mcadam. sm as force for life course change

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SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AS A FORCE FOR LIFE-COURSE CHANGE

Doug McAdamDepartment o Soc!o"og#

Stanord Un!$er%!t#

&er"!n' (une )*++

In sharp contrast to the early neglect of the topic, social

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movement scholars have now focused a great deal of attention on thebroad topic of movement outcomes. When one surveys this work,however, one is struck by the unevenness in the coverage of variouskinds of impacts. Some kinds of conseuences have been accorded agreat deal of attention, while others have received short shrift. !o

oversimplify a bit, the bulk of work on movement outcomes has beenfocused on the institutional political or policy impacts that havefollowed from movement activity. "uch less attention has been paid tothe wide range of unintended social or cultural conseuences thatcould plausibly be linked to social movements. Within this lattercategory I would include those biographical or life#courseconseuences that have been empirically tied to movement activity.

In this paper l want to distinguish between two very differentkinds of demographic effects of social movement activity. !he firstconcerns the biographical conseuences that appear to follow fromsustained individualactivism. $lthough marred by a host of

methodological flaws, there is a body of published work on this topic.!he second, and potentially more conseuential, effect centers on therole of movements as sources of aggregate#levelchange in life#coursepatterns. In contrast to the first topic, there is, to my knowledge,virtually no systematic research that takes the relationship betweenmovement activity and aggregate level life#course change as its focus.In the ne%t section, I will review the various follow#up studies on 1&'(sactivists that attest to the individual biographical impact of movementparticipation. !he balance of the paper will then be given over to areport of a study I did some years ago that sought to assess thebroader links between participation in the political )and cultural*

movements of the 1&'(s and the marked changes in the structure ofthe life#course that we now associate with the baby boom birthcohorts in the +.S.

T,e &!ograp,!ca" Con%euence% o Ind!$!dua" Act!$!%m

!hough far less e%tensive than the literature on movementrecruitment, there does e%ist a body of follow#up studies of formeractivists that has sought to assess the biographical impact ofmovement participation. !hese studies are remarkable for theconsistency of their findings. et me first briefly describe the ma-or

studies that constitute the scholarly literature referenced here.!he first ma-or study to e%amine the impact of movement

participation was one conducted by ay /emerath, 0erald "arwell, and"ichael $iken. In 1&', these researchers conducted before andafter surveys with 223 volunteers who took part in that summer4sS5678 pro-ect, a voter registration effort sponsored by "artin uther9ing:s Southern 5hristian eadership 5onference. ;our years later, theresearchers supplemented this initial wave of data collection with

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follow#up interviews with 1 by /emerath, "arwell,and $iken in their book The Dynamics of Idealism. !hen, in 1&?7eople4s 7ark demonstrations in Cerkeley, 5alifornia. 5onducted by$lberta @assi and Stephen $bramowit=, the study used surveytechniues to assess the lasting impact of the earlier demonstrations

on the sub-ects4 lives. !he results of this study were reported in twoarticles, published in 1&>& )@assi and $bramowit= 1&>&* and 1&?1)$bramowit= and @assi 1&?1*.

ack Whalen and Bichard ;lacks weighed in in the early 1&?(swith their own focused follow#up study of 11 student radicals arrestedin Santa Carbara, 5alifornia, in connection with the burning of a Cankof $merica branch near the +niversity of 5aliforniaDSanta Carbaracampus. 8schewing survey techniues, Whalen and ;lacks used hours

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of interviews to fashion rich profiles of their sub-ects. !hese profilesformed the core of their book Beyond the Barricade)1&?&*, as well astwo earlier articles )Whalen and ;lacks 1&?(, 1&?


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continued to espouse leftist political attitudes )/emerath,"arwell, and $iken 1&>1F 1?3F 2(A"arwell, $iken, and /emerath 1&?>A "c$dam 1&?&F >2A Whalenand ;lacks 1&?(F 222*A

remained active in contemporary movements or other forms ofpolitical activity );endrich and ovoy 1&??A ennings and @iemi1&?1A "c$dam 1&?&F >2*A

were concentrated in teaching or other helping professions);endrich 1&>


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were these two trends linkedG $re nontraditional political e%periencesand orientations during these years linked to later deviations from thenormative life#course )e.g., nonmarital cohabitation, childlessnessamong married couples, off#time birth of first child*G

The ample!o get at this uestion, we conducted a randomi=ed national survey of+.S. residents born between 1&.>>. !his implies that

fewer than ? of the cases in the sample would need to be shifted toanother category in order to make the two distributions e%actlyeuivalent. !his number is not e%ceptionally small, but neither is it solarge as to cause concern. !he sample does not fare as well on otherdemographic characteristics. ;or e%ample, &.? of the sample isfemale, while the census shows that only 1. of the +.S. populationis female. !he sample is &2.3 white, whereas the +.S. population is?(.3 white. In terms of education, &>.3 of the sample completed

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high school and


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/ata generated from the uestionnaire include detailed life#coursehistories as well as various measures of our sub-ects4 politicale%periences and orientations during their formative adolescent andyoung adult years. In creating measures of these political e%periencesand orientations, we relied e%clusively on retrospective behavioral

rather than attitudinal or self#characteri=ation items, because there isgood reason to suspect that the bias inherent in the former kind ofitem is lower than in the latter. Betrospective claims about what kindof person someone was earlier in her or his life are inherentlyproblematic, because they are not only ambiguous but also sub-ect tocontinual reevaluation and change. In contrast, the likelihood thatsomeone will deny or forget engaging in a general class of behavior isconsiderably smaller. With this in mind, we asked respondents whetherthey had ever participated in political demonstrations in connectionwith any of the followingF

civil rights opposition to the War in Kietnam

the women4s movement

$ positive response to any of these behavioral items was coded as ayes on our dichotomous @ew eft variable.

In order to assess the predictive power of this variable in relationto the life#course choices of our sub-ects, we designated certain life#course outcomes as deviations from previously normativepatterns. !hese deviations include the following itemsF

@69I/SDsub-ect has no children )biological or adopted*

56H$CI!Dsub-ect lived with a se%ual partner before marrying forthe first time

@8K8BW8/Dsub-ect has never been married

!hese variables were treated as dichotomous, and their relationship toour measure of @ew eft activity was assessed by means of logisticregression.

In addition, we used proportional ha=ard models to study the linkbetween @ew eft activity and two other continuous time variables.

!hese were the sub-ects4 age at marriage and their age at the birth offirst child. Here, too, we were interested in assessing the degree towhich those of our sub-ects who had engaged in any @ew eft activityhad deviated from the age#specific life#course norms associated withthese events.1I will present these various analyses in the ne%t section.!he two uestions we hope to answer concerning our dependentvariables are to what e%tent are variations in these life#coursedeviations linked to prior participation in @ew eft politics, and

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what factors mediate their diffusion over timeG I take up the uestionof movement links first.

"esults

!o assess the relationship of our key independent variable to thevarious life#course deviations noted in the previous section, I make useof three types of analysisF simple bivariate comparison, logisticregression, and ha=ard rate analysis. I begin with a series of t#tests toassess the significance of the percentage differences between thosesub-ects who did and those who did not engage in @ew eft activities interms of each of our three dichotomous dependent variables. !able 1reports the results of these tests.

Ta."e +/ 0ercentage D!erence% .et1een T,o%e 2,o D!d and

T,o%e2,o D!d Not Engage !n Ne1 Let Act!$!t!e%' .# DependentVar!a."e

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In all cases, participation in @ew eft activities was associatedwith significant differences in the freuency of life#course deviations. Ialso used t#tests to see whether the mean age at first marriage andthe birth of first child was significantly different for our @ew eft andnonD@ew eft sub-ects. In both cases, the differences in mean age

were significant at the .((1 level. ;or those @ew eft sub-ects who hadmarried by the time of the survey, the mean age at which they hadfirst done so was 22.&, as compared to 21.2 for nonD@ew eftsub-ects. $t the birth of first child, the age comparison was 2'.' forthose who had taken part in any @ew eft activities and 2


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activism which precede the life#course outcome in uestion. !otranscend the limits of bivariate analysis, I turn first to the techniue oflogistic regression. !he techniue of logistic regression allows me totest for the simultaneous effects of various independent variables onour dependent variables. !he results of this analysis are reported in

table 2.

Ta."e )/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o Se"ected IndependentVar!a."e% on De$!at!on% rom Trad!t!ona" L!e-Cour%e

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$s one can see from the table, the inclusion of other variablesdoes little to erode the strength of the association between the various

life#course deviations and our key independent variable. In all cases@ew eft activities e%ert a significant positive effect on the likelihood oflife#course deviation. !hese results hold despite our inclusion of thevariable year of birth, designed to assess the effect of cohortseuence on life#course outcomes. 7redictably, given what we knowabout the increasing#over#time incidence of all of our dependentvariables, birth year is highly predictive of all three outcomes shown intable 2. Net, net of these predictably strong cohort effects, the positiveassociations between @ew eft politics and our dependent variablesremain undiminished.

Cefore I move on to an analysis of our continuous variables, let

me say a word or two about the findings presented in table 2. Suffice itto say that, net of the impact of @ew eft activity, the results areentirely consistent with past research. 0iven the normatively older ageat which men typically marry and have children, the positiverelationship between gender and @69I/S and @8K8BW8/ makessense. !he positive relationship probably has more to do with the factthat our male sub-ects still have more time to enter into these life#course statuses than it does about men being ultimately less likelythan women either to marry or to have children. !he strong positiveassociation between college degree and @69I/S should probably beinterpreted in the same way. !hat is, attending college for at least four

years has no doubt had the effect of delaying the entrance intoparenthood for some number of our sub-ectsDespecially our youngersub-ects. In fact, we were surprised to find no significant effect ofcollege degree on @8K8BW8/, though the relationship is positive andborders on being significant at the .1( level.

!he results reported in table 2 strengthen the case formovement participation as a force shaping individual life#coursechoices. Cut to take full advantage of the retrospective time#series

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data, I employ event history models to see whether involvement inprior @ew eft activities is linked not simply to deviance from thenormative life#course but to the timing of movement through the life#course.

!able 3 reports the results of a single event history model

applied to each of the aforementioned life#course outcomes.2

!heresults merely amplify the central conclusion to emerge from thelogistic regression. 7rior involvement in @ew eft politics e%erts apowerful influence not only over the structure of various life#coursestatuses but also over the timing of these life#course events. Indeed,the predictive power of prior @ew eft activity as regards our twotiming variables is on a par with the well#established demographicinfluences reported in table 3, even taking these influences intoaccount in our model. $gain we see the powerful effect of birth yearand gender on the timing of both marriage and parenthood.

Ta."e 3/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o Se"ected IndependentVar!a."e% on T!m!ng o T1o L!e-Cour%e Outcome%

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!hese results are especially impressive in light of the consistentstrong effect of college education on the dependent variables.5onsistent with much previous research )e.g., Bindfuss, Cumpass, andSt. 1&?(A Bindfuss and St. ohn 1&?3A Cloom and !russell 1&?


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dynamics involved in the unfolding of life#course events. In raising thispossibility, I should say at the outset that better than a uarter of acentury of careful empirical research on the link between individual#level personality or dispositional factors and movement participationhas generally confirmed the predictive poverty of such approaches

)"c7hail 1&>1A 0urney and !ierney 1&?2A Wicker 1&'&*. $ccordingly,over the years, theories of movement participation have moved awayfrom such Epersonalogical accounts of activism to stress instead theprospective recruits4 prior structural relationship to the movement )B.0ould 1&&1, 1&&A 9landermans and 6egema 1&?>A "arwell, 6liver,and 7rahl 1&??A "c$dam and 7aulsen 1&&3*. Cut if such approacheshave generated little empirical support and have minimal theoreticalresonance in the contemporary study of social movements, theynonetheless have been a powerful staple of life#course research. It istherefore incumbent on me to use what data I have to speak to theissue of spuriousness. I do so rerunning the analyses reported in tables

2 and 3, this time adding five variables designed to measure crudelyour sub-ects4 prior generali=ed disposition to nonconformity. !he fivevariables are as followsF

liberalJleft motherDDsub-ect identified his or her mother4spolitical orientation as liberal or left during sub-ects high schoolyearsA

liberalJleft fatherDsame as above, but in regard to sub-ect4sfatherA

prior use of mari-uanaDsub-ect reported use of mari-uana priorto either @ew eft activity or entrance into any of our life#course

eventsA early se%ual activityDsub-ect reported early se%ual activity

)operationali=ed for males as having intercourse before agesi%teen and, for females, before age seventeen*A

life differentDsub-ect was asked whether, at age eighteen, he orshe had hoped that each of four different aspects of lifeDwork,education, marriage, and familyDwould be different from thatof his or her same#se% parent.

!aken together, these four life different items constitute a scale with

values ranging from ( to


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!he results of these new analyses do little to undermine ourconfidence in the relationships reported in tables 2 and 3. In all five ofthe models, prior @ew eft activity remains highly predictive of thedependent variable. "oreover, in only one of the five cases does theintroduction of the dispositional variables significantly weaken the

relationship between our key independent variable and the relevantlife#course measure. !he lone e%ception is @69I/S, where the test forspuriousness reduces the significance level of the @ew eftDlife#course relationship from .((1 to .(.

!he stability of the hypothesi=ed relationships takes on addedsignificance when we reflect on the significant independent effects thatsome of our dispositional measures have on the life#course variables.!o me, the most interesting of these effects centers on the consistentlystrong demonstrated association between liberalJleft mother and fourof our five life#course variables. $pparently, being raised during theseyears by mothers with liberal left political views tended to e%ert a

powerful influence over our sub-ects4 subseuent life#coursetra-ectories.

Belative to the impact of liberalJleft mother, the rest of thedispositional measures were not consistently predictive of the life#course variables. Having a liberalJleft father e%erted only a weak andgenerally conforming effect on our sub-ect4s life#course choices. 6urtwo behavioral measures of generali=ed nonconformityDprior use ofmari-uana and early se%Dwere generally unrelated to our life#coursevariables. !he one notable e%ception was cohabitation, to which bothof these behavioral measures were highly related. !he same was truefor the life different variable. 6nly in regard to cohabitation was a

strong desire to see one4s life as different from the same#se% parentrelated to a deviant life#course status.

Whatever the interesting relationships the new models turned upinvolving the dispositional and life#course measures, the bottom line isthat none of these relationships serve to weaken seriously the generalimpact of @ew eft activity on the structure and timing of life#courseprocesses. !here is no evidence in the data to suggest that these latterrelationships are in any way spurious.Ta."e 4/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o T1o Set% o IndependentVar!a."e% on De$!at!on% rom Trad!t!ona" L!e-Cour%e

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Ta."e 5/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o T1o Set% o IndependentVar!a."e% on T!m!ng o T1o L!e-Cour%e Outcome%

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Cut what about the aggregate impact of @ew eft activism on the

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structure of the $merican life#courseG Having demonstrated a generallink between individual activism and various life#course outcomes, Iturn to the second goal of the research pro-ectF assessing the role of1&'(s movements in the onset of the distinctive demographic patternscharacteristic of the baby boom cohorts. I begin with a general

discussion of the topic.In the postDWorld War II period, demographers came tocharacteri=e a particular seuence of life#course statuses as definingthe normative transition to adulthood. While there was neveruniversal conformity to the pattern, general adherence to theseuence was certainly the rule. !he seuence began with completionof formal education and proceeded as followsF entrance into paidemployment, marriage, and the onset of parenting )8lder 1&>?A Hogan1&?1A "arini 1&?


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counterculture they helped spawn embodied an e%plicit critiue ofmarriage, the nuclear family, the notion of a traditional career, and thevery way of life that had previously defined normal adult status is$merican society. What we are suggesting, in contrast to 8asterlin, isthat some number of the baby boomers may not have been forced by

demographic and market pressures, to postpone entrance intoconventional adult roles, so much as they choseto do so, on the basisof their affinity with @ew eft politics or the countercultural practices ofthe period. !his argument raises the more general issue of the linkbetween social movement processes and aggregate#level changes inthe content, structure, or timing of the life#course events. Net, for allthe implicit claims about the significance of movements as importantvehicles of social change, very little systematic research on the topichas been undertaken by social movement scholars. "ovementscholars have never sought to study systematically the link betweensocial movement processes and aggregate#level changes in the life#

course. We hypothesi=e -ust such a link between the politicalmovements of the 1&'(s and 1&>(s and the shifts in life#coursepatterns associated with baby boom cohorts. What is the nature of thislinkG

We think 8asterlin4s account of the demographic and marketsources of deviation from the normative transition to adulthood isnot wrong so much as incomplete. While demographically producedmarket pressures no doubt had something to do with the distinctivelife#course patterns that emerged among the baby boom generation. $great deal of attitudinal and economic heterogeneity remains withinthese cohorts )5ooney and Hogan 1&&1A 8lder 1&>?*. Indeed, w

suspect the effects of cohort si=e were mediated by the values and thepolitical and cultural e%periences of the baby boomers. 6ur ownreading is that the rise of the @ew eft and the attendant developmentof a youth counterculture e%posed a good many baby boomers )andsome preboomers* to very different sociali=ation processes than theones that have previously sustained the traditional transition toadulthood. In turn, these new sociali=ation processes granted thosee%posed to them very different images of the life#course. !hus, thepolitical and cultural ferment of the period selectively alteredsociali=ation practices, resulting in more heterogeneity in life#courseimages and outcomes. "odell )1&?&* has interpreted this process as

one in which large numbers of persons born in this period werebeginning to take personal control over their life#course processes. 6rit may be, as we are inclined to suspect, that this segment of the babyboom generation were not taking demographic control of their lives somuch as they were conforming to alternative life#course patterns.

Where did these alternative patterns come fromG We do notknow for sure. We can, however, sketch a plausible answer to theuestion based on the current research and narrative histories of the

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period. We suggest a three#stage process by which these alternativepatterns were first established and later made available to a significantminority of the baby boom and later cohorts. !he first stage involvedthe conscious re-ection of life#course norms in favor of moreliberated alternatives. !he architects of these alternatives were

pioneering activists in both the political and counterculturalmovements of the period. /rawing upon a diverse strand of criticalperspectives on mainstream $mericaDthose of the @ew eft, theCeasts, the black nationalists, 8astern philosophy, the human potentialmovement, and so onDthese activists sought to make the personalpolitical by fashioning what they came to regard as more humane, -ust,or personally fulfilling alternatives to the traditional life#coursestatuses. "any of the ;reedom Summer volunteers gave e%plicit voiceto this process, acknowledging that such life#course deviations ascohabitation, childlessness )or communal child rearing*, and episodicwork histories were consciously chosen as alternatives to traditional

patterns that they perceived to be personally constraining or politicallysuspect )"c$dam 1&??, 1&?&, 1&&2*.

!he second stage of the process involved the embedding ofthese alternatives within that diverse set of geographic and subculturallocations that came to be the principal repositories of the 4'(se%perience within the +ntied States. In their capacity as centers of@ew eft activism and countercultural e%perimentation, collegecampusesDespecially elite public and private institutions in the @orthand WestDcame to serve as home to the new life#course alternatives.So, too, did self#consciously countercultural neighborhoodsDHaight$shbury in San ;rancisco, 0reenwich Killage in @ew NorkDin virtually

every ma-or city in the country. 0radually, upper#middle#class suburbsDfirst on the two coasts and later elsewhereDalso came to embodythe new alternatives through the sociali=ing force of older brothers andsisters away at college.

In the third stage of the hypothesi=ed process, through broadprocesses of diffusion and adaptation, these alternative patternsbecame available to an increasingly heterogeneous subset of $mericanyouth. In the process, however, the alternatives were largely strippedof their original political or countercultural content and came instead tobe e%perienced by those e%posed to them as simply a new set of life#course norms. !hus, the increasing heterogeneity in life#course

patterns noted by researchers owed, we think, more to variability inthe options to which different subgroups of young people weree%posed than to any significant increase in the percentage takingcontrol over their lives. !hose who were e%posed early on and fairlyintensively to the alternatives were apt to conform to themA those whogrew up in settings where the traditional patterns remained intactwere likely to adhere to those traditional patterns. !his is the process,we hypothesi=e, by which the broad social dynamics of the period

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came to reshape the normative contours of the life#course. However, itremains for us to sub-ect this account to systematic empirical scrutiny.

Here we want to move from an analysis of the origins of thesealternative patterns to an e%ploration of those factors which mediatedtheir spread through the general population. Here we are interested

principally in identifying those structural locations which may haveincreased or decreased our sub-ects4 e%posure to these alternativepatterns. Cased on simple bivariate comparisons within each of thethree broad cohorts )1& report, for both the

full sample and for each of the three large cohort subgroups, theresults of a single proportional ha=ard model testing for the effect ofour various mediating variables on age at marriage and age at birth offirst child.

/o the effects of these mediating factors vary as hypothesi=edover the three cohortsG With a few e%ceptions, the answer is yes. $se%pected, for the oldest cohort, the introduction of the new variabledoes little to alter the general pattern or strength of the relationshipswe have documented. ;or those born between 1&


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Var!a."e% at Age at &!rt, o F!r%t C,!"d or t,e Fu"" Samp"e : .#&!rt, Co,ort 7T1o-Ta!"ed Te%t8

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!he pattern of effects for those born between 1&( and 1&' is,however, uite different. !hough @ew eft activity remains predictiveof our dependent variable, it now shares the e%planatory spotlight witha number of other variables, including two of the mediating factors wehave reviewed. $ttendance at an activist college significantlydelayed the onset of marriage for those in the 1&(#' cohort, whilechurch attendance had the opposite effect on childbearing for thesame cohorts. Cut the effects for our last cohort are the mostinteresting and most affirming of our general perspective. Here @eweft activity remains only weakly related to our dependent variables,while the full array of mediating variables comes into play. !his is

especially true for age of marriage, where all three of our mediatingstructural locations bear a significant relationship to age at marriage.Weekly church attendance lowered the age of first marriage, whileboth resident in a moderate state and attendance at a non#activistcollege delayed the onset of marriage. !he latter two relationships holdfor the birth of the first child as well. !he new life#course patterns haveindeed spread far beyond their movement origins. Cy the time those incohort 3 reached their formative years, the alternative life#coursepatterns had diffused through much of society and were now beinginfluenced by a wide range of variables, including the kinds ofstructural locations under e%amination here.

D!%cu%%!on and Conc"u%!on

What do we make of the results reported in the previous sectionG!he combined weight of our findings would seem to suggest twoimportant implications. !he first concerns the specific set of influencesthat shaped the rather dramatic restructuring of the life#course weassociate with the baby#boom cohorts. ;rom a dramatic rise incohabitation to the delay or re-ection of childbearing, the last


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boom cohorts shaped the broad contours of the life#course through twointervening mechanisms. !he first of these mechanisms was the -obmarket. Cenefiting from the rapidly e%panding postwar economy, theearly boom cohorts en-oyed lucrative occupational prospects thatallowed them to make a rapid transition into adult roles. Cy contrast,

the later boomers faced a more stagnant economy and increased -obcompetition, thereby delaying their entrance into full#timeemployment, marriage, and parenthood. !he second mechanismstressed by 8asterlin as mediating the relationship between cohortseuence and life#course choices was the baby boomers4 e%pectationsas regards their economic fortunes. !he generali=ed affluence of thepostwar years raised the e%pectations of the boomers, especially thelater boomers, who witnessed the success of parents and older siblingsalike. !he lucrative -ob market allowed the early boomers to meet theire%pectations while the more stagnant economy confronting the laterboomers did not match their heightened e%pectations. !his mismatch

between e%pectations and -ob prospects grew more severe with eachsucceeding cohort, prompting ever larger numbers to deviate from thenormative life#course.

Puite apart from whatever theoretical issues one might raisewith this account, the simple fact is that our results do not accord wellwith the 8asterlin argument. ;or e%ample, it is hard to reconcileseveral of our coefficients with 8asterlin4s stress on the mediatingeffects of sociali=ed e%pectations. $ccording to 8asterlin, thesee%pectations are largely the unconscious product of the environmentin which they Lthe baby boomersM grew up. In other words, economicaspirations are unintentionally learned, or Qinternali=ed,4 in one4s

parents4 home. $nd this environment is very largely shaped by theeconomic circumstances, or income, of one4s parents )1&?(F


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potency of social movements as vehicles of social change, rarely havethey sought to study their long#term effects systematically. $nd wherethey have done so, they have generally confined themselves to anassessment of a given movement4s success or failure in attaining itsstated goals. Here we have tried to look beyond the e%plicit aims of the

1&'(s movement to their broader impact, both on the lives of thosewho took part in the struggles and in the current structure of the$merican life#course. Coth bear the clear imprint of those struggles. $tthe individual level, prior participation in @ew eft activities issignificantly related to all five of the life#course outcomes e%aminedhere. Cut, as the separate cohort models show, the strength of thisrelationship declines over time, supporting at the aggregate level thegeneral model of demographic diffusion stressed throughout thechapter. ;or our oldest cohorts, @ew eft participation is among thestrongest predictors of the new life#course patterns. $s the newpatterns diffused with each passing cohort, the predictive power of

movement activity was supplanted by an increasingly broad mi% ofstructural and attitudinal factors.

!hese findings suggest an impact that transcends the lives of theactivists who disproportionately appear to have pioneered thevarious life#course alternatives. Whatever the force of the normativelife#course in the immediate postwar period, its influence appears, inour data, to have waned with each succeeding cohort. 0iven therelative youth of our youngest cohort, this conclusion must be voicedtentatively as regards the central life#course events of marriage andparenthood. Cut even here the data speak, at the very least, of greatchanges in the timing of these outcomes, if not their normative force.

Ta."e ;/ 0ercentage o Re%pondent% 2,o Had Ne$er Marr!edand


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cohort go on to marry and have children, they will bear witness to asignificant change in the temporal structure of the life#course that hastaken place over the past thirty or so years. 6ur guess, however, isthat, given their relatively advanced ages, the percentage of theserespondents who never marry or have children will significantly e%ceed

the comparable figures for the other two cohorts. What these dataappear to reflect is the solidification of a broader range of life#courseoptions with each passing cohort.

!his rela%ation or broadening of what was previouslye%perienced as a fairly narrow set of life#course parametersDbothnormatively and temporallyDhas, of course, been noted by other)"odell 1&?&*. Cut what these other accounts have failed to provide isany systematic empirical sense of the processes that have shaped theemergence of this broader set of life#course options, and especially therole that the political and cultural movements of the 1&'(s appear tohave played in this process. Cy our findings, we hope to encourage

more empirical work at the intersection of these two subfields. Wehope that our work will reinforce that branch of life#course researchwhich has long recogni=ed the demographic significance of broaderhistorical events and processes )see 8lder 1&>


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1In 1&'(, the median age at first marriage was 2(.1 for females and 23.1 formales. !he median age at first birth was 21. for females. !hus, ouroperationali=ations of lateness )of marriage and parenthood* clearly hold facevalidity with respect to the post#World War II version of the normative life#coursewhich provided the sociali=ation conte%t for our older cohorts. 6uroperationali=ation is intended to be sensitive to these gender differences and

historical trends. 7resently )+.S. Cureau of the 5ensus 1&&(*, the median age atfirst marriage is 23.> for females and 2. for males. However, our concern is lesswith incorporating these recent trends than with e%plaining them.

2!he modeling approach we use incorporates the temporal aspects of ourhypotheses by looking directly at the elapsed time between various life#coursemarkers, such as entry into first -ob, first marriage, and birth of the first child.Specifically, we consider two time#based life#course outcomesF the sub-ect4s ageat the birth of his or her first child, and the sub-ect4s age at first marriage. In eachcase we seek to predict the overall risk that the second marker or event )firstchild, first marriage* will occur at a given moment in time )measured as the time

elapsed since the first marker* and the e%tent to which @ew eft activitiesinfluence this risk."ore formally, the dependent variable is defined as the ha=ard rate, or

the probability that the second event will occur with e%actly time thaving elapsedsince the first event, given that the second event has not yet been observed.

h)R* lim 7)t R Tt U ! U t V ! U t*Tt1( Tt

Here T is the random variable denoting the length of time elapsed since the firstevent, that is, the period during which a respondent is at risk for the second life#

course marker defined for a particular dependent variable )$llison 1&?


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$bramowit=, Stephen I., and $lberta . @assi. 1&?1. 9eeping the ;aithF7sychological 5orrelates of $ctivism 7ersistence into "iddle $dulthood.0ournal of 1outh and !dolesence1(F (>#23.

$llison, 7aul /. 1&?1. The Dynamics ofIdealism. San ;ranciscoF ossey Cass.

8asterlin, Bichard. 1&?(. Birth and Fortune. @ew NorkF Casic Cooks.

8lder, 0len H., r. 1&>?. ;amily History and the ife 5ourse. In Transitions4 The Family and the5ife Course in 3istorical Perspective, edited by !amara 9. Hareven, 1>#'3. "arching to a /ifferent/urmmerF 6ccupational and 7olitical 5orrelates of ;ormer Student $ctivists.ocial Forces2F 2


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1?>1.!merican ociological "evie#'F >1'#2&.

####. 1&&. Insurgent Identities. 5hicagoF +niversity of 5hicago 7ress.

0urney, oan @., and 9athleen !. !ierney. 1&?2. Belative /eprivation and Social"ovemetnsF $ 5ritical ook at !wenty Nears of !heory and Besearch.

ociological Quarterly23F 33#.

Hogan, /ennis 7. 1&?1. Transitions and ocial Change4 The 2arly 5ives of!merican 6en, @ew NorkF $cademic 7ress.

ennings, ". 9ent, and Bichard @iemi. 1&?1. 8enerations and Politics. 7rincetonF7rinceton +niversity 7ress.

9landermans, Cert, and /irk 6egema. 1&?>. 7otentials, @etowrks, "otivations,and CarriersF Steps toward 7articipation in Social "ovements.!mericanociological "evie#2F 1.

"arini, "argaret "ooney. 1&?.

"arwell, 0erald, 7amela 6liver, and Balph 7rahl. 1&??. Social @etworks and5ollective $ctinF $ !heory of the 5ritical "ass III.!merican 0ournal ofociology &F '."c$dam, /oug, 9elly "oore, and ames W. Shockey. 1&&2. ife#5ourse

5onstraints on $ctivism. 7aper presented at the annual meeting of the$merican Sociological $ssociation, 5incinnati, 6hio.

"c$dam, /oug, and Bonnelle 7aulsen. 1&&3. Specifying the Belationshipbetween Social !ies and $ctivism.!merican 0ournal of ociology&?F >3#


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Besearch.!merican ociological "evie#3'F 1(?#>3.

"odell, ohn ;. 1&?&. Into One:s O#n4 From 1outh to !dulthood in the ;nitedtates+ **


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Ta."e )/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o Se"ected Independent Var!a."e% onDe$!at!on% rom Trad!t!ona" L!e-Cour%e

Ta."e 3/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o Se"ected Independent Var!a."e% onT!m!ng o T1o L!e-Cour%e Outcome%


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Ta."e 4/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o T1o Set% o Independent Var!a."e% onDe$!at!on% rom Trad!t!ona" L!e-Cour%e


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Ta."e 5/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o T1o Set% o Independent Var!a."e% onT!m!ng o T1o L!e-Cour%e Outcome%


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Ta."e 6/ E%t!mate% o t,e Eect% o Se"ected Independent Var!a."e% onAge at Marr!age or Fu"" Samp"e and .# &!rt, Co,ort 7T1o-Ta!"ed Te%t8


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Ta."e 6/ Cont!nued


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Ta."e 9/ E%t!mate% o Eect% o Se"ected Independent Var!a."e% at Age at&!rt, o F!r%t C,!"d or t,e Fu"" Samp"e : .# &!rt, Co,ort 7T1o-Ta!"edTe%t8

Ta."e 9/Cont!nued====================================================================


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Ta."e ;/ 0ercentage o Re%pondent% 2,o Had Ne$er Marr!ed and

mcadam. sm as force for life course change

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