Advances in life course research最新文献

In very different societal contexts, parenthood has been identified as a critical turning point in life course trajectories. In this qualitative study, we explore parenthood as a turning point for 40 young women and 40 young men in prisons across Latin America. We study the impact of parenthood on criminal trajectories, identify gender differences, and analyze the different mechanisms at work. The analysis distinguishes between positive (crime reducing) and negative (crime increasing) changes following parenthood. When participants felt that they had to change, "slow down" or obtain a more stable and risk-free income, their criminal activities often declined. For women, parenthood could also stabilize healthy intimate relationships, which appeared beneficial for avoiding crime and other harmful practices. On the other hand, frustration arising from failing as parents and increased tensions in daily life often increased criminal involvement. The need for more money, and the absence of legal options for making an income had the same effect. Importantly, negative changes following parenthood were gendered. Men sometimes described frustration at feeling obliged to spend more time at home. For women, parenthood could cement an abusive relationship, cause problems because they became single mothers or make them lose social support. The study is based on repeated qualitative interviews and emphasizes perceived effects of parenthood. The research reveals the variety and nuances of the role of parenthood in criminal trajectories in Latin America and highlights the importance of socio-economic circumstances for criminal trajectories. We argue that in contexts of structural poverty and unemployment, where illegal economies often dominate over legal ones (as seen in many Global South settings), parenthood may lead to increased criminal involvement rather than desistance.

Personality is associated with important life outcomes such as occupational status, and there is continued interest in understanding how family processes shape people's character. Previous research has shown that despite being exposed to a common family environment, sibling personalities differ substantially. We test one explanation of this phenomenon: differential parental support within families. Fitting family fixed-effects models to data from the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP), we find that, even within families, differences in parental support contribute to explain the personality of adolescent children. However, this association declines when children reach early adulthood. We interpret these results as demonstrating the importance of within-family factors for shaping personality, and how the influence of parent-child relationships varies over the life course.

Research on the consequences of residential mobility for educational outcomes is inconclusive about when and for whom moving is detrimental or beneficial. Whether moving during childhood impacts educational attainment depends on how often, how far and at which age one moves; and on whether the neighbourhood conditions improve or decline with the move. This study aims to better understand under which circumstances moving during childhood impacts educational attainment by studying residential mobility and neighbourhood trajectories of children born in different types of neighbourhoods and how this is associated with completion of tertiary education. Using longitudinal individual-level register data for all children born in the metropolitan areas of Sweden in 1990, children's residential and neighbourhood mobility is followed from birth until age 16, with completion of tertiary education measured at age 26. We employ a multidimensional perspective, applying multichannel sequence analysis to identify residential trajectories based on various mobility indicators and socioeconomic neighbourhood trajectories, stratified by the neighbourhood socioeconomic composition at birth. We find that trajectories differ by the neighbourhood type children are born in. Trajectories can be roughly categorized into three different levels of frequency - stayers, low and high residential mobility - with variations in moving distance and neighbourhood trajectories. Descriptive results show that trajectories vary by the neighbourhood of origin, family structure and socioeconomic background. Regression analyses reveal that one-time movers are not different from stayers in their educational attainment, while frequent movers are less likely to have completed tertiary education by age 26 across all neighbourhood types.

This study analyzes the gender-specific impact of spatial mobility on earnings after graduation from higher education, extending previous research on graduates' mobility benefits, which has largely ignored gender-specific mechanisms. Based on household economic and gender role considerations, this study argues that partnerships are associated with solidifying gender differences in mobility-related earnings benefits. The study uses data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), Starting Cohort First-Year Students (SC5), and applies entropy balancing weights to account for the self-selection of mobile graduates. General linear models show a weak correlation between overal graduate mobility and higher earnings and that gender differences are rather small and depend on the type of mobility. However, looking at the role of partnerships, female graduates benefit significantly less from short-distance mobility when cohabiting with a partner than their non-cohabiting counterparts, while cohabiting male graduates benefit significantly more from long-distance mobility. The findings contribute to the literature by highlighting the crucial role of partnerships in the gendered mobility benefits of graduates.

This study examines school-to-work transitions (STWTs) in Chile and Uruguay, focusing on education-occupation linkages. For the first time, we apply the linkage strength approach to Latin American countries, using cross-sectional household survey data. Since STWT research is highly segregated across the different world regions, we do so in a comparative perspective with France, Germany, and the United States. Although Chile and Uruguay are high-income countries, they still face STWT challenges common to Latin America, such as high levels of informal and agricultural work. However, Chile has higher educational attainment than Uruguay, similar to the comparison countries. Our analysis reveals strong education-occupation linkages not only among higher qualified young adults, but also among low-qualified entrants - thus a "linkage trap" into low-skilled jobs - in Chile and especially in Uruguay. Moreover, unlike in France and Germany, general education provides stronger linkages than vocational programs. Informal employment does not differ significantly from formal employment in terms of linking education to occupations in STWTs. In fact, informal employment is associated with stronger linkages for low-qualified young workers in Uruguay. Furthermore, in Uruguay, strong linkages are associated with lower earnings for both tertiary and less-educated entrants, challenging the positive interpretation of high linkage strength drawn from the comparison countries. Overall, the linkage strength patterns are not as different across the different world regions: Chile's and Uruguay's patterns are in some aspects closer to France and Germany than the United States is to either European country.

Young adults living in Lebanon are experiencing the impacts of compounded crises during a critical juncture in the life course. Transitions into young adulthood are complex, unfolding in diverse ways for each individual. Using the concept of vital conjunctures, and a qualitative longitudinal research approach, this article explores how intersecting economic, political and refugee crises in Lebanon are impacting transitions to young adulthood. It explores three key dimensions of early adulthood transitions: education, income-generation and relationship formation. The data is based on four rounds of in-depth interviews with 18 young Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian adults, and their caregivers, conducted over a three-year period. The research brings an intersectional perspective by analysing how multiple forms of inequality - including poverty, refugee status and gender discrimination - shape young adults' experiences of crises. The results show how the economic and social deprivations brought about by the compounded crises in Lebanon have influenced young people's trajectories in varying but interconnected ways, influencing the complexity and timing of key dimensions of early adulthood. For young women and refugees, restrictive gender norms and legal barriers, respectively, add another layer of complexity, and make it more challenging for young people to reach their goals and aspirations. The findings also point to the severe psychosocial impacts of these disrupted transitions, due to increasing household responsibilities, disrupted social support networks, and an inability to achieve desired aspirations. This research contributes to addressing the limited understanding of young adult transitions in crises contexts, highlighting the severe impacts of interconnected crises on young adults' trajectories.

Young people's early education and employment trajectories (EET) hold profound implications for either perpetuating or alleviating social inequalities across the life course. Family background plays an instrumental role in shaping these trajectories, but we have little understanding of how similar or different these trajectories are between siblings and which early adolescent experiences are associated with individual trajectories. Using the UK Household Longitudinal Study, this paper explored how individual early adolescent experiences (ages 10-15) influence siblings' EET in late adolescence (ages 16-19). We used a combination of sequence and cluster analysis to create a typology of trajectories, compare these outcomes on three analytic samples - the related siblings, conditionally assigned unrelated peers and randomly matched unrelated peers - and then used a multivariable regression approach to determine the extent to which trajectories among siblings are shaped by individual early adolescent experiences. Siblings exhibited a greater tendency to follow similar post-16 EET compared to unrelated peers, including those coming from similar backgrounds, highlighting persistent effects of the family of origin. However, siblings often diverge onto different trajectories, pointing to the role of individual experiences in the process of status attainment within the family. Thus, adolescents' positive educational aspirations and feeling of family support emerged as significant predictors of favourable EET outcomes. Overall, this study highlights that early life course trajectories and the process of status attainment within the family are shaped by a complex interaction of family circumstances and individual experiences.