Although men’s employment has a consistently positive association with starting a family in Europe, this association has been less clear for women. Using harmonized couple-level data for the years 2004–2017, … Read more
As populations grow older, the economic boost known as the demographic dividend, driven by a large working-age population, is fading. However, the drivers of prosperity are shifting. Using Chinese demographic … Read more
Promoting longer working lives has become a key policy response to population ageing. Jan Einhoff finds that successive European birth cohorts have spent a growing number of years in employment … Read more
Drawing on data from ISTAT’s survey on the Social Condition and Integration of Foreign Citizens, Alessio Buonomo, Stefania Capecchi, Francesca Di Iorio and Salvatore Strozza examine the association between cultural … Read more
Michael J. White, Tyler W. Myroniuk, Carren Ginsburg, and Chantel Pheiffer examine the question of whether migrants in the South African context (2018–2020, rural-to-urban migration) have more “grit”— perseverance in … Read more
Young people in the Global South are following increasingly diverse and ever-changing paths to adulthood. Yet, inequalities persist. Shelley Clark and Khandys Agnant show that despite impressive gains in female … Read more
When measuring the demographic support ratio, including only the country’s residents may prove insufficient. Lukas Tohoff, Daji Landis, Letizia Mencarini, and Arnstein Aassve develop a novel demographic indicator to account … Read more
Using longitudinal register data for Belgium, Jonas Wood, Leen Marynissen and Dries Van Gasse find that fathers who earn less than their female partners are more likely to use parental … Read more
Permanent migration to OECD countries reached 6.1 million in 2022, a 26% increase compared with 2021, and its highest level since at least 2005. Rising labour migration was one contributing … 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
The gender gap in labor force participation is expanding in China, for various reasons, among which scarcity of affordable public childcare and growing discrimination against women in the labor market. … Read more
In the United States, the Hispanic population was hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic than the majority (non-Hispanic White) population. Elizabeth Arias and Betzaida Tejada-Vera investigate the matter and highlight … Read more
Latin America faces a unique societal challenge: high numbers of young adults, especially women, who neither work nor pursue education, known colloquially as “nini.” Using census microdata for 12 countries, … 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
Racial disparities in socio-economic and health outcomes are a topic of concern in the United States. As Deepthi Kolady and Weiwei Zhang show, they have also played a major role … Read more
Low and declining female labour force participation in India has been a puzzle and a key policy question in the recent past. Chhavi Tiwari and Srinivas Goli argue that it … Read more
India’s economic sector faces a reckoning with its ageing population. Aparajita Chattopadhyay and David E. Bloom‘s analysis, based on the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI), indicates that health is … Read more
Benedetta Scotti1 examines the relationship between late-career trajectories and post-retirement mortality in Italy. She finds that exposure to employment instability in later working life, an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in many … Read more
The centrality of women’s economic empowerment in achieving the sustainable development goals has attracted high level policy interest. Data limitations impede knowledge of its extent in Africa. Demographic and health … Read more
As female labour force participation continues to rise in Taiwan, more women are faced with the dual burden of employment and household responsibilities. Jolene Tan highlights the impact of a … 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
Assessments of intergenerational transmission focus primarily on children reproducing parental status. Sergi Vidal, Philipp Lersch, Marita Jacob, and Karsten Hank offer a new perspective to understand the intergenerational transmission of … 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
Most accounts of women in the workforce focus on gender inequality. Ariel Binder1 provides a related, but often-ignored, discussion of inequality between more- and less-educated mothers. Policies that retrigger progress … 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
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
Gender equality in child care can be promoted through individual entitlements to a non-transferable and well-paid leave of equal duration for women and men. While this design is still rare … Read more
More married couples today consist of two high-income or two low-income partners (i.e., income homogamy), which leads to greater income inequality in married-couple families. Yifan Shen shows that, all else … Read more
Health deteriorates with age, and it can be further worsened by adversities experienced during early adulthood and middle age. On SHARE data, Francesca Zanasi, Gustavo De Santis and Elena Pirani measure … Read more
Examining the long-term consequences of the family life course for women’s earnings in 22 European countries, Joanne S. Muller, Nicole Hiekel & Aart C. Liefbroer find no earnings gap between mothers … 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
With U.S. Social Security Trust Funds projected to be insolvent in 2035, America is again facing its retirement riddle. Congress can address the insolvency by making possible adjustments in three … 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
Immigrant men who arrived in the United States in the latter part of the twentieth century experienced varied earning trajectories. Leafia Ye and Michal Engelman show that those who came … 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
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
In the U.S., adopting a Canadian‐style admissions policy, i.e., explicitly selecting immigrants based on educational attainment,would not significantly improve the educational level of the labor force, and the (unlikely) elimination … 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
Lily Casura, Ricardo Lowe, Jr., Cristina Martinez, Sarah Serpas, Victoria Castellanos, and Joachim Singelmann examine the sociodemographic characteristics of frontline workers in the United States in terms of race/ethnicity, sex, … Read more
For billions of people, mobile phones provide a means to communicate effectively, to obtain information, and to access vital services for health, education, society, and the economy. Francesco C. Billari, … Read more
Women tend to earn less than their male partners, all over the world. André Grow and Jan Van Bavel show that this can easily be explained by combining the unequal … 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
Offering free daycare services could substantially increase female employment in Africa. Results from a randomized control trial conducted by Shelley Clark, Caroline Kabiru, Sonia Laszlo, and Stella Muthuri in an … 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
Wolfgang Lutz, Jesus Crespo Cuaresma, and Nicholas Gailey show that the “demographic dividend” does not result from the opening of “a window of opportunity” caused by a declining youth dependency … Read more
Fostering is common throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but the motivations for fostering and consequences for fostered children remain unclear. In northern Tanzania, Sophie Hedges, Rebecca Sear, Jim Todd, Mark Urassa, and … 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
As fertility declines in low- and middle-income countries, the time women devote to childrearing may also be reduced, opening up possibilities for women to pursue educational and employment opportunities. John Bongaarts, … 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
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
Trends in labour force participation and health status of older adults in Latin America reveal a puzzling pattern: the greatly improved health (and labour) conditions of recent years have translated … Read more
Using European panel data from 2003 to 2011 (EU-SILC), Angela Greulich, Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière and Olivier Thévenon show that dual-earner couples are more likely to have a second child than couples … Read more
Christian Dudel and Mikko Myrskylä study how the length of working life has developed in the U.S. since the early 1990s. While overall life expectancy has increased, there has been … 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
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
Living standards have risen generally, and poverty rates have fallen across Sub-Saharan Africa since the late 1990s (Chen and Ravallion, 2013). Less is known about how different groups have fared.In … Read more
On average, in the United States, men earn more per hour when married than when single, even after adjusting for differences such as age and education. However, despite the suggestive … Read more
A fifth of the world population work in agriculture and over 400 million people are entrepreneurs. 430 million people are unemployed and almost 2 billion people are too young to … Read more
Paid work in adulthood is generally considered beneficial for physical and psychological health and well-being (Woodell and Burton 2006) but its effects at older ages are unclear. Research on work … 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
A boost to female empowerment Women are underrepresented in top positions everywhere in the world. Even in countries where more women participate in the labor market, only a minority makes … 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
More than half of a century has passed since Edith Clark first wrote “My Mother Who Fathered Me” in 1957, a classic study on single motherhood (marriage, sex, and concubinage) … Read more
Co-residence between elderly parents and independent, married adult children is a common phenomenon in East Asian societies. For example, according to the 2005 China Inter-Census Survey data, two thirds of … Read more
The married are happier and more satisfied with their lives than the unmarried (Verbakel, 2012; Gove et al., 1990). Yet, as divorce and cohabitation increase, we may be facing a … Read more
Introduction Family policy in Sweden is designed to strongly encourage parents (and especially women) to combine work and family formation. The parental leave system makes it profitable for people (women) … Read more
It is heartening to see the renewal of interest in demography by at least some African governments. A share of the credit for this can be attributed to the discourse … Read more
Advocacy is a funny thing. If you feel strongly enough about a cause, as everyone in international development does these days, it is no longer enough to campaign for something … Read more
If there is one gender issue that has mainstream America rightly roiled up today, it has to do with women and work, or more specifically, women at work. Never-ending reports in … Read more
Freanch version below Two years ago, Neodemos received an article from Valeria SOLESIN, a young student who was then unknown to most demographers, in Italy or elsewhere. She was later … Read more
AMERICAN citizens are paying 535 people to take care of the legislative needs of the country. We are getting shortchanged. Here’s an example: On June 10, an incumbent congressman in … Read more
