The study of the life course and human development has evolved rapidly over the past quarter century, extending across substantive boundaries of the social, behavioral, and medical sciences. These advances have coincided with the spread of life course studies across diverse societies, as scholars draw on long‐term longitudinal archives to examine the implications of social change for human development. Viewed collectively, these cutting‐edge studies tell us much about the dimensions of historical time and place and their importance in shaping biographical pathways. The chapter begins with the theoretical traditions that have formed an interdisciplinary life course perspective on human development, one that views the person as embedded in a life‐long pattern of social roles, age distinctions, and relationships, processes that are themselves responsive to place and time. In the second section, elementary concepts (e.g., trajectories, transitions) and paradigmatic principles are introduced as a theoretical map of the life course. These concepts and principles have been applied in longitudinal studies of lives across societies (e.g., China, Germany, and Russia) and, within societies, by geographic distinctions (e.g., states, regions, and communities/neighborhoods). The chapter concludes by noting important advances in studying the impact of historical time and place.

New evidence from the Utah Population Database (UPDB) reveals that at the onset of the fertility transition, reproductive behavior was transmitted across generations--between women and their mothers, as well as between women and their husbands' family of origin. Age at marriage, age at last birth, and the number of children ever born are positively correlated in the data, most strongly among first-born daughters and among cohorts born later in the fertility transition. Intergenerational ties, including the presence of mothers and mothers-in-law, influenced the hazard of progressing to a next birth. The findings suggest that the practice of parity-dependent marital fertility control and inter-birth spacing behavior derived in part from the previous generation and that the potential for mothers and mothers-in-law to help in the rearing of children encouraged higher marital fertility.Is fertility between parents and their children positively correlated? Although the first study of intergenerational fertility was conducted more than a century ago, the number of studies remains few. Most investigators report a positive correlation between the fertility of mothers and that of their daughters, but results vary widely. The mechanism linking fertility across generations is also unclear. Early research that advanced the genetic inheritance of fecundity has given way to studies emphasizing a wide range of possible linkages, including the importance of socialization within the family, the transmission of cultural practices and socioeconomic status across generations, and the inheritance of such psychological and biological characteristics as sex drive, fecundity, and health. New research has also extended the earlier focus on correlations in children ever born to include intermediate reproductive indicators and multivariate models of birth spacing. 1In a useful survey of the literature, Murphy concluded that the relationship between the fertility of parents and that of their children has become much more substantial over time. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscriptand daughters' fertility is probably close to zero. If further research supports this conclusion, the fertility transition was a key moment in the emergence of intergenerational transmission of fertility. In an analysis of genealogies compiled by the Utah Genealogical Society, Anderton et al. reported that daughters' fertility levels were responsive to their mothers' relative fertility and age at marriage during the U.S. fertility transition. More recently, Reher, Ortega, and Sanz-Gimeno reported a substantial increase in the strength of intergenerational effects over the course of the fertility transition in twentieth-century Spain, suggesting the growing importance of the transmission of values and attitudes relative to biological dimensions of reproduction. 2This article takes a new look at intergenerational fertility transmission using the Utah Genealogical Dataset obtained from the Utah Resource for Genetic and Epid...

Human migration is frequently cited as a potential social outcome of climate change and variability, and these effects are often assumed to be stronger in the past when economies were less developed and markets more localized. Yet, few studies have used historical data to test the relationship between climate and migration directly. In addition, the results of recent studies that link demographic and climate data are not consistent with conventional narratives of displacement responses. Using longitudinal individual-level demographic data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) and climate data that cover the same period, we examine the effects of climate variability on migration using event history models. Only internal moves in the later period and for certain social groups are associated with negative climate conditions, and the strength and direction of the observed effects change over time. International moves decrease with extreme rainfall, suggesting that the complex relationships between climate and migration that have been observed for contemporary populations extend into the nineteenth century.

This study examines the intergenerational transmission of fertility behavior in Saba, Dutch Caribbean from 1876 to 2004 using reconstituted genealogies. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients of several fertility measures and event-history models of age at first birth are used to explore relationships between the fertility of mothers and their children. The strength of intergenerational fertility ties varies by race and gender. Individuals that are better positioned to realize their fertility preferences have the strongest intergenerational associations, while individuals with the most limited reproductive options have the weakest intergenerational associations. This evidence supports hypotheses that posit the intergenerational transmission of attitudes, goals, and behaviors and the ability to act on those preferences as drivers of the presence or magnitude of links between the fertility of parents and their children.

We examined economic inequality and social differences in infant and child mortality and fertility responses to food price changes from 1855–1910 in North Orkney using linked vital records. This small population featured a diverse occupational structure, limited land resources, and geographic isolation from mainland Scotland. Segments of Orkney’s non-agricultural working population were living so close to the margin of subsistence in normal years that an increase in food prices in bad years cost the lives of their children. Delayed childbearing, in addition to increased labour intensity, occupational diversification, and poor relief, failed to mitigate the negative effects of unfavourable prices in this group. While previous studies for Western Europe showed a strong social gradient in the mortality response to food prices, and for Eastern Asia a strong household gradient, this study showed a strong sectoral gradient indicating low standards of living for the non-agricultural working population into the twentieth century.