2015
Ivanova, K., & Begall, K. (2015). The second time around: Educational attainment and
repartnering in the Russian Federation and Estonia. Zeitschrift für Familienforschung,
Sonderheft, 10, 165-182.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267265957_The_second_time_around_Educational_
attainment_and_repartnering_in_an_Eastern_European_context
We examined how people's educational attainment was related to their behaviours on the
repartnering market in the Russian Federation and Estonia. We addressed the following questions:
1) What is the effect of education on repartnering?; 2) What is the effect of own education on whom
people repartner with (i.e., the new partner's educational attainment)? and 3) Does the educational
level of the expartner matter for whom people repartner with? We examined the partnership
histories of the participants in the Generations and Gender Survey and estimated discrete-time
event-history (logistic and multinomial) models for the transition from first to second marital or
non-marital cohabiting union. Men's rate of repartnering was higher for the higher educated
whereas educational attainment played no role for women's repartnering. We observed a tendency
towards educational homogamy in higher order unions. Interestingly, when the educational "match"
in the first union was accounted for, our results indicated that people reproduced their partnering
matches.
Leopold, T., & Skopek, J. (2015). The demography of grandparenthood: An international
profile. Social Forces, 94(2), 801-832. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sov066
This comparative study addressed three open questions about the demography of grandparenthood
in contemporary societies: First, at what age do people become grandparents? Second, how is
grandparenthood sequenced with other transitions in later life? Third, how long is the grandparent
life stage? To answer these questions, we analyzed retrospective data from the United States
(NSFH) and 24 European countries (GGS, ESS, DEAS). Using survival methods, we estimated (1)
age at grandparenthood; (2) demographic overlap with parenting, worker, and filial roles; and (3)
expected length of the grandparent life stage. Three central findings emerged from the analysis:
First, the timing of grandparenthood varies strongly across countries. Cross-national differences in
the median age at grandparenthood are larger than in age at parenthood, age at retirement, and life
expectancy. Compared to the United States (49 years among women, 52 years among men),
grandparenthood in Eastern Europe occurs up to three years earlier in life; in Western Europe, up to
eight years later. Second, cross-national variation in the life-course context of grandparenthood is
less pronounced. In all countries, grandparenthood overlaps rarely with active parenting but
frequently with worker and filial roles. Third, the length of the grandparent life stage is more
strongly influenced by the timing of fertility than by the timing of mortality. The longest years of
life shared with grandchildren (35 years) are expected among grandmothers in East Germany and
the United States; the shortest (21 years) among grandfathers in West Germany and Spain.
Maslauskaitė, A., & Baublytė, M. (2015). Gender and re-partnering after divorce in four
central European and Baltic countries. Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review, 51(6),
1023-1046. http://dx.doi.org/10.13060/00380288.2015.51.6.227
This article analyses the demographic and social determinants of repartnering after divorce in four
Baltic and Central European transition countries (Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary), which,
despite their common transition paths after the 1990s, developed distinct political economies and
have different gender and family cultures. The article explores how the re-partnering chances of
divorced women and men are shaped by the social divisions of gender, parenthood, age, and
education within various transition- society contexts. In general, the findings support the argument
about the relevance and mediating role of the societal context in the process of re-partnering.
Although we found an overall gender disadvantage in re-partnering across all countries, in more
traditional contexts, parenthood undermines the chances of re-partnering for women but not for
men. The negative effect of older age for re-partnering after divorce is almost universal for men, but
is context-sensitive for women. Education does not affect women’s chances of re-partnering, but it
does play a significant role in the attractiveness of men in more traditional settings. The analysis is
based on the partnership and parenthood histories recorded in the Generations and Gender Survey.
Mortelmans, D., Pasteels, I., Régnier-Loilier, A., Vignoli, D., & Mazzuco, S. (2015). Analysis
of determinants and prevalence of LAT. Families and Societies, Working Paper Series, 25.
http://www.familiesandsocieties.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/WP25MortelmansEtAl.pdf
One of the non-standard family forms that emerges and recently became more visible, both in
society and in science is a “non-residential partnership”, well-known as Living Apart Together or
briefly “LAT”. Despite the growing visibility of this new family form,
determining the statistical incidence of LAT is complex for two main reasons. First, LAT
partnerships are not registered in any official statistics. Second, a generally accepted
definition of LAT is absent. In this deliverable, we collect several studies that gives an
overview of the prevalence and the determinants of LAT in Europe.
Perelli-Harris, B., & Lyons-Amos, M. (2015). Changes in partnership patterns across the life
course: An examination of 14 countries in Europe and the United States. Demographic
Research, 33, 145-178. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.33.6
Studies on Europe and the US indicate that marriage has been postponed, cohabitation has
increased, and unions are more likely to dissolve. However, cross-national studies documenting
these trends have typically studied each transition separately. This study aims to simultaneously
capture these different partnership trends while examining heterogeneity within countries. Using
latent class growth curves, we ask 1) what is changing more – the increase in premarital
cohabitation or the increase in divorce and union dissolution? and 2) is cohabitation emerging as a
relationship indistinguishable from marriage? These analyses also allow us to see whether changes
over time follow a universal trajectory, and whether the US is an outlier in terms of relationship
turnover.We use latent class growth models to trace the complexity of union formation in the
United States and 14 countries in Europe by examining how union status can change between the
ages of 15–45 for women born 1945–74. After determining the optimal number of latent classes, we
calculate the probability of falling into each class by country and cohort. This shows the
heterogeneity of union patterns across countries and over time. In all countries, changes in
partnership patterns have been driven by the postponement of marriage. Premarital cohabitation has
changed patterns of partnership behavior more than union dissolution. Cohabitation has emerged as
its own class, but is not identical toany marriage class. The US does not have disproportionately
higher “relationship churning” in later cohorts compared to Eastern European countries.
Rahnu, L., Puur, A., Sakkeus, L., & Klesment, M. (2015). Partnership dynamics among
migrants and their descendants in Estonia. Demographic Research, 32, 1519-1566.
https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.32.56
Extensive scholarly literature documents the decline in marriage and increase in non-marital
cohabitation and divorce across regions and countries of Europe, but we know less about the extent
to which these new family behaviours that have emerged in host societies are adopted by migrants.
The aim of this study is to examine partnership transitions among the migrants and their
descendants in Estonia, who mainly originate from the European part of Russia. By investigating an
East European context, the study contributes to a more comprehensive account of migrant
populations in different socio-economic and cultural settings. The study is based on the Estonian
Generations and Gender Survey (2004/2005) and the Estonian Family and Fertility Survey
(1994/1997), and employs proportional hazards models. The results show that new family formation
patterns, associated with the Second Demographic Transition, are less prevalent among migrants.
The difference between migrants and native Estonians is most pronounced in the mode of
partnership formation and outcomes of cohabiting unions, whereas the results pertaining to union
dissolution reveal a less systematic difference between population groups. Reflecting the relatively
slow integration, the second-generation migrants exhibit partnership behaviour that differs from that
of the native population. The observed differences between migrants and the native population
appear largely similar for both men and women. The results lend support to socialisation, cultural
maintenance, and adaptation hypotheses, and underscore the importance of contextual factors. The
analysis reveals disruption effects of migration on partnership processes.
Raymo, J. M., Carlson, M. J., VanOrman, A., Lim, S. J., Perelli-Harris, B., & Iwasawa, M.
(2015). Educational differences in early childbearing: A cross-national comparative study.
Demographic Research, 33, 65-92. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.33.3
Recent research on fertility in industrialized countries focuses primarily on delayed childbearing,
despite the facts that large numbers of women continue to enter parenthood at relatively young ages
and that early childbearing has been linked to economic disadvantage. This cross-national
comparative study describes relationships between women’s educational attainment and young age
at first birth and evaluates the extent to which these differences have changed over time for women
born 1955–1981. Defining ‘early’ childbearing as the age by which 20% of first births have
occurred to women in a given birth cohort and country, we describe differences in early
childbearing by educational attainment across three cohorts of women in 20 countries. We find a
strong negative educational gradient in early childbearing across all 20 countries and some evidence
of an increase in the relative prevalence of early childbearing among the least-educated women. In
10 countries, the relative prevalence of early childbearing among women with low education is
significantly higher for one or both of the more recent birth cohorts compared to the earliest cohort.
However, many countries show no significant change, and in one country (Poland) there is modest
evidence of a decreasing educational gap. Evidence that educational differences in early
childbearing have grown in some countries is generally consistent with the notion of family
bifurcation and ‘diverging destinies’ by socioeconomic status. However, the pattern is not universal
and future work should examine the various factors that shape these patterns, including the role of
public policies.
2014
Bernardi, F., & Radl, J. (2014). The long-term consequences of parental divorce for children’s
educational attainment. Demographic research, 30, 1653-1680.
https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2014.30.61
In this paper we study the long-term consequences of parental divorce in a comparative perspective.
Special attention is paid to the heterogeneity of the consequences of divorce for children’s
educational attainment by parental education. The study attempts to establish whether the parental
breakup penalty for tertiary education attainment varies by socioeconomic background, and whether
it depends on the societal context. Data are drawn from the first wave of the Generations and
Gender Survey, covering 14 countries. We estimate multi-level random-slope models for the
completion of tertiary education. The results show that parental divorce is negatively associated
with children’s tertiary education attainment. Across the 14 countries considered in this study,
children of separated parents have a probability of achieving a university degree that is on average
seven percentage points lower than that of children from intact families. The breakup penalty is
stronger for children of highly educated parents, and is independent of the degree of diffusion of
divorce. In countries with early selection into educational tracks, divorce appears to have more
negative consequences for the children of poorly educated mothers. For children in most countries,
parental divorce is associated with a lower probability of attaining a university degree. The divorce
penalty is larger for children with highly educated parents. This equalizing pattern is accentuated in
countries with a comprehensive educational system. Future research on the heterogeneous
consequences of parental divorce should address the issue of self-selection into divorce, which
might lead to an overestimation of the negative effect of divorce on students with highly educated
parents. It should also further investigate the micro mechanisms underlying the divorce penalty.
Wood, J., Neels, K., & Kil, T. (2014). The educational gradient of childlessness and cohort
parity progression in 14 low fertility countries. Demographic research, 31, 1365-1416.
https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2014.31.46
Although the association between fertility and education is central to several theories of fertility
behaviour and is frequently explored in empirical work, educational differentials in childlessness
and cohort parity progression have been scarcely documented and few cross-country comparisons
have been made. This article explores educational gradients with respect to entry into parenthood
and parity progression for cohorts born between 1940 and 1961 in 14 low-fertility countries. Using
longitudinal microdata, discrete-time event history models for repeated events are estimated for
first, second, and third births including a random effect at the level of individual women (shared
frailty). Subsequently, estimated hazards are used to calculate cohort parity progression ratios by
level of education. Educational gradients in fertility differ strongly between countries whereas
change over time within countries is limited. In all countries childlessness is more frequent among
highly educated women, suggesting that negative effects of opportunity costs outweigh positive
income effects. The effect of unequal selection into motherhood across educational groups on
educational gradients in higher order births through unobserved time-invariant characteristics is
limited. For second births, Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia,
Romania, Russia, Hungary) show negative educational gradients, whereas the educational gradient
is neutral or positive in other countries (Norway, Australia, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France,
Spain, Italy). For third births results show that Central and Eastern European countries more often
display negative educational gradients, whereas other European regions and Australia show
negative gradients, positive gradients, and U-shaped patterns of association. The strong differences
between countries suggest that context plays an important role in shaping educational gradients in
childlessness and parity progression.
2013
Duntava, A., & Billingsley, S. (2013). Changing life course regimes (CLiCR) data: Harmonization manual. Stockholm Research Reports in Demography. https://doi.org/10.17045/sthlmuni.14473773.v1
This paper describes the standardization and harmonization process of the Changing Life Course Regimes (CLiCR) data. CLiCR data cover 19 post-socialist contexts and is constructed with publicly available data sources: Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Family and Fertility Surveys (FFS), Generations and Gender Surveys (GGS) and the Life in Transition Survey (LiTS). Life course histories, particularly related to fertility and partnerships, and other background variables were constructed for cohorts that came of age in the decades before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet Union. In total, CLiCR harmonizes information from 39 data sources (two surveys per country, with the exception of three surveys for Poland). The total number of men and women included in CLiCR is 186,368. The earliest and latest surveys administered were the Polish FFS in 1991, covering men and women 18 years and older, and the Polish GGS in 2010/11, covering men and women of ages 17-83. This is the first resource that harmonizes large publically available histories across this range of countries and these data provide new research opportunities on post-socialist countries.
Puur, A., Altmets, K., Saava, A., Uusküla, A., & Sakkeus, L. (2013). Non-fatal injuries resulting in activity limitations in Estonia—risk factors and association with the incidence of chronic conditions and quality of life: a retrospective study among the population aged 20–79. BMJ open, 3(7), e002695. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002695
Evidence about the health and quality-of-life outcomes of injuries is obtained mainly from follow-up studies of surviving trauma patients; population-based studies are rarer, in particular for countries in Eastern Europe. This study examines the incidence, prevalence and social variation in non-fatal injuries resulting in activity limitations and outcomes of injuries in Estonia. Design: A retrospective population-based study. Setting: Estonia. Participants 7855 respondents of the face-to-face interviews of the second round of the Estonian Family and Fertility Survey conducted between 2004 and 2005 based on the nationally representative probability sample (n=11 192) of the resident population of Estonia aged 20–79. Primary and secondary outcome measures: The cumulative incidence and prevalence of injuries leading to activity limitations was estimated. Survival models were applied to analyse variations in the injury risk across sociodemographic groups. The association between injuries and the development of chronic conditions and quality of life was examined using survival and logistic regression models. Results 10% (95% CI 9.4 to 10.7) of the population aged 20–79 had experienced injuries leading to activity limitations; the prevalence of activity limitations due to injuries was 4.4% (95% CI 3.9% to 4.9%). Significant differences in injury risk were associated with gender, education, employment, marital status and nativity. Limiting injury was associated with a doubling of the likelihood of having chronic conditions (adjusted HR 1.97, 95% CI 1.58 to 2.46). Injury exhibited a statistically significant negative association with most quality-of-life measures. Although reduced, these effects persisted after recovery from activity limitations. Substantial variation in injury risk across population groups suggests potential for prevention. Men and workers in manual occupations constitute major target groups for injury prevention in Estonia. The association of injury with the development of chronic conditions and reduced quality of life warrants further investigation.