Advances in Life Course Research最新文献

Early life course conditions and the social origin of families frequently influence the inequalities people experience in adulthood. The transition from education to work is a challenging period during which adolescents make their first employment-related choices and establish the course of their careers. Future expectations guide adolescents’ employment-related choices and are assumed to influence future employment outcomes. Therefore, this paper investigates whether family (dis)advantages affect adolescents’ employment expectations. We assess various underlying mechanisms that may influence the relationship between social origin and adolescents’ employment expectations by using cross-sectional data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP: 2006–2018), specifically a youth questionnaire administered at age 17. Three key findings emerge. First, family disadvantages, particularly an insecure parental labor market participation, influence the employment expectations of adolescents negatively. Second, supportive parenting does not mediate the relationship between social origin and the employment expectations of adolescents; instead, it functions as an additional positive factor. Third, supportive parenting creates more optimistic employment expectations because it fosters specific “beneficial” personality traits, such as extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness, and internal control beliefs.

The proportions of adults reaching midlife without having children have been rising rapidly across the globe, particularly in Asia. However, little is known about the pathways to permanent childlessness within the region’s childless population. This study utilized latent class analysis (LCA) to typologize pathways to childlessness based on dynamic characteristics of multiple life domains (i.e., partnership, education, and occupation) among 489 childless Singaporeans aged 50 and above from a 2022 nationwide survey. Additionally, we utilized multinomial logistic regressions to examine the sociodemographic correlates of pathway profiles and Shannon’s entropy index to assess the heterogeneity in pathways to childlessness among successive cohorts. Results revealed five distinct profiles of pathways to childlessness: the Never-Married Semi-Professionals, the Low-Flex Blue-Collars, the Highly Educated Professionals, the Ever-Married Semi-Professionals, and the Flexible Blue-Collars. These pathway profiles were significantly associated with sociodemographic characteristics such as gender and family background. Women’s pathways to childlessness were more standardized and heavily influenced by partnership characteristics, compared to those of men. The childless from privileged family background were less likely to follow pathways characterized by disadvantageous education and occupational status. There were also rising trends of voluntary childlessness among married childless individuals and increasing heterogeneity in pathways to childlessness across successive birth cohorts. In sum, our findings are consistent with some of the predictions of the Second Demographic Transition theory, suggesting that Singapore may be experiencing a demographic transition characterized by rising childlessness, decoupling of marriage and childbearing, and de-standardization of the life course.

Living-apart-together (LAT) partnerships are gaining prominence in many high-income societies, prompting ongoing discussions about their significance and their role in the family formation process. This study provides a contemporary update on LAT relationships in Spain, with a specific emphasis on variations across different life stages. The study focuses on several key aspects: (1) recent trends in the prevalence of LAT relationships, (2) socio-demographic factors associated with being in a LAT relationship, (3) joint influence of both partners’ characteristics, and (4) short-term intentions to co-reside. Using data from the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey, we employ logistic regression models to analyze the factors influencing individuals’ likelihood of being in a LAT relationship as opposed to a co-residential partnership. Our findings reveal a noticeable rise in LAT partnerships in Spain over the past two decades, except among the youngest age group. Personal motivations and socially attributed meanings of LAT relationships, however, differ depending on an individual's life stage. Among young adults, LAT partnerships largely serve as a transitional phase in the family formation process, preceding co-residence with a partner. In this early adulthood stage, unemployment and temporary work contracts – affecting any of the partners – often hinder household formation, but intentions to co-reside in the near future remain strong. In contrast, LAT partnerships in the mid-life stage often stem from a desire to maintain personal independence and are frequently linked to prior partnership and reproductive biographies.

Large-scale survey data is widely used to study the intention to have a(nother) child. However, there are further opportunities to understand how these intentions are revised over the life course and the uncertainty surrounding them. We aim to further outline the importance of simultaneously considering change and uncertainty in fertility decision-making. Specifically, we identify uncertainty in the “probably not” and “probably yes” responses to questions on whether an individual intends to have a(nother) child, and compare the differences in individuals’ stated intention between survey waves. Using panel data from the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) for Austria, France, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, we study short-term followed by long-term (overall) fertility intentions. First, descriptive analyses compare and visualise the prevalence of uncertainty intentions at first and second wave using Sankey diagrams. Next, multivariate analyses on transitions in intentions focus on partnership and employment context. The results reveal that for both short-term and overall intentions, four in ten respondents are uncertain about intending a (further) child. Further, one in two report a different intention between waves, with changes mainly occurring from one “probably” response to another (e.g., “probably not” to “probably yes”) or through a shift in increasing or lessening certainty (e.g., “probably yes” to “definitely yes”). The childless exhibit by far the greatest uncertainty and revision. Multivariate analyses show that partnership and employment are associated with gradual transitions and larger changes in intentions. Our results also show that fertility intentions form to a large extent along a spectrum of certainty—from “definitely not,” to “probably not,” to “probably yes,” to “definitely yes,” and finally to the birth of a child.

Panel data are ubiquitous in scientific fields such as social sciences. Various modeling approaches have been presented for observational causal inference based on such data. Existing approaches typically impose restrictive assumptions on the data-generating process such as Gaussian responses or time-invariant effects, or they can only consider short-term causal effects. To surmount these restrictions, we present the dynamic multivariate panel model (DMPM) that supports time-varying, time-invariant, and individual-specific effects, multiple responses across a wide variety of distributions, and arbitrary dependency structures of lagged responses of any order. We formally demonstrate how DMPM facilitates causal inference within the structural causal modeling framework and we take a Bayesian approach for the estimation of the posterior distributions of the model parameters and causal effects of interest. We demonstrate the use of DMPM by applying the approach to both real and synthetic data.

Critical events create turning points, disrupt individuals’ life courses, and affect wellbeing. Periods of life densely populated with critical events may translate into an acute resource drain, affecting long-term wellbeing more strongly than if the same events were sparsely distributed. We investigate how the co-occurrence of critical events and their concentration in time influence life satisfaction in later life. To do so, we construct a novel indicator, the Concentration Index, based not only on the number but also on the time lag between occurrences. Using retrospective information on critical events in family, work, health, and residential trajectories in Switzerland, we show that the higher the concentration in time of critical events is, the stronger their negative long-term relation to wellbeing, net of sociodemographic characteristics, the total number of events ever experienced, and the time since the last event. Furthermore, relevant gender and social origin differences emerged with a stronger negative association with wellbeing among men and respondents from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Our work clearly shows that simply counting the number of events gives only a partial and potentially inaccurate measure of the complexity of the life course and its relationship with quality of life. Not only how many events experienced matter but also the spacing between them.

Despite changes in women's status in recent decades in Arab-Palestinian society in Israel, marriage and motherhood still play a central role. Moreover, although the increase in the integration rates of young Arab-Palestinian women into the higher education system, as girls belonging to a minority group with traditional structures, they are expected to prioritize family and community expectations over personal aspirations. This study focuses on art projects of female Arab-Palestinian college students in Israel, which serve as a prism for detecting cultural perceptions of pathways to entering adulthood among this population today. These topics are central themes in the projects in question. Working on these projects forced the students to profoundly contemplate their life stage - being engaged or newly married and young mothers. The aim of the study was to decode the artworks in order to explore the students’ feelings and thoughts on a topic rarely considered through the eyes of the young women themselves. The study provides a nuanced examination of the social processes that young educated Arab-Palestinian women experience in the current family structure. By analysing the projects using visual tools from semiotics and art history, along with verbal texts provided by the students, we assert that these projects serve as a crucial avenue for students’ self-expression regarding topics seldom addressed. Even though the projects cannot be understood as critical of traditional gender expectations, we did find some interesting voices of unease regarding them. The move from their parents' home to their new one is widely described as difficult, where sadness and concern about the future are highly noticeable. In addition to accepting the stages of marriage and motherhood with joy and excitement, they also express fear and hesitation. This tension between fulfilling their expected roles and being unsure and hesitant about them exists in the projects. We claim that even if implicit and careful, these signs are important to recognize. However, it seems that higher education has failed to significantly undermine patriarchal and gender expectations.

Research has shown that parental separation is associated with worse physical health and unhealthy weight gains during childhood. However, limited empirical attention has been given to the evolution of child health before, upon and following parental union dissolution. Drawing on data from the Child Development Supplement and the Transition to Adulthood Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1997–2017), I investigate whether parental union dissolution during childhood is associated with children’s Body Mass Index (BMI) and the risk of developing overweight/obesity in the short and long run (n = 2675 children aged 0–12 in 1997). The results from a combination of propensity score matching and fixed-effects linear regression models show that union dissolution is associated with increases in child BMI and an increased risk of developing overweight/obesity. These changes in children’s weight status persist for at least ten years after parental separation. Unhealthy weight gains following parental separation are more pronounced among female children and those with lower-educated and non-White parents. The findings suggest that in the United States parental union dissolution contributes to increase socioeconomic inequalities in child health. Therefore, children with separated parents and lower socioeconomic backgrounds have greater risks of developing overweight/obesity and other obesity-related morbidities over their life courses.

The transition to parenthood represents a turning point shaping couples’ arrangements for paid work and housework. Previous studies often examined these changes in isolation, rather than as interrelated trajectories reflecting diverse models of family division of labor. Drawing on data from different-sex couples from the 1984–2019 Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the 1984–2020 German Socio-Economic Panel, this study uses multichannel sequence analysis to identify four and three patterned constellations of family division of labor in the United States and Germany, respectively. These constellations differ in women’s and men’s respective contributions to household earnings and their relative participation in housework, spanning from one year before to ten years after the birth of a first child. National differences are found in the identified constellations, their prevalence, and the role of couples’ conjoint education in shaping these constellations. In both countries, couples in which the husband has an educational advantage are most likely to transition to a traditional arrangement. However, only in the U.S. do couples with both partners holding a college degree also tend to enter a traditional arrangement. Furthermore, among U.S. couples in which the wife has an educational advantage, they are most likely to adopt a partly egalitarian arrangement (equal earnings but not housework) upon becoming parents.

Despite growing concerns in the UK about social isolation, there remains a lack of data on the extent and time trends of social isolation from longitudinal, population-based studies. There is also little research that assesses the multiple domains of social isolation across the lifecourse and between generations in a holistic way accounting for different contexts. By applying a multi-context, multi-domain framework of social isolation to 5 successive British birth cohorts, we provide conceptual and empirical understanding of social isolation trajectories across the lifecourse and identify potential generational and sex differences in trends. Where data were available, comparable social isolation indicators were generated to enable lifecourse trajectories and cross-generational trends to be explored. Information on isolation was available across the following relational contexts: household i.e., living alone; partnership, family and friends outside the household; education and employment networks; and community engagement. Trajectories were modelled stratified by sex using a multilevel growth curve framework. Data were analysed from 73,847 individuals (48.5% female), in 5 successive cohorts born in 1946 (N = 5,362), 1958 (N = 16,742), 1970 (N = 16,950), 1989-90 (N = 15,562), and 2000–01 (N = 19,231). Exploring a range of social isolation indicators across several contexts provided a nuanced picture of social isolation across the lifecourse and between generations in the UK, with no consistent pattern of increased or decreased isolation over time. For example, more people are living alone, less women are out of education and employment in midlife, more people are volunteering, but fewer people regularly engage in religious activity. It therefore highlights the need to focus on a range of social isolation indicators across contexts to understand how people compensate for specific types of isolation, and to understand structural differences in social configurations in the UK, which may not only define the timing and sequencing of life transitions but also social isolation.