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The questions posed by life course researchers often differ in fundamental ways from those posed by sociologists, developmental psychologists, or economists (Elder, 1998; Mayer & Tuma, 1990). For example, life course researchers often focus analytic attention on transitions marking adolescence or early adulthood and the roles and statuses accompanying such transitions (Hogan & Astone, 1986; Modell, Furstenberg, & Hershberg, 1976; Shanahan, 2000). Prototypical questions along these lines include whether certain social groups experience a more rapid transition to adulthood or whether the timing of such transitions (or the duration spent in selected life course statuses) has changed for successive cohorts (Winsborough, 1980). As Mayer and Tuma (1990) note, work in this vein often implicitly conceives of social structure as arising out of individual experiences of varying duration, as opposed to …