Adapting Life History Calendars for Qualitative Research on Welfare Transitions

Abstract

The interest in examining patterns of life course events has resulted in the creation of several techniques to gather accurate retrospective data. One of these techniques, the life history calendar, was developed to record and graphically display the interrelatedness of multiple life events. A main advantage of the life history calendar is that it can be applied not only to quantitative studies but also to qualitative research. In this article, we provide the rationale behind life history calendars, discuss their potential use in qualitative research, and describe a research project that used life history calendars to gather qualitative data on welfare dynamics.