Mapping the Priorities: A Study of the Composition of Importance in Life Domains

This study uses the German Family Panel survey and compositional analysis to investigate how women and men prioritize various life domains (i.e., career, leisure, friendship, and family) and how these priorities vary across cohorts and evolve over the life course. In a first analysis, we analyze three birth cohorts (1971–1973, 1981–1983, and 1991–1993), observed at two life stages: ages 25–27 and 35–37. The findings reveal notable cohort-based shifts in life riorities. Both women and men show a broader move toward post-materialist and self-oriented values, increasingly prioritizing personal enjoyment and social connections over traditional commitments to family (especially in the mid-20s) and career (notably in the mid-30s). Personality traits also shape these preferences, with heterogeneous effects across genders and age groups. The second analysis leverages the longitudinal data to examine how priorities evolve across the life course and the pivotal role of key labor-market and family events in shaping life-domain prioritization. Results indicate that the role these events play in life-domain prioritization differs between women and men over the life course.