The standard life course is losing ground. More people - men and women -are active in the labour market than ever before, but work is not their only focus in life. In the rush hour of life, but also at the end of their career people work parttime, combine paid work with care or education or want more leisure. The transitional labour market approach in science and policy making looks at the way people make transitions between different

domains of life or combine activities in these different domains. This results in questions like: can men cross the bridge to the field of care as easily as women? Which arrangements help women to return to the labour market after they have devoted some years to fulltime motherhood? Is parttime retirement to be preferred to fulltime retirement? And: who benefits from leave and other life course arrangements?

The chapters of this book give the answers to these and several other questions related to labour market transitions between labour and care and transitions between the labour market and retirement. Scientists will be triggered by the theoretical notions and the firm empirical analyses. Policy makers may find inspiration for solutions to everyday policy problems that they will be facing during the next years as individual lifecourses will become more diverse.