Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center

The Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center's (BLCC) historical emphasis on understanding human development throughout the life course has expanded to include broader family and demographic topics. The center has a multidisciplinary focus, involving scholars from many departments and colleges throughout Cornell University.

BLCC is the administrative home for The Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging (CITRA), The Cornell Population Program (CPP), The Program on Applied Demographics (PAD), and the Gerontology Certificate Program.  BLCC research typically employs a life course, demographic, or family perspective. Topics for research have included studies of life course transitions related to schooling, employment, marriage, or retirement; the long term effects of early life experiences (e.g., childhood poverty), including pathways to successful aging, health, or economic self-sufficiency; decision making strategies by couples to coordinate or optimize dual careers (e.g., family migration, shift work, or childcare); or the impacts of large scale demographic, technological, economic, or social changes on families and individual lives.

BLCC’s primary goal is to serve as a catalyst on the Cornell University campus for collaborative social science research, education, and outreach among faculty and students by:

• conducting and completing various research projects;
  
• building internal capacity and an organizational/funding structure that permits advances in life course, demographic, and family research;
  
• leveraging diverse initiatives to foster collaborative research across campus;
  
• creating depth in the talent pool in demographic and life course scholarship on families and children; and
  
• providing incentives for researchers to be involved in and to sustain the center.

For additional information contact:

Daniel T. Lichter, Ph.D., Director

Carrie Chalmers, Administrative Assistant