This volume presents an integrated approach to life-course analysis with innovations on the theoretical, empirical and methodological level. Life courses are considered as multidimensional individual trajectories that are influenced not only by available resources and by trajectories of closely related others (children, partners), but also by gender and by specific institutional configurations. This approach is applied to Switzerland, a society mixing modern and traditional elements.

René Levy is Professor emeritus of Sociology, Institute of Interdisciplinary Life-course Studies and Pavie Centre (now Life Course and Social Inequalities Center LINES), University of Lausanne. Eric D. Widmer is Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Geneva, and member of IDEMO, an interdisciplinary research institute on population and life course issues.