Tracks through time and continuous processes: transitions, sequences, and social structure

In the social and economic sciences it appears that there was a pioneering enthusiasm for longitudinal data in the late 1960s and early 1970s, resulting inter alia in the US Panel Study on Income Dynamics (1968) and lifehistory studies such as Natalie Rogoff Ramsøy’s Norwegian Life History Study (Rogoff Ramsøy, 1975). While the continuity of the PSID helped a lot in the development of techniques for the use of individually longitudinal data, it has been a slow development, but has been nonetheless relentless and cumulative. By now we have a very substantial array of panel and life-history studies, longitudinal elements incorporated in exercises such as the Labour Force Survey, and a growing battery of longitudinal data sets based on official data collection. Commensurate with the rich data is a growing body of high-quality research that takes full advantage of its longitudinality. The argument no longer needs to be made for the greater richness, power and sheer interest of longitudinal data.