In the second part of these reflections, we use the connection between marriage and first childbearing to demonstrate further issues involved in anticipatory analysis. We show that an anticipatory approach cannot be used to represent intentionality: People may marry with the intention of having...

Procedures that seek to explain current behavior by future outcomes (anticipatory analysis) constitute a widespread but problematic approach in life-course analysis because they disturb the role of time and the temporal order of events. Nevertheless the practice is often used, not least because...