Life course

• These trends and changes relate to changes in the life course. Traditionally people, especially women, had quite a fixed life course. They lived with their parents until they got married, at which point they would live with their husbands and bring up children
• However, Carol Smart and her personal life perspective suggests that people today are much more able to influence their life course rather than have it determined for them
• People spend much more of their life living outside traditional family structures (e.g. in shared accommodation with friends, living alone, being part of a couple but not living together, cohabitating without children, etc)
• Stacey suggests that women are now able to choose the family structures that suit them, including with people who are not actually related (kin) e.g. the families of previous partners. Weeks suggest that, despite this, most people live in what Chester called neo-conventional families (coupling with children)