2017
Holland, J. A. (2017). The timing of marriage vis-à-vis coresidence and childbearing in
Europe and the United States. Demographic Research, 36, 609-626.
https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2017.36.20
These descriptive findings extend Holland’s (2013) marriage typology by linking the timing of
marriage, childbearing, and cohabitation, and apply it to a range of European countries and the
United States. The meaning of marriage is organized around six ideal types: Direct Family-
Forming, Post-Cohabitation Family-Forming, Conception-Related Legitimizing, Birth-Related
Legitimizing, Reinforcing, and Capstone marriage. I present descriptive tabulations of data from the
Harmonized Histories, covering 17 European countries and the United States, to highlight
continuity and change in the context of marriage across the life course, cohorts, and countries.
Although smaller shares of women entered marriage at each age across cohorts, there is increasing
diversity in the timing and context of marriage. Family-Forming marriage continues to be the
majority marriage experience, but Direct Family-Forming marriage has declined and Post-
Cohabitation Family-Forming marriage has increased in many contexts. Conception-Related
Legitimizing marriages became more important in Central and Eastern Europe but less common in
Western, Northern, and Anglo-Saxon countries. Limited evidence of growth in post-first-birth
marriages suggests that childbearing intentions or a first conception continue to be important
triggers for marriage, although this may be changing in Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, and some Western
European countries. While most people who marry do so prior to or in the absence of a first
conception, increasingly marriage is not the first step in the family-building process. Still, for many
women in diverse country contexts, marriage continues to be very closely linked to initiating
childbearing.
Koops, J. C., Liefbroer, A. C., & Gauthier, A. H. (2017). The influence of parental educational
attainment on the partnership context at first birth in 16 Western societies. European Journal
of Population, 33, 533-557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-017-9421-9
In the US, growing up with parents with a low socio-economic status (SES) has been shown to
increase the chance of having a birth outside marriage. However, less is known about the influence
of parental SES in other Western countries. The current paper examines the association between
parental educational attainment with the partnership context at first birth in 16 European and North
American countries, by differentiating births within marriage, within cohabitation, or while being
single. Moreover, we test whether the association between parental education and partnership
context at childbirth changes over cohorts and whether its influence changes when controlling for
own educational attainment. Data from the Generations and Gender Programme were used, as well
as data from the American National Survey of Family Growth, the Canadian General Social Survey,
and the Dutch Survey on Family Formation. The results show that in North American and East
European countries, but not in West European countries, lower parental education increases the risk
of having a birth within cohabitation. Moreover, in North American countries and half of the West
and East European countries, lower parental education increases the risk of having a birth while
being single. The association of parental education with the partnership context at birth tends to
change furthermore over cohorts, although no clear pattern could be observed between countries.
The study suggests that the intergenerational transmission of education is an important mechanism
in explaining the influence of parental education, although other mechanisms also appear to be at
work.
Kreidl, M., Štípková, M., & Hubatková, B. (2017). Parental separation and children’s
education in a comparative perspective: Does the burden disappear when separation is more
common?. Demographic Research, 36, 73-110. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2017.36.3
Parental breakup has, on average, a net negative effect on children’s education. However, it is
unclear whether this negative effect changes when parental separation becomes more common. We
studied the variations in the effect of parental separation on children’s chances of obtaining tertiary
education across cohorts and countries with varying divorce rates. METHOD: We applied country
and cohort fixed-effect models as well as random-effect models to data from the first wave of the
Generations and Gender Survey, complemented by selected macro-level indicators (divorce rate and
educational expansion). Country fixed-effect logistic regressions show that the negative effect of
experiencing parental separation is stronger in more-recent birth cohorts. Random-intercept linear
probability models confirm that the negative effect of parental breakup is significantly stronger
when divorce is more common. The results support the low-conflict family dissolution hypothesis,
which explains the trend by a rising proportion of low-conflict breakups. A child from a dissolving
low-conflict family is likely to be negatively affected by family dissolution, whereas a child from a
high-conflict dissolving family experiences relief. As divorce becomes more common and more
low-conflict couples separate, more children are negatively affected, and hence, the average effect
of breakup is more negative.
Mikolai, J. (2017). Partnership histories and the transition to motherhood in later
reproductive ages in Europe. Population, 72(1), 123-154.
https://shs.cairn.info/journal-population-2017-1-page-123?lang=en&tab=bibliographie
As family life courses become more diverse and less standardized, first births are increasingly
delayed, and many women in Europe are still childless when they reach their thirties. These women
have very diverse partnership histories; some have never lived with a partner, while others have
experienced cohabitation, marriage or union dissolution. What is the partnership trajectory of
women who are childless at age 30? Is the same pattern observed for childless women at age 35?
Does it differ from one country to another? Júlia Mikolai addresses these questions using a
harmonized database of retrospective monthly union and fertility histories based on data from the
Generations and Gender survey conducted in numerous European countries. For a cohort of women
born between 1953 and 1962 in 12 countries, she then analyses the probabilities of having a first
child conditional on their different partnership experiences. This article sheds light on the diversity
of partnership trajectories and on country-specific patterns of family formation.
Mitrofanova, E. (2017). Becoming an Adult in France, Estonia and Russia. Higher School of
Economics Research Paper No. WP BRP, 78. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3078678
The aim of this study is to compare the sociodemographic events marking the transition to
adulthood in France, Estonia and Russia: first leaving parents, completion of education, first
partnership, first marriage and first childbirth. We used the first waves of the Generations and
Gender Survey for these three countries and an advanced method – Sequence Analysis. According
to the Second Demographic Transition Theory, we expected a convergence in the sequencing,
timing and tempo of the occurrence of target events. The results showed the slow convergence of
sequences, but not of timing and tempo. Estonia and Russia are still close in the timing of the
occurrence of events, but in tempo Estonia and France are more alike. The ages at which people
start families in Estonia and Russia have decreased in younger generations in comparison with older
ones, despite our expectation that they would increase. For the youngest generation (1970s), the
time between leaving parents and becoming a parent is 5-7 years in France, 4-6 years in Estonia and
2-3 years in Russia. The sociodemographic behaviour of Estonians clearly positions them between
Europe and Russia. Thus, the comparison of France, Estonia and Russia only partially confirms the
Second Demographic Transition Theory.
Pasteels, I., Lyssens-Danneboom, V., & Mortelmans, D. (2017). A life course perspective on
living apart together: Meaning and incidence across Europe. Social Indicators Research, 130,
799-817. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1189-x
The increased variability in family types and forms of relationships is the most apparent outcome of
family change in recent decades in Europe. One relationship that has emerged and recently become
more visible, both in society and in science, is a ‘nonresidential partnership’ termed living apart
together (LAT). We explore the meaning and incidence of LAT partnerships across Europe using a
life course perspective. Cluster analysis using five cluster variables (living independently from
parents, never having lived as a couple before, the intention to cohabit in the future, the age of the
respondents, and the duration of the relationship) was carried out on data from the Generations and
Gender Survey for ten countries. Four types of non-residential partnership across Europe are
revealed. From a measurement perspective, a simplified model provides empirical evidence that
three indicators are sufficient to detect and situate LAT relationships on a partnership continuum:
(1) having a nonresidential partner, (2) the age of the respondent, and (3) the duration of the LAT
relationship. Classifying relationships with a non-resident partner can be carried out efficiently if
information about the age of the respondent and the duration of the current LAT relationship is
available.
Puur, A., Rahnu, L., Abuladze, L., Sakkeus, L., & Zakharov, S. (2017). Childbearing among
first-and second-generation Russians in Estonia against the background of the sending and
host countries. Demographic research, 36, 1209-1254.
https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2017.36.41
An expanding literature documents the childbearing patterns of migrants and their descendants in
contemporary Europe. The existing evidence pertains mainly to the northern, western, and southern
regions of the continent, while less is known about the fertility of migrants who have moved
between the countries of Eastern Europe. The aim of this study is to examine the fertility patterns of
first- and second-generation Russians in Estonia, relative to the sending and host populations. The
study draws on the Estonian and Russian Generations and Gender Surveys. Proportional hazards
models are estimated for the transitions to first, second, and third births. Russian migrants in
Estonia exhibit greater similarity to the sending population, with a lower propensity for having a
second and third birth than the host population. This pattern extends to the descendants of migrants.
However, mixed Estonian-Russian parentage, enrolment in Estonian-language schools, and
residence among the host population are associated with the convergence of Russians’ childbearing
behaviour with the host-country patterns. The findings support the cultural maintenance and
adaptation perspectives; selectivity was found to be less important. The study focuses on a
previously under-researched context and underscores the importance of contextual factors in
shaping migrants’ fertility patterns. It raises the possibility that, depending on the childbearing
trends and levels among the sending and receiving populations, large-scale migration may reduce
rather than increase aggregate fertility in the host country. With the advancement of the fertility
transition in sending countries, this situation may become more common in Europe in the future.
Trimarchi, A., & Van Bavel, J. (2017). Education and the transition to fatherhood: The role of
selection into union. Demography, 54, 119-144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0533-3
Although advanced education has been found to be consistently associated with a later transition to
parenthood for women, findings about education and the transition to parenthood have been much
less consistent for men, and no stylized fact has emerged from the literature. We argue that the
inconsistency of findings for men is due to the fact that the selection process involved in union
formation has been disregarded in earlier studies. We hypothesize that men’s educational attainment
consistently and positively affects the transition to fatherhood via higher rates of union formation.
We apply multiprocess event-history analysis to data from the Generations and Gender Surveys for
10 European countries. Our results show indeed a consistent positive effect of education on the
transition to fatherhood, but it operates chiefly through selection into union. Failing to account for
this selection process leads to a major underestimation of the salience of education for the transition
to fatherhood.
Žilinčíková, Z. (2017). Do children matter for the stability of cohabitation? A cross-national
comparison. Population, 72(4), 649-670.
https://shs.cairn.info/journal-population-2017-4-page-649?lang=en
Births outside marriage are considered differently from one country to another. While they are
frequent in certain European countries such as France, where almost 60% of the children born in
2016 had unmarried parents, they are still rare in others, where marital childbearing remains the
norm. For this reason, the landscape of unmarried cohabiting couples in Europe is highly diverse. In
this article, Zuzana Žilinčíková examines the risk of non-marital union dissolution in comparison
with marriage. Is the presence of children a stabilizing factor? If so, is the effect stronger for
cohabiting unions than for marriages? And does the impact differ according to the prevalence of
cohabitation in the country concerned? Using retrospective data from the international Generations
and Gender survey, the author compares the risk of dissolution of unions formed since the 1990s in
14 European countries by type of union and the presence or not of children. She reveals points of
convergence and divergence in conjugal behaviour between the different countries under study.
Andersson, G., Thomson, E., & Duntava, A. (2017). Life-table representations of family
dynamics in the 21st century. Demographic Research, 37, 1081-1230.
https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2017.37.35
A key resource for cross-national comparative research on family dynamics (Andersson & Philipov
2002) is seriously outdated. We provide an update of the life-table estimates by Andersson and
Philipov (2002) based on data from the Generations and Gender Surveys and other related surveys
in 18 countries across Europe and the United States. Life-table estimates of family formation of
women and men, union dynamics, and children’s experience of family disruption and family
formation demonstrate the degree of variation in family dynamics across countries. Our findings
provide the basis for more in-depth research on the causes and consequences of differences in
family dynamics across contexts. The Appendix of the current manuscript is a new resource for
comparative research on family dynamics in the early 21st century.
2016
Dereuddre, R., Van de Velde, S., & Bracke, P. (2016). Gender inequality and the ‘East-
West’divide in contraception: An analysis at the individual, the couple, and the country level.
Social Science & Medicine, 161, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.05.030
Despite generally low fertility rates in Europe, contraceptive behavior varies to a substantial extent.
The dichotomy between Western, and Central and Eastern European countries is particularly
relevant. Whereas the former are characterized by the widespread use of modern contraception, the
latter show a high prevalence of traditional methods to control fertility. The current study aims to
examine whether these differences can be attributed to differences in women’s individual status,
and in gender inequality at the couple and the country level. We combine data from the Generations
and Gender Survey (2004–2011) and the Demographic Health Survey (2005–2009), covering
seventeen European countries, to perform multinomial multilevel analyses. The results confirm that
higher educated and employed women, and women who have an equal occupational status relative
to their partner are more likely to use modern reversible contraception instead of no, traditional, or
permanent methods. Absolute and relative employment are also positively related to using female
instead of male methods. Furthermore, it is shown that higher levels of country-level gender
equality are associated with a higher likelihood of using modern reversible and female methods, but
not sterilization. Particularly country levels of gender equality are linked to the East-West divide in
type of contraceptive method used. Our findings underscore that women’s higher status is closely
related to their use of effective, female contraception.
Keenan, K., Foverskov, E., & Grundy, E. (2016). Data sources on the older population in
Europe: Comparison of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) and the Survey of Health,
Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Population, 71(3), 511-537.
Link pdf failile
The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the Generations and Gender
Survey (GGS) are two widely used European longitudinal surveys with data on socio-demographic
and health topics, but their comparability has not been systematically investigated. We compared
SHARE and GGS data for 50-80 year olds in seven European countries (Belgium, Estonia, France,
Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland) to assess data quality and the potential for joint
analyses. The results showed that information on age, gender, marriage and fertility patterns and the
corresponding distributions were broadly similar in both sources. For some countries, distributions
by educational level varied between the two sources even though both reported using the same
International Standard Classification of Education, which may reflect variations in the timings of
surveys. The differences also observed for estimates of the prevalence of poor health might come
from the wording of health questions and their placement in the questionnaire that sometimes
differed between the surveys. We investigated what effect these variations might have on analyses
of health inequalities by undertaking multivariable analysis of associations between education and
marital status and two standard health indicators: self-reported health (SHR) and long-standing
illness (LSI).
Panova, R., & Buber-Ennser, I. (2016). Attitudes towards parental employment: a ranking
across Europe, Australia, and Japan. Journal of Research in Gender Studies, 6(2), 11-38.
https://doi.org/10.22381/jrgs6220161
Based on the Generations and Gender Survey, this paper studies attitudes towards parental
employment in 14 European countries – among them ten located in Central and Eastern Europe, –
Australia and Japan. In a multivariate framework we examine how the acceptance of the
employment of mothers of pre-school children differs across countries and to what extent there is a
gender gap. Since the role of fathers in the process of socialization of their children has been
underestimated and underinvestigated for a long time, we take the challenge of studying the attitude
towards the acceptance of fathers’ concentration on work. In multivariate analyses, attitudes
towards the statement “A pre-school child suffers, if his/her mother works” are dichotomized in
agreement versus an indifferent attitude or disagreement. The same approach is used for “Children
often suffer because their fathers concentrate too much on their work.” Based on the estimated
coefficients of logistic regressions, countries are ranked in high, medium and low level of
agreement. The country-specific ranking in terms of traditional attitudes towards employment of
mothers with pre-school children is in tune with the expectations derived from the Second
Demographic Transition (SDT) theory, with the exception of Romania: Hungary, Georgia, Russia,
Bulgaria, Poland are ranked as the most traditional countries; Lithuania, Australia, W. Germany,
Romania, France, Austria, and Czech R. hold a middle position relative to the grand mean;
Belgium, Japan, E. Germany, Estonia and Norway show the most liberal attitudes. We find a large
diversity in the level of traditionalism among the Central and Eastern European countries. Variation
in gender differences is substantial, differences being largest where SDT is at an advanced level.
Regarding fathers’ concentration on work, the majority presumes negative consequences for
children, but the answering pattern shows no clear relation with advancement in the SDT.
Perelli-Harris, B., & Lyons-Amos, M. (2016). Partnership patterns in the United States and
across Europe: The role of education and country context. Social Forces, 95(1), 251-282.
https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sow054
Patterns of partnership formation and dissolution are changing dramatically across the Western
world. Some scholars have argued that women's trajectories of union formation and dissolution are
diverging by education, with the higher educated postponing but eventually marrying and the lower
educated more likely to cohabit or divorce if they do marry. At the same time, the variation in
partnership behavior has also increased across countries, suggesting that country context plays an
important role. Here, we use latent class growth models to compare the educational gradient of
partnership trajectories in the United States and 14 countries in Europe and investigate the role of
education and country context. Our results indicate a consistent positive educational gradient for
partnership patterns showing the postponement of marriage, regardless of whether marriage was
preceded by cohabitation, but a less consistent gradient for patterns reflecting long-term
cohabitation and union dissolution. Although the US results show evidence of an educational
divergence in marriage and union dissolution, the evidence from the other countries is weak. In
addition, country context explains more of the variation in class membership than education, with
context becoming more important over time. The divergence in behaviors across country contexts
suggests that social, cultural, political, and economic developments are essential for understanding
changes in partnership formation and dissolution.
Sakkeus, L., Klesment, M., & Puur, A. (2016). Parental home characteristics of the 1924–1983
birth cohorts in Estonia. Generations in Estonia: Contemporary perspectives on turbulent times,
5, 70-102.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299756106_Parental_home_characteristics_of_the_
1924-1983_birth_cohorts_in_Estonia
This chapter investigates the characteristics of the parental home among the 1924–1983 birth
cohorts in Estonia. From the macro-social perspective , these generations were born in the periods
of prewar independence, World War II, Hitler's and Stalin's rule, and the eras of Khrushchev,
Brezhnev, and Gorbachev. The aim of the study is to examine the trends in demographic , spatial,
educational, ethnic, religious, and cultural characteristics of the parental family through the
contrasting societal regimes that have prevailed in Estonia in the course of the 20th century. The
study applies the 'life course' approach as the main conceptual framework. The empirical analysis
draws on pooled data from three nationally representative demographic surveys. The trends in the
characteristics of the parental home are observed by five-year birth cohorts separately for the native
and foreign-origin populations. The results reveal far-reaching transformations in most dimensions
of the parental home and childhood environment for the cohorts included in the study. Evidence
both for the continuity of particular trends and for the discontinuity of other trends due to historical
events emerge from the data. Accounting for transformations in the childhood environment of a
broad range of generations is expected to shed light on some important but often hidden factors
affecting contemporary society in Estonia.
Steinbach, A., Kuhnt, A. K., & Knüll, M. (2016). The prevalence of single-parent families and
stepfamilies in Europe: Can the Hajnal line help us to describe regional patterns?. The History
of the Family, 21(4), 578-595. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2016.1224730
The study’s main objective is to gauge the prevalence of family forms following separation and
divorce in Europe. In addition to the comparison of the prevalence of single-parent families and
stepfamilies in Europe based on data of the ‘Generations and Gender Program’ (GGP), family
patterns which draw on marriage and divorce rates on the one hand, and on the incidence of single
parenthood and stepfamilies on the other hand are investigated. Data are available for 17 European
countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany,
Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Sweden) and
include a total of 58,336 family households with minor children. The analysis first presents
descriptive statistics allowing comparisons of the prevalence of single-parent families and
stepfamilies. Secondly, a cluster analysis was carried out to identify family patterns around Europe
and to answer the question, whether the Hajnal line can help us to describe regional differences. By
taking marriage and divorce rates as well as the prevalence of single parenthood and stepfamilies
into account we were able to identify four clusters of family patterns, which give no support for
Hajnal’s line anymore. Family patterns in Europe are quite complex and hard to systemize by an
East–West divide.