This cluster is about the interrelation between networks, solidarity, and inequality in small-scale social settings. With the changing patterns of work, marital, childbearing, and residential behavior, there is a shift over time in the importance of social contexts such as the family, workplace, and the neighborhood, for the integration of individuals in society. These contexts are associated with differential access to resources, and thus contribute in major ways to inequality. The life course and the context are studied dynamically. An important part of ICS research on life course career patterns is organized around three main topics.

1. The development of pro- and antisocial behavior among youth. The influence of family, neighborhoods, peers, and school is studied as well as the influence of individual characteristics, including personality and physical characteristics. An overarching question is when and to what extent inequalities affect life chances such as health, education, occupation, leisure patterns, and victimization. Related questions are the description and explanation of effects of parental resources, of networks, of major life events, and of the changing social context on these life chances.

2. The formation, organization, and possible dissolution of families and couples. Marriage behavior is studied using market theories. Next to the formation of households, their internal organization (e.g., division of labor) has become an important research theme. A more recent theme is solidarity and conflict in couple and family relationships, including intergenerational solidarity such as caring for the elderly.

3. The mutual relation between the local social context - e.g., in neighborhoods and schools - and individual behavior. This includes questions about feedback effects between social networks and individual behavior, well-being, and attitudes, about antecedents of collective action, including participation in voluntary organizations, and of whether such a local social context qualifies for being experienced as a community.