Alternative Paths of Analysing (De)Standardization of Life Courses. Testing, Developing and Simplifying Methods of Sequence Analysis

拟议的项目与受分化和现代化理论启发的社会学生命过程研究的一个经典主题有关，即现代生命过程结构的长期变化问题。队列特定生命过程模式的变化最好被理解为连续出生队列的个别成员所做决定的综合后果。这些决定涉及核心生活领域，特别是生活安排和家庭、教育和就业以及相关的移徙行为。在方法上，生命历程研究是基于对纵向数据的分析，这使研究人员能够绘制生活事件(过渡)和情节的条目和顺序，并解释生活事件(例如第一个孩子的出生)依赖于其他事件(例如工作或个人关系)的动态。在过去，实证研究主要处理特定的转变，而忽略了关于更复杂的生命过程模式的问题；尤其是对于生命过程的标准化和去标准化的长期动态这一经典问题。直到最近几年，在序列数据分析的创新方法的推动下，人们对生命过程研究更全面的方法的兴趣再次增加。然而，目前关于队列特定生命过程模式的各种分析方法的利弊的辩论存在缺陷，因为缺乏理论和经验贡献，将标准化的概念及其各个子维度与序列数据分析的具体方法以理论上有意义的方式联系起来。此外，缺乏既定的程序，使我们能够以一种方法上合理的方式来检查对生活过程(去)标准化程度的因果影响。在拟议的项目中，将系统地解决这两个问题领域。为此，我们追求四个目标：第一，运用序列数据分析的方法，分析社会学结构(去标准化)的维度结构。在这里，目的是澄清文献中讨论的(去)标准化的哪些维度代表去标准化的经验上独立的方面，以及哪些是彼此相关的，因此不需要单独检查。其次，我们的目标是证明基于聚类分析的生命过程序列分析的标准方法可以被简化。第三，我们解决了迄今为止被忽视的问题，即使用不同类型的回归模型来分析对生命过程序列的因果影响。最后，我们的目标是为我们项目中开发和比较的各种方法提供一个统计工具，提供最重要的方法创新的简单应用和相关背景信息的快速获得。

The proposed project connects to a classic theme of sociological life course research inspired by differentiation and modernization theory, namely the issue of long-term changes in the structure of the modern life course. Changes in cohort-specific life course patterns are best understood as aggregated consequences of the decisions made by individual members of successive birth cohorts. These decisions relate to central life domains, especially the areas of living arrangements and family, education and employment as well as associated migration behavior. Methodologically, life course research is based on the analysis of longitudinal data which enable researchers to map the entry and sequence of life events (transitions) and episodes as well as to explain the dynamics of life events (e.g. the birth of the first child) in dependence of other events (e.g. at work or in personal relationships). In the past, empirical research mainly dealt with specific transitions, while questions about more complex life course patterns were neglected; this is especially true for the classic issue of long-term dynamics of standardization and de-standardization of the life course. Only in recent years, driven by innovative methods of sequence data analysis, the interest in more holistic approaches to life course research has been increasing again. However, the current debate about the pros and cons of various methods of analysis of cohort-specific life course patterns is flawed by a lack of theoretical and empirical contributions that link the concept of standardization and its various sub-dimensions with specific methods of sequence data analysis in a theoretically meaningful way. In addition, there is a lack of established procedures which enable us to examine causal influences on the degree of (de)standardization of life courses in a methodologically sound way. In the proposed project, both problem domains will be addressed systematically. For this purpose, we pursue four goals: First, we analyze the dimensional structure of the sociological construct '(de)standardization' by using methods of sequence data analysis. Here, the aim is to clarify which dimensions of (de)standardization discussed in the literature represent empirically independent aspects of de-standardization and which are related to each other and therefore do not need to be examined separately. Second, we aim to demonstrate that the standard methods of analyzing life course sequences, which are based on cluster analysis, can be simplified. Third, we address the hitherto neglected problem of analyzing causal influences on life course sequences using different kinds of regression models. Finally, we aim at implementing a statistical tool for the various methods developed and compared in our project, providing a simple application of the most important methodological innovations and fast availability of relevant background information.