulating national rep-
resentative samples with qualitative interviews.
The cited studies are found in peer-reviewed
journals covering the disciplines of addiction
studies, criminology, demography, family stud-
ies, gerontology, medicine, psychology, public
health, and sociology. They include samples
from Australia, Canada, China, 27 European
countries, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and the
United States.
Basic Concepts of the Life
Course Perspective
Fifteen years of research have elaborated the
handful of LCP staple concepts noted in
Hutchison (2005): cohorts, transitions, trajec-
tories, life events, and turning points. Each of
these concepts is summarized here and shows
up again in discussion of major themes.
Hutchison 3
Cohorts
Life course scholars find the concept of cohort
to be particularly useful to emphasize the
important influence of the historical context
on human behavior, one of the major themes
to be discussed later. A cohort is a group of
persons who were born during the same time
period and who experience particular social
changes within a given culture in the same
sequence and at approximately the same age.
Generation is another term used to convey a
similar meaning, but life course scholars often
make a distinction between the two terms,
suggesting that a birth cohort becomes a gen-
eration only when it develops some shared
sense of its social history and a common iden-
tity (see Alwin, McCammon, & Hofer, 2006).
Cohorts differ in size, and these differences
affect opportunities for education, work, and
family life. The baby boom that followed
World War II (1946-1964) in the United States
produced a large cohort that faced tight com-
petition as they entered the labor market, a
situation that drove wages down and unem-
ployment up (Pearlin & Skaff, 1996). Baby
boomers adapted by marrying later, having
fewer children than earlier generations, and
increasing the presence of mothers in the
labor force. Generation X, born from 1965 to
1979, grew up with fewer siblings and experi-
enced higher rates of parental divorce than
the baby boomers. They have been less likely
than earlier generations to marry (Carlson,
2009). The Millenial Generation, born from
1980 to the late 1990s, has now surpassed the
Baby Boomers as the largest adult demo-
graphic group in the United States. They have
been found to have more student loan debt,
poverty, and unemployment when compared
to the previous two generations at the same
age, and it is not clear how these circum-
stances will affect the long-term trajectories
of their lives (Drake, 2014). They are also
more ethnically diverse than previous cohorts
and grew up in a time of great technological
innovation. Not surprisingly, they have been
found to be more tolerant of diversity and
more media-connected than earlier cohorts
(Fry, Igielnik, & Patten, 2018).
Although it is too early to know what major
social, cultural, or economic factors might
influence the adult trajectories of Generation
Z, born from the late 1990s until about 2012,
recent survey research indicates that they are
as large as the Millennial Generation and even
more diverse. As children and youth, they
have lived in households that are, on average,
more well educated and more affluent than
any earlier cohort, and they are on track to be
the best-educated generation yet (Fry &
Parker, 2018). As they enter adulthood, they
are reporting attitudes on social issues such as
sexual orientation, gender identity, and cli-
mate change that are very similar to the atti-
tudes of the Millennial Generation, attitudes
that are more liberal than the Generation X
and Baby Boomer generations (Parker, Graf,
& Igielnik, 2019). It remains to be seen how
the Millennial and Generation Z cohorts will
adapt to changing circumstances across the
life course and, more importantly, what effects
they will have on major social institutions.
These four cohorts have grown up with
different communication technologies. Baby
Boomers grew up as television was becoming
ubiquitous; Generation Xers grew up in the
computer revolution, Millenials as the Internet
exploded, and Generation Zers with multi-pur-
pose mobile devices (Dimock, 2019). These
differences will have an impact on receptivity
to different social work interventions.
Transitions
The LCP puts a spotlight on the numerous
transitions in roles and statuses experienced by
individuals across the life course (Torres &
Young, 2016). A transition can produce both
stress and opportunity (Benner, 2011). Many
transitions relate to family life: marriages,
births, divorces, remarriages, and death, all
transitions that involve entrances and exits of
family members. Social workers McGoldrick,
Preto, and Carter (2016) make a distinction
between normative life course transitions and
unpredictable transitions in the lives of individ-
uals and families. Health professionals have
used the LCP and the concept of transitions
to understand role changes that occur in the
4 Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 
family caregiving of older adults (Carpentier,
Bernard, Grenier, & Guberman, 2010). The
concept of transitions is also increasingly used
to study the migration/immigration process
(Gong, Xu, Fujishiro, & Takeuchi, 2011).
Transitions in collectivities other than the fam-
ily, such as small groups, communities, and
formal organizations, also involve exits and
entrances of members as well as changes in
statuses and roles. The concept of transitions is
useful for social workers, no matter the setting
or role; in all settings, social workers must be
mindful of the stress as well as the opportunity
for positive change created by transitions.
Trajectories
Each life course transition is embedded in a
trajectory that gives form to the life course
(Alwin, 2012). Transitions are entry points to a
new life phase. Trajectories involve relatively
stable long-term processes and patterns of life,
involving multiple transitions (Ruark et al.,
2016). For example, Hser, Hamilton, and Niv
(2009) recommend the LCP for understanding
drug use trajectories (or careers) that may
include onset of use, acceleration of use, regu-
lar use, cessation of use, and relapse. Treatment
may or may not be included in this trajectory.
Trajectories are best understood in the rearview
mirror; the multiple transitions of a trajectory are
usually not anticipated at earlier points along the
life course. Because individuals and families
live in multiple spheres, their lives are made up
of multiple intertwined trajectories—such as
educational trajectories, family life trajectories,
health trajectories, and work trajectories (Leong,
Eggerth, & Flynn, 2014). These strands are
woven together to form a life story.
Life Events
A life event is a significant occurrence that
may produce serious and long-lasting effects
for an individual or a collectivity. We experi-
ence both positive and negative life events, but
researchers have paid much more attention to
the impact of negative life events. Psycholo-
gists have long studied the short- and long-
term impact of stressful life events on child,
adolescent, and adult functioning. More
recently, they have also studied the relation-
ships among stressful life events, genetics, and
personality. Three examples of that research
are presented here.
A Swiss research team (Orth & Luciano,
2015) studied the relationships among self-
esteem (defined as one’s evaluation of one’s
worth), narcissism (characterized by grandi-
ose self-concept, feelings of superiority, and
self-centeredness), and stressful life events.
They found that people who are high in nar-
cissism have an increased likelihood of expe-
riencing a larger number of stressful life
events. They also found that an increase in
stressful life events was predictive of lower
self-esteem.
A team of international researchers (Salvatore
et al., 2015) studied a U.S. sample to investigate
the interaction of stressful life events and the
GABRA2 gene in producing intergenerational
continuity in parents’ and adolescents’ external-
izing behavior. They found that parental exter-
nalizing behavior predicts a greater number of
stressful life events for their adolescents, which
in turn predicts higher levels of adolescent
externalizing behavior. However, they found
that the pattern of parental externalizing →
stressful life events → adolescent externaliz-
ing was stronger for those adolescents with a
specific GABRA2 genotype.
Another international research team
(Hygen et al., 2015) studied longitudinal data
from a sample of children living in Norway to
investigate the relationships among child
exposure to stressful life events, the COMT
gene, and aggression. They found that chil-
dren with the COMT gene were more likely to
behave aggressively in reaction to stressful
life events than children without the gene.
Taken together, these three studies suggest
that both genetic and personality factors play
a role in how people respond to stressful life
events, and that the same interventions may
have different outcomes for different people.
Turning Points
A turning point is a time when major change
occurs in the life course trajectory, a lasting
change not just a detour. Turning points may
occur in the individual life course, but social
Hutchison 5
science researchers also study turning points
in social systems such as families, communi-
ties, organizations, cultures, economies, and
governments. At the individual level, the turn-
ing point may involve a transformation in how
the person views the self in relation to the
world and/or a transformation in how the per-
son responds to risk and opportunity (Cappe-
liez, Beaupré, & Robitaille, 2008; Ferraro &
Shippee, 2009).
The addition of the concept of turning point
is an important way that the LCP departs from
traditional developmental theory. In life course
theory, the human life course is not smooth
and predictable. Inertia tends to keep us on a
particular trajectory but turning points add
twists and turns or even reversals to the life
course. One research team interviewed older
adults aged 60 to 87 about perceived turning
points in their lives and found that the most
frequently reported turning points involved
health and family. The perceived turning
points occurred across the entire life course,
but there was some clustering at midlife (ages
45-64) (Cappeliez et al., 2008). Gender differ-
ences have been found in reported turning
points in samples of young adults as well as
sample of older adults, with women reporting
more turning points in the family domain and
men reporting more turning points in the work
domain (Cappeliez et al., 2008). It is not clear
whether this gender difference will be mani-
fested in future cohorts if women’s work tra-
jectories continue to become more similar to
men’s. Researchers have studied the turning
points that lead women to leave abusive rela-
tionships (Khaw & Hardesty, 2007); the turn-
ing points in the care-giving careers of
Mexican American women who care for older
family members (Evans et al., 2009), and the
role transitions that can become turning points
in a criminal career, leading to desisting from
criminal activities (Kirk, 2012).
Most life course pathways include multiple
turning points, some that send life trajectories
off track and others that bring life trajectories
back on track. In fact, we could say that the
intent of many social work interventions is to
precipitate a turning point that will get life
course trajectories on track (Olsson, Strand, &
Kristiansen, 2014). Such interventions may
occur at the individual, family, small group,
community, organizational, or institutional
level. By calling attention to turning points,
the LCP puts a spotlight on human strengths
and capacity for positive change, even revolu-
tionary change.
Major Themes of the Life
Course Perspective
In 1994, Elder (1994) identified four domi-
nant, and interrelated, themes in the life course
approach: interplay of human lives and histori-
cal time, timing of lives, linked or interdepen-
dent lives, and human agency in making choices.
Two other related themes were later identified
by Elder (1998) and Michael Shanahan (2000):
diversity in life course trajectories and devel-
opmental risk and protection. These six themes
continue to be the framework for life course
researchers, with different researchers empha-
sizing different themes. Each of these themes,
and relevant examples of recent research about
them, are discussed below.
Interplay of Human Lives and
Historical Time
Persons born in different years face different
social, political, and economic worlds, with
different options and constraints. Historical
eras may produce cohort effects when distinc-
tive formative experiences are shared at the
same point in the life course and have a lasting
impact on a birth cohort. The same events of a
particular historical era may affect different
cohorts in different ways. For example, Aus-
tralian researchers (Page, Milner, Morrell,
& Taylor, 2013) found that the cohort born
in the years immediately following 1974 was
more prone to suicide across the young adult
period than earlier cohorts. The researchers
also found that this cohort faced higher rates of
unemployment and underemployment as they
entered young adulthood than earlier cohorts
and propose a relationship between these two
factors.
6 Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 
Analysis of large data sets by a number of
researchers provide forceful evidence that
changes in social institutions impinge on family
and individual life course trajectories (Vikat
et al., 2007). Researchers have examined the
impact of globalization, declining labor mar-
ket opportunities, and rising housing costs on
young adult transitions (Arnett, 2015). Tran-
sitions associated with young adulthood (leav-
ing home, marriage, first parenthood) are
occurring later for the current cohort of young
adults than for their parents in many countries,
particularly in countries with weak welfare
states. Military service during non-war eras
often has been found to be a protective factor
for later health and mortality, but this benefit
does not accrue to veterans who serve during
war eras (Landes, Wilder, & Williams, 2017).
Shifting immigration policies and attitudes
toward particular immigrant groups change
the landscape for immigrants over different
historical eras (Torres & Young, 2016).
Public policy often lags behind such social
changes, presenting social workers with a
responsibility to keep the public informed
about the impact of changing social condi-
tions on individuals, families, communities,
and organizations. For example, many service
members from the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq are living with horrific combat injuries;
others are experiencing substance abuse, post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), relationship
problems, and work problems from prolonged
periods of combat stress (Tanielian & Jaycox,
2008; Wadsworth & Southwell, 2011). Social
workers in all practice settings should be alert
to possibilities for engaging the involved mili-
tary families in supportive services and to the
need for more supportive public policies and
programs.
Timing of Lives
Every society appears to use age as an impor-
tant variable, and many social institutions are
organized, in part, around age: age for starting
school, age to be legally recognized as an
adult, retirement age, and so on. Age is a prom-
inent attribute in efforts by social scientists to
bring order and predictability to understanding
human behavior. Life course scholars are inter-
ested in the age at which specific life events
and transitions occur, which they refer to as
timing of lives. They may classify entrances
and exits from particular statuses and roles as
“off-time” or “on-time,” based on social norms
or shared expectations about the timing of such
transitions (McFarland, Pudrovska, Schieman,
Ellison, & Bierman, 2013). One research team
found that people who are diagnosed with can-
cer at earlier ages had a greater increase in reli-
giosity than people diagnosed at later ages,
suggesting that off-time transitions are more
stressful than on-time transitions or require
different coping strategies (McFarland et al.,
2013). Another researcher found that non-
normative early entry into family formation
and parenthood is associated with lower self-
reported health over the life course (Barban,
2013). Chronological age itself is not the only
factor involved in timing of lives. Age-graded
differences in roles and behaviors are the result
of biological, psychological, and social pro-
cesses (Solomon, Helvitz, & Zerach, 2009).
Biological age indicates a person’s level of
biological development and physical health, as
measured by the functioning of various organ
systems. It is the present position of the bio-
logical person in relation to the potential life
cycle. There is no simple, straightforward way
to measure biological age, but there is an ongo-
ing effort to identify an optimal set of bio-
markers for accurate measure of biological age
(Jee & Park, 2017). One method is to compare
an individual’s physical condition with the
conditions of others, for example, bone den-
sity scans are compared with the scans of a
healthy 20-year-old.
Psychological age has both behavioral and
perceptual components. Behaviorally, psycho-
logical ages refers to the capacities that people
have and the skills they use to adapt to chang-
ing biological and environmental demands,
skills in memory, learning, intelligence, moti-
vation, emotion regulation, and so forth. Per-
ceptually, psychological age is based on how
old people perceive themselves to be. Recent
research has referred to this perceptual aspect
of age as “subjective age” or “age identity.”
Culture plays a role in subjective age, with
Hutchison 7
older adults in Western societies consistently
found to feel younger than their chronological
age (Stephan, Chalabaev, Kotter-Grühn, &
Jaconelli, 2013). This has not been found in
research among Chinese older adults, but
recent research indicates that this may be
changing as traditions around filial piety
weaken (Liang, 2014). Subjective age among
early adolescents has been found to be influ-
enced by pubertal timing (Hubley & Arim,
2012). Subjective age of middle-aged and
older adults is related to self-reported health
(Stephan, Demulier, & Terracciano, 2012). A
workforce that, on average, feels younger than
their chronological age has been found to be
associated with an improvement in the overall
performance of the organization (Kunze, Raes,
& Bruch, 2015).
Social age refers to the age-graded roles
and behaviors expected by society, the socially
constructed meaning of various ages. Age
norms indicate the behaviors expected of peo-
ple of a specific age in a given society at a
particular point in time. They may be informal
expectations, or they may be encoded as for-
mal rules and laws. Life course scholars sug-
gest that age norms vary not only across
historical time and across societies, but also
by gender, race, ethnicity, and social class
within a given time and society. They have
paid particular attention to recent changes in
age norms for the transitions of young adult-
hood (Arnett, 2015; Newman, 2008; Scherger,
2009). Social age receives special attention in
the LCP, and life course scholars call attention
to the changing nature of the social construc-
tion of life phases, noting that mass longevity
is leading to finer gradations in life phases.
For example, Arnett (2015) proposes that the
changing nature of young adult transitions
calls for the acknowledgment of a life phase
between adolescence and young adulthood, a
phase he calls emerging adulthood.
Linked or Interdependent Lives
The LCP emphasizes the interdependence of
human lives and the ways in which people
are reciprocally connected on several levels
(Djundeva, 2015). It calls attention to how
relationships both support and control an indi-
vidual’s behavior. Social support is an obvi-
ous element of interdependent lives, but
relationships also control behavior through
expectations, rewards, and punishments. The
family is seen as the primary source of both
support and control, and life course scholars
have paid particular attention to how lives of
family members are linked across genera-
tions, with both opportunity and misfortune
having an intergenerational impact. They
have also been interested in how families are
linked to the wider world.
Links with family members.  We are all linked
genetically to our intergenerational families,
and we may live with both genetic vulnerabil-
ity and genetic advantage. But shared genetics
is not the only way that parents’ and children’s
lives are linked. The connection between fam-
ily hardship, family nurturance, and child
behaviors and well-being is now well estab-
lished (e.g., Barajas, Philipsen, & Brooks-
Gunn, 2008). In addition to the economic
connection between parents and children,
racial discrimination has an intergenerational
effect (Rowley, Helaire, & Banerjee, 2010). In
recent years, we are also aware that deporta-
tion-related family separation impacts long-
term relationships between children and
parents (Yoshikawa, 2011). Parental hardship
has a negative impact on child development,
but parents also provide social capital for their
children, in terms of role models and networks
of social support (Szydlik, 2012).
Parents’ lives are also influenced by the
trajectories of their children’s lives. For exam-
ple, parents may need to alter their work tra-
jectories to respond to the needs of a terminally
ill child. Or parents may forgo early retire-
ment to assist their young adult children with
education expenses. Parents may be nega-
tively affected by stressful situations that their
young and adult children face (Greenfield &
Marks, 2006).
Older adults and their adult children are
also interdependent. Midlife adults may need
to alter their social and work roles to take on
greater caregiving roles with their aging par-
ents. The pattern of mutual support between
8 Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 
older adults and their children is formed by
life events and transitions across the life
course. They may be fundamentally changed
when families go through historical disrup-
tions such as wars, major economic down-
turns, or by the migration of younger
generation family members (Clark, Glick, &
Bures, 2009).
Family roles must often be synchronized
across three or more generations at once, and
sometimes the synchronization does not go
smoothly. Divorce, remarriage, and disconti-
nuities in adult work and educational trajecto-
ries may conflict with the needs of children
and aging parents (Huinink & Feldhaus,
2009). When a significant life event in one
generation (such as death of a grandparent) is
juxtaposed with a significant life event in
another generation (such as birth of a child),
families and individual family members are
especially vulnerable to stress pile-up.
Links with the wider world.  The LCP has its ori-
gins in Elder’s research (Elder, 1974) on the
ways that families and individuals are linked
to situations in the economic institution, and
in recent years life course researchers have
been documenting the ways that individual
and family life course trajectories are linked
to situations in the labor market, housing mar-
ket, education system, and social welfare sys-
tem (Newman, 2008; Scherger, 2009; Szydlik,
2012). Newman (2008) examined young adult
transitions in Western Europe and Japan and
found that changes in the labor market that
result in less secure employment are driving
the delayed departure of young adults from the
parental home in southern Europe and Japan
but not in the Nordic countries. These regional
differences are at least partially explained by
differences in other social institutions.
Newman (2008) found that timing of depar-
ture from the parental home is linked to situ-
ations in the housing market. In Southern
European countries, great emphasis is put on
owner-occupied housing and relatively little
rental housing is available. In contrast, there is
a large rental sector in the housing market in
Nordic countries, a situation that facilitates
early home leaving. Timing of departure is also
linked to the education system. Young adults
who participate in post-secondary education
tend to leave the parental home later than those
who do not pursue post-secondary education,
but regional differences are found in this rela-
tionship as well. Nordic countries have a higher
proportion of emerging adults in post-secondary
education than countries in Southern Europe,
and yet young adults in the Nordic countries
depart the parental home earlier than those in
Southern Europe. This regional difference is
related to differences in the social welfare sys-
tems of the two regions. The earlier departure
from the parental home in Nordic countries is
subsidized by a liberal welfare system that pro-
vides generous housing and educational bene-
fits. Newman’s research (2008) indicates that it
is a confluence of policies in different social
institutions that impact individual and family
life trajectories.
The importance of social policy in life course
trajectories has also been found in relation to
family solidarity between older adults and their
adult children (Szydlik, 2012) and in the career
trajectories of mothers (Abendroth, Huffman,
& Treas, 2014). Family-friendly social policies
support family solidarity and decrease the
motherhood penalty in career trajectories. These
findings have important implications for legis-
lative advocacy by social workers.
It is important for social workers to remem-
ber that lives are also linked in systems of
institutionalized privilege and oppression.
Philip McMichael (2017) reminds us that, in
the global economy, lives are linked around
the world. The lifestyles of people in affluent
countries depend on cheap labor and raw
products from Africa, South America, the
Caribbean, parts of Asia, and other places.
Children and women in impoverished coun-
tries labor long hours to make an increasing
share of low-cost products consumed in afflu-
ent countries. Women migrate from impov-
erished countries to become the domestic
laborers in affluent countries, allowing women
in affluent countries to leave the home to take
advantage of career opportunities and allow-
ing the domestic workers to send money they
make home to support their own families.
Social workers should be well informed about
Hutchison 9
these international linkages in an increasingly
globalized world.
Human Agency in Making Choices
Human agency is the LCP theme most rele-
vant to social work’s emphasis on individual,
family, and community strengths. Hitlin and
Elder (2007) note that although the concept of
human agency is used differently by different
disciplines, life course theorists and research-
ers use it to refer to “attempts to exert influ-
ence to shape one’s life trajectory” (p. 182).
It involves acting with an orientation toward
the future, with an eye for “possible selves”
(Markus & Nurius, 1986). Possible selves
represent our ideas of what we might become,
what we would like to become, and what we
are afraid we will become. They serve as
incentives for action and may be enacted at
the individual, family, small group, commu-
nity, organization, or institutional level.
Emphasis on human agency in the LCP has
been greatly aided by the work of psycholo-
gist Albert Bandura. Bandura (2006) proposed
three modes of human agency: personal
agency is exercised individually to shape
environmental events or one’s own behavior;
proxy agency is exercised when others who
have greater resources act on one’s behalf to
meet needs or accomplish goals; and collec-
tive agency is exercised on the group level
when people act together to meet needs and
accomplish goals. Cultural psychology critics
of the concept of human agency argue that it is
a culture-bound concept that does not apply as
well in collectivist societies as in individualis-
tic societies (Markus & Kitayama, 2003).
Bandura (2006) responds that although people
in all cultures must use all three modes of
agency, there are cultural variations in the
relative emphasis put on the different modes,
with some cultures putting greater emphasis
on personal agency and other cultures putting
greater emphasis on collective agency. Par-
sell, Eggins, and Marston (2017) argue that
“human agency is core to social work” (p.
238), but social workers also recognize barri-
ers to expressing personal agency. The con-
cepts of proxy agency and collective agency
add important dimensions to the discussion of
human agency and can serve to counterbal-
ance the extreme individualism of U.S. soci-
ety. Human agency is a major resource for
positive turning points in the life trajectories
of individuals and collectivities.
Diversity in Life Course Trajectories
Life course researchers have long had strong
evidence of diversity in individual life pat-
terns. Early research emphasized differences
between cohorts, but over time more and more
attention was paid to diversity within cohorts.
Recently, life course researchers have begun
to incorporate intersectionality theory to under-
stand diversity in life course trajectories (see
Raphael & Bryant, 2015; Warner & Brown,
2011). Intersectionality theory recognizes that
all of us are jointly and simultaneously mem-
bers of a number of socially constructed iden-
tity groups, such as those based on gender,
race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation,
gender identity, age, religion, geographic loca-
tion, abilities, and so on. Our social location, or
place in society, is at the intersection of our
multiple identity groups. Either advantage or
disadvantage can be associated with each iden-
tity group, and when considering the life jour-
ney of any one individual, it is important to
consider the multiple identity groups of which
that person is a part (see Hankivsky, 2012).
Developmental Risk and Protection
As the LCP has continued to evolve, it has
more clearly emphasized the links between the
life events and transitions of childhood, adoles-
cence, adulthood, and old age (Gilman, 2012).
Studies indicate that childhood events some-
times shape people’s lives 40 or more years
later (Shonkoff, Garner, Committee on Psycho-
social Aspects of Child and Family Health,
Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and
Dependent Care, & Section on Developmen-
tal and Behavioral Pediatrics, 2012). Indeed,
recent biomedical research suggests we should
look at factors that occur earlier than child-
hood, focusing on fetal undernutrition as a
contributing factor in late-life cognition and
10 Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 
late-life health conditions such as coronary
heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension
(see Rooij, Wouters, Yonker, Painter, & Rose-
boom, 2010).
It is quite an old idea that what happens at
one point in the life journey influences what
happens at later points, However, the idea of
earlier life experiences affecting later develop-
ment has taken on new energy since the explo-
sion of longitudinal research a few decades ago.
Two different research traditions have exam-
ined how early life experiences affect later out-
comes, one based in sociology and the other
based in ecological developmental psychology.
The sociological tradition is interested in cumu-
lative advantage/cumulative disadvantage. The
ecological developmental tradition is interested
in risk, protection, and resilience.
Sociologists propose that social institutions
and societal structures develop mechanisms
that ensure increasing advantage for those who
are well-resourced early in life and increasing
disadvantage for those who struggle (Ferraro
& Shippee, 2009). Researchers have applied
these concepts to study racial health disparities
across the life trajectory (Pais, 2014), financial
assistance from midlife parents to adult chil-
dren (Padgett & Remle, 2016), and evolving
patterns of inequality among late-life adults
(Crystal, Shea, & Reyes, 2017).
Through the lens of ecological develop-
mental risk and protection theory, longitudinal
researchers have identified multidimensional
risk factors at one stage of development that
increase the probability of developing and
maintaining problem conditions at later stages.
They have also identified protective factors
or resources that decrease the probability of
developing and maintaining problem condi-
tions, a process known as resilience. In the
past decade or so, biomedical researchers have
proposed an ecobiodevelopmental framework
for studying health and disease across the life
course. They are articulating the ways that
genetic predispositions interact with social and
physical environments to drive development,
referring to the human life course as “nature
dancing with nurture over time” (Shonkoff
et al., 2012, p. e234). The major focus of eco-
biodevelopmental research is on the ways that
early toxic stress disrupts development in the
brain and other biological systems. It is impor-
tant to note, however, that neither cumula-
tive advantage/disadvantage theory nor the
ecological developmental risk and protection
approach argue that early deprivations and
traumas inevitably lead to a trajectory of
failure. When resources are mobilized, the
effects of deprivation and trauma are reduced
(Gilman, 2012).
Implications of the Life
Course Perspective for
Social Work Practice
Like other professions, social work aspires to
engage in evidence-informed practice and that
requires using evidence-based theories of
human behavior as well as evidence-based
models of practice. The LCP was developed
from empirical research and continues to be
refined by ongoing research. The theoretical
perspective, and the research that supports it,
has many implications for social work prac-
tice. It can be used at multiple levels of prac-
tice and to support a variety of social work
roles. The most important implication for
social work’s efforts to promote societal well-
being is the robust evidence that what happens
throughout the life course is strongly influ-
enced by what happens in the early years,
beginning with conception, and even before in
the preconceptual health of the mother. Soci-
etal health is associated with public policies
that support early development, and social
workers can play an important role in promot-
ing supportive public health and child and
family policies.
The extensive research on risk and protec-
tion has implications for both policy and pro-
gram development. Social workers Jenson
and Fraser (2016) make use of available
research on risk and resilience to propose pol-
icy recommendations in a variety of policy
sectors, including antipoverty, child welfare,
education, health, child mental health, disabili-
ties, substance abuse, and juvenile justice. The
Communities That Care (CTC) model of com-
munity prevention developed at the University
of Washington School of Social Work trains
Hutchison 11
and supports community coalitions to promote
positive youth development by identifying
and prioritizing community risk factors and
suppressed protective factors that can be mobi-
lized to become community strengths. Recent
program evaluation found that involvement in
the CTC system during adolescence was
associated with reduced drug use, antisocial
behavior, and violence perpetration at age 21
(Oesterle et al., 2018). These two examples
provide a window into the far ranging implica-
tions of risk and protection research for social
work intervention.
Social work, at its best, is a profession that
puts human behavior in context. A major
thrust of the LCP is to provide contextual
understanding of human behavior, to place it
in the context of biology, culture, historical
time, and social systems. Special attention to
the forces that create diversity in life course
trajectories is consistent with social work’s
goal to “engage diversity and difference in
practice” (Council on Social Work Education,
2015, p. 7). Life course research can help social
workers recognize the many ways of enacting
personal identity and inform the process of
engaging a diverse client population. Research
on cohorts alerts social workers to the spe-
cific opportunities and challenges faced by
members of particular cohorts and may sug-
gest ways to tailor interventions to the charac-
teristics of a particular cohort. For example,
younger cohorts may respond better to Inter-
net and wireless-supported interventions than
older cohorts (National Association of Social
Workers, Association of Social Work Boards,
Council on Social Work Education, & Clinical
Social Work Association, 2017).
The LCP emphasis on linked lives is con-
sistent with the National Association of Social
Worker’s (2017, p. 1) stated value of the
“importance of human relationships.” It sup-
ports social work’s historical tendency to
engage in family, small group, and community
interventions. It recommends interventions that
enhance social support and open lines of com-
munication. Life course research is beginning
to provide evidence that family-friendly pub-
lic policies support family solidarity and alter
individual and family life course trajectories,
findings with implications for social work
involvement in legislative advocacy. The LCP
emphasis on linked lives also calls social work-
ers to keep a laser focus on how lives are linked
in systems of institutionalized privilege and
oppression and to seek ways to advance “social,
economic, and environmental justice” (Council
on Social Work Education, 2015, p. 7).
LCP emphasis on transitions, trajectories,
life events, and turning points can inform
practice at multiple system levels. Research
on human reactions to transitions alerts social
workers to the possibility of at least tempo-
rary dysfunction in relationships at times of
major transition and suggests that targeted
interventions may help to avoid communica-
tion breakdowns and stress pileup in times
of pronounced change. Indeed, social work-
ers have often targeted interventions to peo-
ple involved in transitions, such as the use of
support groups for children involved in
divorcing families and for people living with
a recent major loss. Life course research also
indicates that transitions can create opportu-
nities for positive change and social workers
should be mindful of such opportunities.
Imber-Black (2016) proposes the use of ther-
apeutic rituals to assist families with difficult
transitions and life events.
With its emphasis on life stories (trajecto-
ries) that unfold over time, the LCP is a particu-
larly good fit with narrative approaches to social
work. Narrative practice focuses on helping
clients examine the meanings they attribute
to events in their life journeys. It attempts to
uncover clients’ dominant story lines and to
help them move from problem-centered stories
to coping and empowering stories (Burack-
Weiss, Lawrence, & Mijangos, 2017). Narra-
tive approaches to practice can be used with
families, small groups, communities, and orga-
nizations, as well as with individuals. For exam-
ple, the appreciative model of organizational
change seeks to engage organizational stake-
holders in identifying positive components of
the organization and shared dreams of what it
can become. Stakeholders are encouraged to
recall and tell stories about events when the
organization was vibrant, energetic, and lively
(Newhard, 2012).
12 Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 
Research on life events suggests that social
workers should be alert to recent stressful life
events when assessing individuals, families,
and communities, as well as to stressful life
events, especially traumatic ones, in earlier life
stages that may be impacting current function-
ing. The expanding research on turning points
in life trajectories can help social workers
design turning point interventions that help to
break cycles of dysfunction in individuals and
the social systems with which they interact.
The LCP emphasis on human agency is con-
sistent with social work approaches that focus
on individual, family, community, and organi-
zational strengths. It is a source of hope even in
the most intractable situations. Making careful
assessments about whether circumstances call
for personal agency of the client, proxy agency
by the social worker or some other advocate, or
for organizing for collective agency opens
more opportunities for action. Enhancing col-
lective agency is a major goal of family, small
group, and community interventions.
Conclusion
The Council on Social Work Education (2015)
states that social work practice is guided by
“knowledge based on scientific inquiry” (p. 5)
and informed by “multi-disciplinary sources
and multiple ways of knowing” (p. 8). It fur-
ther states that social workers critically
evaluate and apply theories of human behav-
ior to engage with, assess, intervene with, and
evaluate practice with individuals, families
groups, organizations, and communities. This
article has demonstrated that the LCP is a theo-
retical perspective on human behavior that is
informed by multiple methods of scientific
inquiry in multiple disciplines. It shows that
the LCP and the research that supports it have
implications for practice with families, groups,
organizations, and communities, as well as
with individuals. It is an important perspective
for social workers to add to their multi-theoret-
ical tool kit.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of
interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
ORCID iD
Elizabeth D. Hutchison https://orcid.org/0000
-0002-9344-8757
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