Rural-to-urban migration within eastern Germany has overtaken east-west migration as the main driver of skewed adult sex ratios in rural areas. The shift in migration patterns, according to Nico Stawarz, … Read more
Denmark’s 2002 family reunification policy required foreign spouses to be 24+ and have stronger ties to Denmark than elsewhere. This reshaped union formation and fertility among immigrants, further increasing educational … Read more
Recently, mean paternal ages at childbirth have risen sharply. This has alarmed researchers from a wide range of fields as offspring of older fathers have higher health risks. However, existing … Read more
The realization of fertility intentions varies greatly across Europe. Zsolt Spéder and Lajos Bálint find that labour market stability, low inflation, strong welfare state involvement, and cultural attitudes emphasizing the … Read more
Europe was hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. While its effects at national level are now well known, intranational differences have been less frequently investigated. Florian Bonnet, … Read more
Angela Greulich and Laurent Toulemon present a new method for measuring the educational gradient of fertility for women who are at childbearing age rather than for women who have already … Read more
The gender wage gap persists, especially among mothers. Alícia Adserà and Federica Querin show that despite low wages in predominantly male occupations that depend on heavy machinery, women (and chiefly … Read more
Over the last decades, the working population in Europe has become older, more feminized, and more educated. However, Álvaro Mariscal‐de‐Gante, Amaia Palencia‐Esteban, Sara Grubanov‐Boskovic and Enrique Fernández‐Macías argue that female occupational … Read more
As union dissolution becomes more frequent around the world, the living arrangements of children of separated parents have become an important issue. Joint physical custody (JPC) is believed to be … Read more
Rapid population aging may undermine the viability of the German pension system. Is working longer a remedy? Christian Dudel, Elke Loichinger, Sebastian Klüsener, Harun Sulak, Mikko Myrskylä analyse what is … Read more
The number of countries that aim to raise fertility has markedly increased over recent decades. Among policy instruments used to achieve this goal, parental leave schemes play an important role. … Read more
The number and proportion of children born after medically assisted reproduction (MAR) is increasing fast and many gaps in knowledge remain about their longer-term well-being. Using population register data from … Read more
Recent decreases in fertility rates in European countries have fueled gloom and doom about the prospect of shrinking populations. As Nick Parr shows, the levels of fertility that would sustain … Read more
Is it better to intermarry? Using Swedish registry data, Anna Oksuzyan, Sven Drefahl, Jennifer Caputo, and Siddartha Aradhya investigate whether people married to someone from a different ethnic background (i.e., … Read more
The future of the Italian population depends in large part on migration. Marcantonio Caltabiano and Gianpiero Dalla-Zuanna compare the most recent forecasts of net migration for Italy proposed by Eurostat, … Read more
Feelings of loneliness are not very widespread among European older adults (aged 50 years and over) according to SHARE data. And, surprisingly enough, according to the analysis of Omar Paccagnella, … Read more
The pre-COVID literature established that lacking a partner or children was among the risk factors for loneliness among older people. Bruno Arpino, Christine A. Mair, Nekehia T. Quashie, and Radoslaw … Read more
In Sweden, a positive association is emerging between income and fertility, Martin Kolk observes. Men and women with higher income have more children than their less wealthy peers, and the … Read more
There is a positive association between tertiary education and internal migration across Europe. Miguel González-Leonardo, Aude Bernard, Joan García-Román and Antonio López-Gay find that this holds also for immigrants: they … Read more
In addition to their childcare responsibilities, women with young children often have to do more housework, thus making an already unequal balance even more skewed. Zsuzsanna Veroszta shows that, in … Read more
Norwegian register data indicate that parents’ mental health deteriorates prior to union dissolution but improves afterwards. In contrast, Øystein Kravdal and Jonathan Wörn note, children seem to experience a continued … Read more
Endogamy (partners of the same geographical origin) is said to lower the risk of marriage dissolution. However, once cohabitation is included in the analysis of Belgian (register) data, Layla Van … Read more
Ageing occupies the forefront of the social and economic policy debate in the European Union (EU). However, ageing patterns differ considerably across EU territories because of distinctive demographic and spatial … Read more
What drives demographic change in Europe? Christos Bagavos shows that between 2014 and 2019 this change was due more to foreign-born than native-born populations, through both a direct effect (net … Read more
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine inevitably caused a massive flow of refugees towards neighbouring and other EU countries. This movement, as Corrado Bonifazi and Salvatore Strozza show, is closely connected to … Read more
The relationship between educational mismatch in the labour market and emigration decisions is a complex one. In Switzerland, undereducation increases emigration by UE27/EFTA migrants. In contrast, Philippe Wanner, Marco Pecoraro … Read more
Ester Rizzi and Younga Kim examine retirement intentions of 50-64 year-old mothers in Europe by family and employment trajectories. They find that experiencing work interruptions, having a higher number of … Read more
Examining two waves of a panel survey, Zuzanna Brzozowska, Isabella Buber-Ennser and Bernhard Riederer find evidence that women and men in post-socialist countries more often have a child they planned … Read more
NDC (notional defined contribution) schemes are commonly believed to be the best kind of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems: actuarial equity and individual flexibility in accessing retirement are their main strengths. … Read more
What happens to caregivers’ health when they stop caregiving? Damiano Uccheddu, Tom Emery, Nardi Steverink, and Anne H. Gauthier investigate the matter across 17 European countries with an innovative method … Read more
Around the world, more and more people age without close kin. Contrary to expectations, however, according to Małgorzata Mikucka, this does not reduce their life satisfaction, or at least not … Read more
Does the impact of socioeconomic factors on health after midlife vary among women and men depending on the welfare context? Apparently it does: Damiano Uccheddu, Anne H. Gauthier, Nardi Steverink, … Read more
Relying on data from the longitudinal Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (2004-2015), and adopting a propensity score matching approach, Elena Pirani, Gustavo De Santis and Francesca Zanasi … Read more
The apparent lower mortality of international migrants has sometimes been questioned, because data quality may be a serious issue in this case. However, deeper investigation into the matter by Matthew … Read more
As women’s levels of education increasingly overtake those of men, educational hypergamy (male educational advantage in a relationship) is declining throughout Europe, as Dávid Erát shows. Who chooses whom? The … Read more
Female education is often linked to lower fertility levels and higher rates of childlessness. However, this relationship does not necessarily hold for all population groups. In this study, Nitzan Peri-Rotem … Read more
Smoking, obesity and alcohol are considered key public health problems in Europe. Fanny Janssen, Sergi Trias-Llimós, and Anton Kunst show how changes over time in these three lifestyle factors have … Read more
Among OECD countries, the United States was once a leader in women’s labor force participation, but is now a laggard. Jennifer Hook and Eunjeong Paek compare trends in American and … Read more
Nowhere in Europe is the share of births out of marriage larger than in Iceland. Nevertheless, most Icelanders marry. In this article Ari Klængur Jónsson argues that even though the … Read more
The article explores the relationship between becoming a grandmother and retiring in Italy. In contrast to the US and other countries in Europe, the two events do not overlap in … Read more
Philipp M. Lersch studies the relationship between people’s number of siblings and their economic wealth in Germany. He finds that additional siblings reduce wealth by about 38%. Parental wealth moderates … Read more
Working on 1,396 sub-regional areal units, Daniel T. Lichter, Domenico Parisi, and Shrinidhi Ambinakudige show that in almost all European countries, immigrants from outside Europe are less spatially integrated with … Read more
Hans Hämäläinen and Bruno Arpino investigate short-term reciprocity of intergenerational support from the viewpoint of adult children. They consider multiple forms of support and examine whether previously received support from … Read more
Marriage with the prospect of migration may lead to new patterns of union formation in globalized marriage markets. Annika Elwert looks at characteristics and marriage patterns of majority natives who … Read more
In Norway, as the number of children increases, mortality generally falls or remains almost constant. However, Øystein Kravdal notes an exception when it comes to cardiovascular disease mortality: for men who … Read more
Life expectancy at birth is widely employed to measure longevity. However, as José Manuel Aburto, Ginevra Floridi and Ella Fegitz argue, another complementary dimension of great relevance in health research … Read more
Well targeted policy measures can influence fertility even in times of intensive social and economic change. Analysing data from the Hungarian Generations and Gender Survey, Zsolt Spéder, Lívia Murinkó and … Read more
Examining couples in both the United States and western Germany, Daniela Bellani and Gøsta Esping-Andersen find lower divorce risks when the division of unpaid work is more balanced. This suggests … Read more
Spatial inequalities in mortality decreased in France between 1881 and 1980 (“the century of convergence”), and life expectancy increased at national level. However, Florian Bonnet and Hippolyte d’Albis show that … Read more
International migration and family life are frequently difficult to reconcile. Valentina Mazzucato, Djamila Schans, Kim Caarls, and Cris Beauchemin focus on three cases (the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and … Read more
Fertility among immigrants has declined in many Western countries. In Norway, Marianne Tønnessen finds that the successful integration of immigrants is not the main driver of the decline since 2000, … Read more
Martin Kolk and Gunnar Andersson study the evolution of same-sex marriages, childbearing and divorce in Sweden. They highlight increases in childbearing and marriage of female couples in particular, and a … Read more
Even in Belgium, despite its strong work-family reconciliation policies, childbearing pushes couples towards more traditional gender roles: when one member of a couple exits the labour market or takes parental … Read more
Low-educated persons are especially likely to have their children outside marriage in Finland. While the proportion of people with low education has declined sharply in most countries in recent decades, … Read more
Since the 1980s, obesity prevalence has increased threefold in many European countries. Without obesity, life expectancy in 26 European countries in 2012 would have been, on average, 1.2 years higher … Read more
In recent decades, the proportion of individuals living alone has increased in many European countries. Glenn Sandström and Lena Karlsson compare the living arrangements of the working-age population, showing that … Read more
In Great Britain, compared to 20 years ago, the traditional gender division of labour is no longer benefiting fertility, note Muzhi Zhou and Man-Yee Kan. Nowadays, couples with more children … Read more
Population ageing is inevitable, but its negative consequences on the future labour force of the European Union, up to 2060, could be greatly attenuated if women and immigrants were more … Read more
François Beaudonnet a enquêté cette semaine sur une phénomène européen dont personne ne parle: l’hémorragie démographique. Des centaines de milliers de jeunes des pays de l’Est ont quitté leur terre … Read more
For the 2020 census round, Paolo Valente informs us that two-thirds of European countries plan to increase efficiency by using methods other than the traditional census based on paper questionnaires. Registers will … Read more
In the context of population ageing, work-family reconciliation policies potentially play an important role in supporting both fertility and parental employment. However, the evaluation of such policies remains a challenge. … Read more
Using German data, Francesco Billari, Osea Giuntella and Luca Stella test whether broadband Internet influences fertility choices in a low-fertility setting. They find positive effects of high-speed Internet on the … Read more
Adolescent mothers are atypical not only at the start of their reproductive career, but also in its following stages, which are characterized by a higher intensity but slower tempo, notes … Read more
Increasing attention is directed towards the ‘diverging destinies’ of children born in different family contexts. One might expect disparities to be small in Nordic welfare states, yet in Finland, as … Read more
One way to tackle population ageing and its negative consequences on pension systems is to increase the official retirement age. However, most employees retire earlier than “expected”. Jana Mäcken tests the … Read more
Many studies find that highly educated women have few children and high level of childlessness, but as Marika Jalovaara and colleagues show, the patterns in the Nordic countries have changed … Read more
In the last decades, researchers have suggested that gender equality may have a positive effect on fertility in high-income countries. While this conjecture appears to be true cross-sectionally, it does … Read more
Public interest in migration has intensified in recent times, and restrictive policies are gaining increasing political support. These are often based on misconceptions, such as migrants being responsible for spreading … Read more
Female life expectancy is higher than that of males, and this gender gap is largest in Eastern Europe. Sergi Trias-Llimós and Fanny Janssen show that alcohol-attributable mortality explained more than … Read more
Gender equality in political participation may make a difference. Ross Macmillan, Naila Shofia, and Wendy Sigle show that women’s presence in national legislatures above a threshold of around 30 percent … Read more
A growing body of research has suggested that one way to preserve cognition in later-life is to delay retirement and continue to work into the later years. Irene Mosca and … Read more
Proving many experts’ forecasts wrong, large parts of Europe are witnessing population growth rather than stability or decline. Hannes Weber notes that this is having detrimental effects on the environment … Read more
Women tend to adapt to their male spouse when families move. Maria Brandén and Karen Haandrikman examine whether this is also true for the moves couples make when forming a … Read more
While the mean ages at death for Danish and Swedish centenarians were relatively constant at around 102 years for the cohorts born between 1870 and 1904, Anthony Medford shows that … Read more
Researchers have often assumed that only circumstances within national borders influence fertility decisions. In an integrated Europe, however, people may know about and compare conditions across countries.At least in the … Read more
The increasing popularity of cohabitation has opened a debate on the stability of cohabitations, and especially those in which there is a child. Zuzana Žilinčíková shows that cohabitations have a … Read more
A large body of previous work has suggested that both short and long birth intervals are associated with poor birth outcomes such as low birth weight and preterm birth, as … Read more
Although previously unknown among natives in EU28, the practice of female genital mutilation/cutting is a present concern for European policymakers. As many as 500,000 foreign-born girls and women in Europe … Read more
Together with Fjalar Finnäs and Mikael Rostila, Jan Saarela shows that in Finland the death of a minor child has only a modest influence on the parental divorce risk, whereas … Read more
Previous research has indicated that being born to older parents is detrimental for offspring longevity. However, the secular trend of increasing longevity may moderate or even reverse any potential negative … Read more
Starting in the late 1980s, new laws concerning same-sex unions were passed, first in Denmark (registered partnerships in 1989) and the Netherlands (marriage in 2001), and then in several other … Read more
In most Western European countries, retiring and entering grandparenthood are relatively parallel events for most individuals, with grandparenthood often occurring a few years before retirement (Leopold and Lechner, 2015).Does being … Read more
In a recent study (Väisänen 2017), I examined how women make decisions to terminate a pregnancy within the wider context of their lives – including the state and quality of … Read more
Family policies such as parental leave schemes increasingly support the work-family balance. Although labour force participation has increased in recent decades among mothers in majority populations, maternal employment levels and … Read more
While public health officials worry about the distressingly high levels of tobacco use across the world, they increasingly recognize that smoking also worsens inequalities in health and life expectancy.Trends in … Read more
In European demography, Iceland has been an outlier until recently, with a fertility rate well above that of most countries on the continent. Between 1982 and 2014, the Icelandic total … Read more
Italy, Spain and Germany have reported the largest increase in childlessness in Europe. Source: http://www.fertilitydatasheet.org/
Immigration during childhood represents an important turning point for future developmental trajectories, and the timing of this event (i.e., age at arrival) has an impact on later-life educational success and … Read more
The prevalence of living alone during later life varies widely across developed countries but everywhere its recent growth has been remarkable, even in societies with traditionally strong family ties. Fertility … Read more
The age differentiation of neighbourhoods is often viewed as natural, inevitable or unproblematic, with the view of particular places as appropriate for some age groups while others are not. Increases … Read more
The postponement of first childbirth has been occurring in most European countries for some decades now. In public and media discussion, delayed childbearing is often rather glibly associated with the … Read more
Europe has large projected increases in the proportion of older people in the population (United Nations 2013). Therefore, high quality, representative longitudinal data on the older European population are essential … Read more
The mid-20th-century was a Golden Age of marriage in Europe and the United States. People married early, usually in their early-to-mid-20s, and often, with over 90% of people marrying at … Read more
High levels of childlessness may seem typical of individualized modern societies. However, the phenomenon has been widespread throughout human history. From the Early Modern Period, marriage and childbearing were strictly … Read more
We all die one day, but we are not all equal in this respect, because death tends to strike at different ages. Take men and women, for instance: in France, … Read more
An increasing number of couples today are dependent upon women’s labour income. Along with an increase in dual-earner couples, couples where the woman out-earns her partner are also on the … Read more
The emergence of large numbers of centenarians has accompanied the ageing of our populations. The number of people aged 100 years and over in England and Wales, for example, increased … Read more
Europe’s population is bound to shrink before 2050: according to the latest revision (2015, medium variant) of the UN (2015) projections, it will decline by 4.5% (31 million) between 2015 … Read more
If at first you don’t succeed … The first union used to be the one that would last “until death do us part”. The transformation in partnership behaviour emerging in … Read more
