The purpose of this study is to analysis how the life course of 1955-1974 birth cohort is de-gendered and diversified.

For this purpose, this study suggests the post-modernization of life course, which is caused by the dismantlement of the gendered life-course that is characterized by male-work centrality and female-family centrality, the deepening of stratification that appears in social classes vulnerable to uncertainty and risk posed by neo-liberal globalization and de-generalization followed by the stratification. In this study, the timing and sequence of adulthood transition is considered as the structure of life course; and work continuity and career as the characteristics of life course. In order to overcome an individualistic approach that is adopted by the analysis of adulthood transition and work life, linked careers of couples is included in the family context by classifying such linked career into household gender regime.

In this study, the Korea Labor and Income Panel Study is used as analysis data and 22 year life course from aged 15 to 36 and couples’ linked careers from two years before marriage to 36 years of marriage life are reviewed through a sequence analysis by utilizing an optimal matching method.

First, due to the expansion of education systems and the increase in women’s participation in the labor market, the gender differences during the transition are narrowed but differences in educational background are widened. However, this study found that the differences between genders are widened in the sequence analysis according to time elapsed. Moreover, such gender differences are related to the directional issues of a shift that is summarized by the de-gendering trend of females and the modern life course of males.

Second, the instability of work life is worsening with respect to males with low education and overall females. The difference in educational level is quiet stark in the males’ work life but the work continuity is more important in the females’ work life rather than educational level or types of work. Such result shows that the gender has much influence on the instability of work life, and differences in educational level in the same group adjust the gender differences.

Third, in the change of a household gender regime, the number of male breadwinner household is slightly reduced and that of dual earner household is slowly decreased. In addition the employment of a wife means more earnings for living expenses as well as an independent economic activity. Thus, male-dominant household incomes are also changed and the employment of a wife determines the level of household incomes. However, this only applies to females with high eduction, showing a hierarchical phenomenon.

The above outcomes are the effect of interaction of the gender and educational level in the changes of a life course and these changes concludes in a complex process of post-modernity where the modern life course and the post-modern life course are co-existing.

This study intends to establish a feminist point of view in the life course by verifying the influence of the gender structuralizing the life course. It is meaningful that this study tried to analyze the life course in a comprehensive manner through aa historical and systematical approach by comparing cohorts, a simultaneous approach to pluralistic conditions by a sequence analysis and an approach to linked lives by a sequence analysis on linked careers of couples. Nevertheless, this study has limitations that the observation period is not enough to deal with a life course in general and it also fails to investigate the causes of the differences between groups.