European Journal of Population-Revue Europeenne De Demographie最新文献

Rising rates of "silver splits" in Europe resemble increases in gray divorce in the U.S. Partnership dissolutions may harm older adults' mental health, especially for 'disconnected' parents who do not receive support from their children. However, researchers have relied primarily on multilevel modeling, neglecting unobserved characteristics that may select an individual into both divorce and parent-child disconnectedness. This brief report addresses this research gap by estimating fixed-effects linear regression models that control for time-invariant confounders. We used data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE; 2004-2022, N = 2216 observations, 546 silver splits) to document changes in depressive symptoms pre- and post-dissolution and evaluate whether these patterns are moderated by parent-child disconnectedness. Consistent with previous research, we find that depressive symptoms increase steeply in the year of dissolution and remain high four years post-dissolution for parents who are disconnected from their adult child(ren). However, individuals who maintain a relationship with all their child(ren) show stable levels of depressive symptoms throughout the dissolution process, challenging the assumption that dissolution is uniformly distressing. Our results reveal that depressive symptoms trajectories during the period preceding and following a major life event differ across sociorelational contexts. Social programs and supports for divorced older adults should recognize this heterogeneity rather than assuming uniformly negative mental health outcomes.

This study investigates the link between childbearing and employment changes of female immigrants and their descendants in three European countries: the UK, France, and Germany. Although childbearing significantly influences female labour force participation, the interrelationship between fertility and employment changes among migrant populations is poorly understood. We use event history models to study employment entry and exit by migration background and parity. Mothers are less likely to enter and more likely to exit employment than childless women among native women, immigrants, and their descendants. The largest differences in employment entry and exit are observed between migrant origin groups and generations, and between destination countries. European and Western immigrants are more likely to (re-)enter and less likely to exit employment than those from non-European countries. The descendants of immigrants have higher employment levels than immigrants and the differences compared to natives are smaller, but they persist, particularly among those of non-European descent. We also observe some differences across countries: mothers are the most likely to exit employment in Germany and the least likely in France. Our study highlights the importance of work-family reconciliation and immigration policies for reducing labour market disadvantage among mothers overall and particularly among immigrants and their descendants.

Living together marks an important step in the progression of intimate partner relationships. While existing literature highlights the relevance of both partners' economic characteristics for union formation, it remains unclear whether both partners' economic characteristics are equally linked to the transition to co-residence, whether one partner's traits matter more, and how this varies by gender. We address these gaps by examining how the economic characteristics of women and men in non-residential relationships relate to their transition to co-residence. Using 13 waves (2008-2021) of the German Family Panel pairfam and Cox proportional hazards model, we analyse 7165 non-residential relationships, capturing dyadic data on partners' employment status, contract type, and income. Our findings show that economic factors significantly influence the likelihood of moving in together. Couples with two employed partners are most likely to move in together, while gender plays a role when only one partner works-this transition being more likely when the man is employed. Among employed individuals, higher income increases the probability of moving in together for both men and women. Additionally, temporary employment raises the likelihood of starting a co-residence exclusively for women. Overall, results suggest that men's employment status plays a pivotal role in this transition and that union formation is socially stratified among young adults, reinforcing gender inequalities in partnership dynamics.

The discrepancies between desired and actual fertility rates are one of the key topics in fertility studies. This paper aims to explore the fertility gap-the difference between desired fertility size and actual fertility outcomes, and how this gap can be decomposed according to the importance of various perceived barriers to fertility. This article introduces an innovative approach to quantify the impact of removing obstacles that individuals report prevent them from having a child (or another child) on the total fertility rate ( $\text{TFR}$ ). On the one hand, this method offers an alternative perspective on the relationship between the desired number of children and observed fertility outcomes. Unlike conventional analyses that begin with the differences between desired and actual fertility levels, this approach considers that the sum of the fertility gap-defined by the reported reasons that hinder individuals from having children-and the observed fertility level represents the obstacle-removed $\text{TFR}$ . On the other hand, this method provides a cause-deleted analysis for fertility, addressing a gap in formal demographic analysis which has historically focussed on mortality research. Although this approach introduces some assumptions, the results offer insights into the relative importance of reported obstacles to fertility.

Personality has increasingly become relevant for family formation processes. However, the association between personality and family formation (dissolution) has been underexplored in demographic research. This study contributes to existing research by examining the prospective association between two personality factors [social maturity (SM), and emotional stability (ES)] and family formation and dissolution processes, i.e., (1) marital status, (2) fertility, and (3) partnership dissolution as both (a) divorce and (b) cohabitation dissolution, based on large Swedish register data. Poisson regression, Linear Probability, and Cox proportional hazard models were applied for different outcomes. Findings suggest that males with high scores on SM and ES measured at age of assignment to military service (17-20 years) are more likely to get married by age 39 and above. Regarding fertility, SM and ES show positive associations with offspring counts and negative associations with the probability of remaining childless by age 39 and above. Relationship dissolution is negatively linked with SM and ES, in particular among the lowest personality scores. Further analyses using sibling comparisons support these findings.

In Italy, the unequal distribution of household chores persists, disproportionately affecting women and potentially discouraging fertility intentions. This study explores the relationship between women's domestic burden and reproductive intentions, and how this relationship varies between men and women, depending on the parity achieved and the sex of the child (or children) they already had. The paper relies on data from 2016 ISTAT Survey on Families and Social Subjects. The results find this association only for women (and not for men), and particularly for those working and residing in the Centre-North. Interestingly, unlike previous findings, as the childless women's domestic burden grows, it correlates negatively with their intention to enter motherhood. For mothers, the correlation is somewhat reversed: notably, among mothers with one child, there's a discernible trend where fertility intentions positively align with increasing household burdens, driven by mothers of one daughter. This suggests a potential preference among traditional mothers of a daughter for having another child, while the more egalitarian, i.e., less burdened ones, seem content with the current family size after having a daughter.

Spatial differences in mortality are a significant source of inequality in low-mortality countries and are important for public health, regional planning, and subnational population forecasts. Long-term trends in geographic mortality inequalities remain poorly understood, especially from a comparative perspective. In this study, we examine trends in subnational mortality differences in France, Italy, and Spain from 1975 to 2019. We study whether life expectancy has converged or diverged between geographic areas, assess how the geographic mortality gradient has changed, and document age-specific differences. We find convergence in life expectancy in all three countries, although the path of convergence varies between countries and sexes. We find concerning evidence of diverging mortality at younger ages in all three countries. Our results show that even in similar national contexts, very different subnational trajectories in mortality inequalities can occur.

Whether couples agree on having a(nother) child is crucial for both individuals and society. While fertility research has long focused on women, recent studies emphasize the need to incorporate both partners' perspectives. However, analyses that jointly consider men's and women's fertility intentions remain scarce. This focus on women has been partly driven by homogamy-the tendency for individuals to select partners with similar traits and values. Given that couples with mixed backgrounds have higher dissolution rates, they may also be less likely to share family-related beliefs. This study examines how agreement on fertility intentions varies among mixed and homogamous couples in Sweden. Using the 2021 Swedish Generation and Gender Survey (GGS) and stratifying by respondents' gender, we find that most couples agree not to have a(nother) child, reflecting recent fertility declines. Couples where both partners are migrants exhibit the highest agreement, while mixed couples show the most disagreement and the strongest gender asymmetries in reported intentions. However, these differences are small and vary by the gender of the reporting partner. The higher disagreement among mixed couples aligns with broader research on their elevated dissolution risks. However, reverse causality is possible-value differences may be linked to other stressors, making childbearing less desirable. By highlighting the role of couple composition in fertility decision-making, our findings contribute to understanding how family formation dynamics vary across different couple types.

The negative impact of childhood internal migration on diverse life outcomes is well documented. The main hypothesis to explain this association is the severance of social ties. However, empirical evidence on the link between internal migration and loneliness in childhood is critically lacking. We address this gap by establishing the association between childhood loneliness and inter and intra-regional migration in Europe. Using retrospective life-history data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe in 26 countries, we run a series of country-fixed effect logistic regression for cohorts born before 1967. We find that the probability of often being lonely is 25-39 per cent higher among children who moved at least once, although having siblings exert a strong protective effect. The strength of the association between loneliness and internal migration dissipates with duration of residence, suggesting that children progressively adjust to new surroundings, particularly if they migrated before starting school. However, the mitigating role of duration of residence diminishes with the number of past moves. Despite the limitations of retrospective survey data, our results show a clear association between internal migration and loneliness, highlight the increased risks of chronic migration among children and lend support to the loss-of-social-networks theory, particularly in individualist societies where friendship plays a greater role in social networks and where children consistently report higher levels of loneliness.

Many affluent societies saw a temporary increase in their fertility rates in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This included a number of countries that had experienced fertility decline during the 2010s, like the Nordic. In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic (2022-2023), fertility rates resumed their previous downward trend. Most research on the pandemic-related fertility trends has relied on aggregate data. Although a few studies have examined group-specific trends, hardly any have covered the post-pandemic years-an important step for revealing whether any uptick in 2021 had a lasting impact on fertility structures. Our study attends to this objective, with a focus on parity and group-specific fertility trends in Sweden before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We apply event-history techniques to Swedish register data to unveil annual trends of birth risks in 2010-2022, for all Swedish-born women of childbearing age. First- and second-birth risks in 2015-2022 are analysed further across socio-demographic factors. Our study reveals that the "pandemic pattern" of fertility increase in 2021 and drop in 2022 was visible among subgroups with better possibilities to prepone already intended births. For example, the fertility increase and subsequent drop was particularly evident for mothers with young children and women with higher education and incomes. The pandemic fertility pattern reflects temporary changes in the timing of childbearing, more specifically a preponement of births that occurred in 2021 with resulting shortfall in 2022. The continued fall in fertility rates in 2023 should be viewed in the light of the long-term fertility decline.