title: SHARELIFE-One century of life histories in Europe.
abstract: Welfare state interventions shape our life courses in almost all of their multiply linked domains. In this introduction, we sketch how cross-nationally comparative retrospective data can be fruitfully employed to better understand these links and the long-run effects of the welfare state at the same time. We briefly introduce SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, and SHARELIFE, which collected 30,000 life histories of SHARE respondents from 14 European countries, providing a unique data infrastructure for interdisciplinary research on the various influences of contextual structures on the lives of Europeans during the last century until today. The eight studies in this special issue show that the multidisciplinary cross national approach of SHARELIFE allows a much more detailed understanding of life histories in Europe than was possible before.
authors.affiliation: Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA), Max-Planck-Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Amalienstr. 33, 80799 Munich, Germany. Electronic address: axel@boersch-supan.de.
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Börsch-Supan
authors.affiliation: Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA), Max-Planck-Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Amalienstr. 33, 80799 Munich, Germany. Electronic address: brandt@mea.mpisoc.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brandt
authors.affiliation: DIW Berlin, Mohrenstr. 58, 10117 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: MSchroeder@diw.de.
authors.forename: Mathis
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schröder
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D005060:Europe; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008875:Middle Aged; D012179:Retirement; D012946:Social Welfare; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors