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The transition to adulthood has become a thriving area of research in life course studies. This review is organized around two of the field's emerging themes. The first theme is the increasing variability in pathways to adult roles through historical time. The second theme is a heightened sensitivity to transition behaviors as developmental processes. Accounts of such processes typically examine the active efforts of young people to shape their biographies or the socially structured opportunities and limitations that define pathways into adulthood. By joining these concepts, I suggest new lines of inquiry that focus on the interplay between agency and social structures in the shaping of lives.

AbstractThe expansion of precarious work in recent decades has motivated a large body of research on its implications for health. While considerable work has focused on whether precarious work undermines health, much less is known about why it matters. To fill this gap, this paper offers and tests a conceptual model whereby the effects of precarious work on health are mediated by social marginality, specifically reduced self-efficacy, weaker social integration, and lower social capital. All three mechanisms are understood as both social consequences of precarious work and important determinants of health. Empirically, we use data from the European Social Survey and investigate (1) conditional direct effects of precarious work on self-rated health and (2) extent of mediation via the three mechanisms. Furthermore, we assess the generalizability of the model across five welfare state regimes that prior work has deemed to be important moderators of the health–precarious work relationship. Results indicate precarious work has significant conditional direct effects and indirect effects through all three mediators that significantly reduce effect of precarious work on health. This is robust in the general sample and for four of five welfare state regimes. These findings highlight a previously unexplored vector connecting precarious work to health and indicate that the effects of precarious work on perceptions of self and social relations is a key link to poorer health. The study also expands conceptualization of the broad role of socioeconomic status for health inequalities and furthers understanding of the mechanisms at work.

While many behavioral scientists believe that gene–environment (GE) interactions play an important and perhaps pervasive role in human development and aging, little attention has been devoted to a fundamental conceptual issue: What is it about social context that could alter gene expression? We draw on existing examples of GE interactions to formulate a typology that identifies a set of generic mechanisms by which E moderates G. Empirical studies suggest four ideal types: Social context can trigger a genetic diathesis, compensate for a genetic diathesis, act as a control to prevent behaviors for which there is a genetic predisposition, and enhance adaptation through proximal processes. This typology highlights several problems, however, with prior empirical research, which may explain, in part, why so few GE interactions have actually been observed. These problems include inattention to the dynamic nature of social experience, the manifold, often-intercorrelated dimensions of social context ("EE interactions"), mediators that link social context and the genotype, and analytic models that examine GE interactions as processes that characterize individual development. In turn, these insights call for the integration of life course sociology and behavioral genetics to foster ways of studying genes, context, and aging.

According to Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1986), each individual simultaneously participates in several "microsystems" that influence development, for example, the family, school, peer group, and workplace. Of central concern here is how the increasing prevalence of "youth work" may affect parent-adolescent relationships. The findings of a 3-year study of adolescents (n = 1,000) and their parents (925 mothers, 650 fathers) indicate that youth work has some significant effects on familial relationships. The findings also suggest gender differences in the linkage of youth work and family life.

At a major conference on genetics in 2003, a team of researchers reported that the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, are far more likely than Caucasians to carry a variant of the MAOA gene that has been associated with aggressive behavior. The scientists argued that the difference made sense and reflected the fact that more aggressive individuals survived the migratory journey by which the Maori originally populated Aotearoa, the islands that would later become New Zealand.

Building on the success of the 2003 Handbook of the Life Course, this second volume identifies future directions for life course research and policy. The introductory essay and the chapters that make up the five sections of this book show consensus on strategic "next steps" in life course studies. These next steps are explored in detail in each section: Section I, on life course theory, provides fresh perspectives on well-established topics, including cohorts, life stages, and legal and regulatory contexts. It challenges life course scholars to move beyond common individualistic paradigms. Section II highlights changes in major institutional and organizational contexts of the life course. It draws on conceptual advances and recent empirical findings to identify promising avenues for research that illuminate the interplay between structure and agency. It examines trends in family, school, and workplace, as well as contexts that deserve heightened attention, including the military, the criminal justice system, and natural and man-made disaster. The remaining three sections consider advances and suggest strategic opportunities in the study of health and development throughout the life course; methodological innovations, including qualitative and three-generational longitudinal research designs, causal analysis, growth curves, and the study of place; and building bridges between life course research and public policy

The practice of science as a mode of discovery is subject to change. This paper examines the "sciences" practiced by G. Stanley Hall in his Adolescence of 1904 and by contemporary researchers who study youth in 2004. After briefly reviewing the nature of Hall's empiricism, we draw on a representative sample of articles (n=182) published between 1999 and 2004 in specialty journals to analyze the interdisciplinary science of adolescence today. Results reveal that Hall was largely concerned with the conceptual and empirical description of phenomena, and he seldom offered causal explanations. In contrast, contemporary research frequently neglects description and emphasizes causal modeling. While a shift in focus from description to causation may seem a natural progression, we conclude by arguing that description is necessary even for a "mature" science. The study of adolescence needs a new regime of scientific practice that fully appreciates the value of both description and causal modeling.