Canadian Public Policy is calling for contributions to a special issue devoted to "The Lifecourse as a Policy Lens," to be published in late 2010. The lifecourse approach examines policy-relevant issues in their temporal dynamics, over the short, mediumand long run, and takes into account the multifaceted interactions between the various dimensions of life, such as education, physical and mental health, employmentand income, family and social networks. It can be described succinctly as a system ofrecursive causality involving these various dimensions. It calls attention to social inequality, and especially to cumulative (dis)advantage over time.

The lifecourse approach should increasingly prove useful in the elaboration and monitoring of public policies because it examines with sharper focus the multidimensional causal processes at play, as well as policy needs and opportunities, and the long termconsequences of choices that are made, or not made.

The lifecourse approach emphasizes comparative analysis to assess the effects of social structures and public policies on how individual lives unfold. It appears as the analytical strategy of choice in societies and polities which pursue a human development agenda.

We want the special issue to illustrate the usefulness and wide applicability of the lifecourse approach. It will consequently welcome contributions related to a broad variety of policy-relevant issues. Papers of no more than 7,000 words should be submitted to the Editorial office of Canadian Public Policy, following the usual submission guidelines, with a statement that they are intended for this special issue. They will be subject to the normal peer-review process. To be considered for the special issue, papers must be received nolater than September 30, 2009.

© 2010 Canadian Public Policy (URL: http://cpp.economics.ca/, E-mail: cpp.adp@gmail.com). The CPP web pages are maintained by Olivier Lebert (Université de Montréal) and Werner Antweiler (UBC). Earlier versions of the documents on this site were created by Elaine Constant (Queen's University) and Maureen Church (University of Calgary).