The project involves the creation of a novel longitudinal database named Linked Lives. This database will contain the life courses of 3.000 pairs of siblings born in the Netherlands between 1850 and 1932, whose lives cover the period of 1850 until today.
The basis for this data collection is formed by the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN). The HSN includes data on the migration trajectories, occupational histories, the family of origin, and the religion of individuals. However, the HSN contains only data on the life courses of one person per family. The Linked Lives project involves the collection of similar information on the life courses of 3.000 siblings of the original HSN Research Persons.

With Linked Lives the role of siblings in (changing) patterns of social mobility and demographic behavior will be investigated during the period of demographic transition and industrialization in the Netherlands. A first question that can be answered relates to inequalities within the family. How did the life courses of siblings differ as a result of their specific birth position, age and gender in the family? Secondly, interdependencies among siblings will be examined, gauging the impact of siblings on one another's lives. A third field of inquiry relates to sibling-data as a way to measure intergenerational transmission or the extent to which life chances and demographic behavior were transmitted from parents to children. Information on the communities in which these siblings lived, which can be derived from the Hub for Aggregated Social History (HASH), will also be connected to the database.

The project will take three years (Sept. 2010 - Aug. 2013). The project's budget totals € 622.000. It is financed by NWO_Middelgroot (€ 462.000) and the VU, UU and IISG (€ 160.000).

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