Abstract: This chapter examines both individual and group characteristics of work experience over the life course. It is shown that there was both huge change and remarkable continuity in the experience of paid work over the life course for men and women in 20th-century Britain. For men, the major change was a substantial reduction in total number of years spent in paid employment, particularly at older ages. For women, the change was in the opposite direction: the 1860s cohort worked on average for only sixteen years between the ages of 15 and 69, whereas the 1970s cohort can expect to work for at least thirty-two years.

Keywords: work experience, employment patterns, earnings, Britain, labour market, men, women,