
Demographic, socioeconomic, and health processes often unfold over long periods of time. For individuals, current behavior, choices, and stocks (e.g., assets, human capital) are affected not only by current contexts, but also by conditions and events throughout life, or even in previous generations. At the macro level, societal change typically takes many years and is affected by prior social, economic, and political contexts, as population scientists have recognized for many years. Nonetheless, most of the research in population science (and in other fields) ignores these crucial life course and long term effects – often because data to examine them are poor or unavailable. CCPR affiliates are at the forefront of research examining life course and long term effects and in generating innovative data sets that allow other researchers to investigate these effects. For specific examples of CCPR research being conducted on the topic of Life Cycle and Long Term Change, click here.