2008
Dronkers, J., & Härkönen, J. (2008). The intergenerational transmission of divorce in cross-
national perspective: Results from the Fertility and Family Surveys. Population studies, 62(3),
273-288. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324720802320475
We used data on women's first marriages from the Fertility and Family Surveys to analyse the
intergenerational transmission of divorce across 18 countries and to seek explanations in macro-
level characteristics for the cross-national variation. Our results show that women whose parents
divorced have a significantly higher risk of divorce in 17 countries. There is some cross-national
variation. When compared with the USA, the association is stronger in six countries. This variation
is negatively associated with the proportion of women in each cohort who experienced the divorce
of their parents and with the national level of women's participation in the labour force during
childhood. We conclude that differences in the contexts in which children of divorce learn marital
and interpersonal behaviour affect the strength of the intergenerational transmission of divorce.
Katus, K., Puur, A., & Sakkeus, L. (2008). Family formation in the Baltic countries: A
transformation in the legacy of state socialism. Journal of Baltic Studies, 39(2), 123-156.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01629770802031218
This article examines the transformation of nuptiality patterns in the Baltic countries since the late
1960s, in the context of long-term trends. The aim of the study is to compare the entry into first
conjugal union in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and analyze the position of the Baltic countries in a
broader European perspective. The analyses employ microdata from national surveys conducted in
the framework of the European Family and Fertility Surveys program. Our main results on the
timing and mode of union formation show that in Estonia and Latvia the shift from direct marriage
to cohabitation started well before the fall of the state socialist regime, and followed a trajectory
close to Scandinavian countries. In Lithuania, on the other hand, the change in the pattern of union
formation has been much slower. The article discusses the factors underlying the observed
similarities and dissimilarities in union formation.
2007
Elzinga, C. H., & Liefbroer, A. C. (2007). De-standardization of Family-Life Trajectories of
Young Adults: A Cross-National Comparison Using Sequence Analysis: Dé-standardisation
des trajectoires de vie familiale des jeunes adultes: comparaison entre pays par analyse
séquentielle. European Journal of Population/Revue européenne de Démographie, 23, 225-250.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-007-9133-7
We introduce a number of new methods based on sequence analysis to test hypotheses on the de-
standardization of family-life trajectories in early adulthood, using Fertility and Family Survey data
on 19 countries. Across cohorts, family-life trajectories of young adults have not become more
turbulent. However, in most countries family-life trajectories of young adults have become less
similar to one another and the variation in the types of family-trajectories has increased. Contrary to
expectations, no clear differences in de-standardization were observed between countries
characterized by a social-democratic welfare-state regime and countries characterized by either
liberal or conservative welfare-state regimes.
Katus, K., Puur, A., Põldma, A., & Sakkeus, L. (2007). First union formation in Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania: Patterns across countries and gender. Demographic Research, 17, 247-
300. https://www.demographic-research.org/articles/volume/17/10
This article examines the changes in first union formation in the Baltic countries between the late
1960s and early 1990s, in the context of societal and family-level gender relations. The analyses are
conducted using microdata from the European Family and Fertility Surveys program. Our results
indicate that in Estonia and Latvia the shift from direct marriage to cohabitation started well before
the fall of socialist regime. Event-history models provide support for a hypothesised association
between union formation and gender systems, with Lithuania showing more traditional features in
both respects, possibly due to long-standing cultural differences between the countries.
2006
Härkönen, J., & Dronkers, J. (2006). Stability and change in the educational gradient of
divorce. A comparison of seventeen countries. European Sociological Review, 22(5), 501-517.
https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcl011
In a series of papers, William J. Goode argued that the relationship between modernization and the
class composition of divorce is inverse. Starting from his hypothesis, we examine the relationship
between female education and the risk of divorce over time in 17 countries. We expect that the
relationship differs across countries and across time, so that women with higher education have a
higher risk of divorce in countries and at times when the social and economic costs of divorce are
high, and that there is no relationship or a negative relationship where these costs are lower. Using
discrete-time event-history techniques on data on first marriages from the Fertility and Family
Surveys (FFS), we find that women with higher education had a higher risk of divorce in France,
Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain. We do not find a relationship between education and divorce in
Estonia, Finland, West-Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Sweden, and Switzerland, nor, depending on the
model specification, in Flanders and Norway. In Austria, Lithuania, and the United States, the
educational gradient of divorce is negative. Furthermore, as predicted by our hypotheses, the
educational gradient becomes increasingly negative in Flanders, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy,
Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, and the United States. We explore this variation across time and
countries in more detail with multilevel models and direct measures on the legal, social, and
economic environment of the countries. We find that the de-institutionalization of marriage and
unconventional family practices are associated with a negative educational gradient of divorce,
while welfare state expenditure is associated with a more positive gradient.
2005
Saar, E., & Täht, K. (2005). MEN'S LATE CAREERS AND CAREER EXITS IN ESTONIA.
TRAMES: A Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences, 9(3), 228-258.
https://doi.org/10.3176/tr.2005.3.02
The paper will compare the labour market moves of male late career workers in Estonia in the
1980s and 1990s. The question asked here is whether and to what extent the social and economic
changes affected the intensity and directions of job moves of late career workers and also their
labour market exit patterns. Another question posed here is the role of both individual as well as
structural factors in the process of older workers’ adjusting to the new labour market situation. We
will study older male employees’ careers from a longitudinal perspective concentrating not only on
labour force participation rates and early retirement, but on mobility patterns in old age. We will
broaden our research on the question how Estonian institutional settings mark life courses in old
age. The analysis is based mainly on data from Estonian Family and Fertility Survey and Labour
Force Surveys.
2004
Kulu, H. (2004). Determinants of residence and migration in the Soviet Union after World
War 2: The immigrant population in Estonia. Environment and Planning A, 36(2), 305-325.
https://doi.org/10.1068/a35261
Soviet migration literature stresses the importance both of the interests of people and of state policy
in shaping the migration process in the Soviet Union. However, most empirical studies are
descriptive and rely on bivariate analysis; multivariate analysis is scarcely used. Conventional
Western research, in turn, mostly stresses the importance of structural factors in explaining
migration in the Soviet Union. The author aims to look at the extent to which structural factors and
personal characteristics determine the first residence and first migration of immigrants in Estonia
after World War 2. Individual-level data of the Estonian Family and Fertility Survey (1994) on
1067 foreign-born females are used and multivariate analysis applied. The analysis shows that the
first residence and first migration of the foreign-born population in Estonia differ significantly by
immigration cohort—a variable reflecting structural factors. However, when the personal
characteristics of immigrants are included in the model, the role of the immigration cohort (as a
determinant of migration) decreases significantly. The results support the belief that migration in
the Soviet Union is a complex outcome of the interaction between structural forces and the interests
of people, as it is elsewhere in the world.
Diekmann, A., & Schmidheiny, K. (2004). Do parents of girls have a higher risk of divorce?
An eighteen‐country study. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66(3), 651-660.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00044.x
Using data from the June 1980 Current Population Survey, Morgan, Lye, and Condran (1988)
reported that families with a daughter have a higher divorce risk than families with a son. They
attribute this finding to the higher involvement of fathers in raising a son, which in turn promotes
marital stability. We investigate the relation between gender composition of children and parents’
divorce risk with cross-national data from the Fertility and Family Survey. These data, which cover
16 European countries, Canada, and the United States, do not support a general hypothesis that sons
contribute more to marital stability than daughters.