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they have changed over the last six decades in terms of social develop-
ment (Elias 1995 ). We will focus on the most relevant historical markers
in each country’s chronology and draw attention to defining events and
crucial political and social transformations.
Our approach aims, on the one hand, to highlight contextual issues
that may affect personal networks and, on the other hand, to frame the
different pathways that the three countries followed in terms of overall
individualisation and pluralisation trends. In a second stage, we will
describe relevant features of two birth cohorts in the selected countries.
We will briefly look at their normative features, structural conditions,
and occupational trajectories. To do so, we will draw on the data from the
three national surveys on the Life Course and Personal Networks of indi-
viduals belonging to two different birth cohorts (1950–1955 and
1970–1975). This chapter deliberately avoids describing personal net-
works, sources of social capital, and other issues that are discussed at
length in later chapters. The major aim is to provide the background to
various aspects which are relevant to the analysis of personal networks,
namely their composition and morphology. This approach enables us to
explore one of the fundamental premises of the life course perspective,
namely the assertion that life trajectories and social networks are framed
by their specific historical, cultural, and social contexts. These circum-
stances shape not only individual outlooks regarding the future but also
individual agency.
Sociological analysis of social phenomena entails considering the time
and place in which they are embedded (Abbott 2001 ; Elder 1974 ;
Elder et al. 2002 ; Giddens 1990 ; Granovetter 1985 ). Time and space are
essential components of social behaviour and attitudes. However, their
assessment is not trivial or simple. Theoretically, time can be conceptual-
ised in different ways: as duration, sequence, order, repetition, etc. (Adam
1994 ). Methodologically, it may be operationalised as age, life trajectory,
historical period, generation, birth cohort, etc. In any case, the concept
of time comprises three main types: biographical time, generational time,
and historical time. Consequently, social processes occur and should be
analysed in the context of these different types of time. For example, at
the micro or individual level, events like marriage may be embedded into
generational time (e.g. marriage trends in the Baby Boom generation),
V. Ramos et al.