General issues involved in disentangling historical, cohort, developmental and other factors in change are discussed, with special reference to the study of women in a changing world. The advantages and disadvantages of the two major methods of study—panel or longitudinal studies and cross‐sectional {or successive cross‐sectional) studies—are presented, along with the opportunities and problems associated with secondary analysis of data collected in previous studies. This introduction concludes with design and method notes about the other papers in thi