Tekijät

• Pulkkinen, Lea (University of Jyväskylä. Department of Psychology)
• Kinnunen, Marja-Liisa (University of Jyväskylä. Department of Psychology)
• Kokko, Katja (University of Jyväskylä. Department of Psychology)

Asiasanat

education, families, family life, housing, labour and employment, life cycle, life events, life histories

Sisällön kuvaus

The data are part of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS), in which the same individuals have been followed over 40 years. At this research stage, the lives of 50-year-olds were surveyed in terms of family, work, health, and leisure. This dataset contains the responses to the life history calendar, which was filled in during the interviews, where the respondents told about their life from the age of 15 onwards with the help of a table describing life events. The respondents' life events between the ages of 15 and 42 were previously charted when they were 42 years old (FSD2124). This dataset contains both these earlier responses and the responses collected from the respondents at the age of 50 charting life events from the age of 43 to 50.

The life history calendar was used to examine what kind of events had occurred in the lives of the respondents and when. The respondents were asked where they had lived each year, when they had moved away from their parents' home, and whether they had ever been homeless. Cohabitations, marriages and childbirths were also marked in the calendars. The respondents were also asked about their education, full-time and part-time jobs, and periods of unemployment. The respondents indicated whether they had been homemakers, conscripted, on leave of absence, or retired and when. Relating to employment, the respondents were asked whether they had learned new skills/tasks after the age of 42 and if they had, when this had taken place and whether learning new skills/tasks had been associated with changing jobs. In addition, they were asked to tell about the deaths and serious accidents of their friends and close relatives, as well as whether they had ever been victims of a crime or caught for committing an illegal act, such as speeding, vandalism, theft, or violence and whether they had been convicted of these acts.

The respondents who had not filled out the life history calendar in the previous collection round at the age of 42 were presented additional questions about the same themes to chart the life events of previous years. The respondents asked to fill out the additional question form were asked, for instance, about their marriages and cohabiting relationships, places of residence, education, and being caught for committing offences prior to the age of 43.