Abstract To be able to understand a person's work history, it is necessary to take a broad perspective, and view movement among jobs as part of an extended process that also involves the person's schooling, and the links between school and work. In addition, a full understanding requires an identification of the precise effects of such structural variables as the type of community in which a person grew up, type of school attended, industry in which adult work-life began, and so on. Data with which to link career lines to educational and work structures are available in the National Child Development Study. It includes virtually every child born in England, Scotland and Wales during the first week of March, l958. Information about this cohort was periodically obtained over a period of 23 years. Included is very diverse and complete information pertaining to their health, mental abilities, schooling, work, etc. Thus, the data correspond -- for a national sample -- with a period from birth through the completion of formal schooling and their entry into the labor force. Using path analytic and differential equation methods, the investigators will be able to link education and work, and show the effects of structural variables across these institutions. The results will be important in the development of comparative (i.e. United States and Great Britain) sociological theories of the life course.
