Sequence Analysis
Sequence analysis is a holistic method for studying ordered categorical trajectories — such as month-by-month employment states, family life-course events, or daily activity patterns — by treating each individual's whole sequence as a unit, measuring how dissimilar pairs of sequences are, and grouping them into a typology of characteristic pathways. Introduced to sociology by Andrew Abbott, it shifts attention from isolated transitions to the shape of entire life courses.
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Sources
- Abbott, A., & Tsay, A. (2000). Sequence analysis and optimal matching methods in sociology: review and prospect. Sociological Methods & Research, 29(1), 3–33. DOI: 10.1177/0049124100029001001 ↗
- Gabadinho, A., Ritschard, G., Müller, N. S., & Studer, M. (2011). Analyzing and visualizing state sequences in R with TraMineR. Journal of Statistical Software, 40(4), 1–37. DOI: 10.18637/jss.v040.i04 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Sequence Analysis of Life-Course Trajectories. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/sociology/sequence-analysis
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- Intergenerational ElasticitySociology↔ compare
- Optimal Matching AnalysisSociology↔ compare
- Relational Event ModelSociology↔ compare
- Social Mobility TableSociology↔ compare
- Social Network AnalysisNetwork analysis↔ compare