Analyzing Linked Life Courses via Sequence Analysis: Three Empirical Examples

A core life course principle highlights the interconnectedness of individual trajectories. In this lecture, I present a sequence analytic method for formally assessing the strength of linkages between life courses represented by polyadic sequence data (Liao 2021). To demonstrate the broad applicability of the method, I showcase three empirical examples. The first, from Liao (2021), analyzes life course formation trajectories across two generations in the United States. The second draws on a dissertation chapter by a PhD candidate in economic geography at the University of Groningen, examining how teenagers’ residential moves in the United Kingdom are linked to their young adulthood relocations. The third example comes from a recent publication (Liao & Ortiga 2025) that investigates how Filipina migrant workers’ migratory paths from the same provinces may resemble one another. Together, these three cases illustrate varied applications of the methodology for analyzing linked life courses.