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In this study, we argue that parents' class position may influence the type and timing of their offspring's investments in financial assets. These investments may facilitate net worth accumulation beyond direct transfers, contributing to the intergenerational reproduction of social positions. We test these expectations using retrospective life history and prospective panel data for 14 countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We apply discrete-time event history analyses to examine the first financial investments' timing over the life course and conduct a mediation analysis of net worth. We find that individuals from advantaged parental classes are more likely to invest in stocks and mutual funds. When considering horizontal differentiation, managerial classes with relatively more economic capital than cultural capital are more likely to invest in financial assets. However, we do not find robust evidence for distinct timings of financial investments by parental class. Advantaged parental class is positively associated with net worth in later life. However, this association cannot be explained by the specific investments of individuals from advantaged parental classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior literature finds stability in personal culture, such as attitudes and values, in individuals' life courses using short-running panel data. This work has concluded that lasting change in personal culture is rare after formative early years. This conclusion conflicts with a growing body of evidence for changes in personal culture after significant life course transitions, drawing on long-running panel data. To integrate these conflicting findings, the current study develops and applies a life course adaption model of personal culture, accounting for early imprinting and the continued possibility for change. Drawing on rich data from six long-running panel studies from five countries (BHPS, HILDA, PSID, SHP, SOEP, UKHLS) and 428 measures of personal culture, I test the theoretical expectations using mixed-effects modeling and an individual participant data meta-analysis. Results support the life course adaption model. Although lasting, non-transitory, within-individual changes in personal culture are relatively small compared to stable between-individual differences, I find strong support for the proposition that individuals change persistently in their personal culture as they move through the life course. These changes are partly dependent on prior biographical experiences. Finally, personal culture fluctuates substantially from year to year. Change in personal culture is increasingly varied for younger birth cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Families' economic wealth is a resource that can provide children with crucial advantages early in their lives. Prior research identified substantial variation of wealth levels between different family types with children from single-parent families being most disadvantaged. The causes of this disadvantage, how much the disadvantage varies between children and how the non-resident parents' wealth may potentially reduce the disadvantage remain unclear. To address these research gaps, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (2002–17) to examine the level of and inequality in wealth for children from single-parent families using recentred influence function regression and decomposition analysis. We replicate earlier findings of a large wealth disadvantage for children in single-parent families. We find that the wealth disadvantage can be mainly explained with compositional differences in household income and employment characteristics. Beyond level differences, inequality between children from single-parent families is higher than for other family types and this inequality can only partly be explained by observed demographic and socio-economic characteristics. When considering the wealth of non-resident parents, the wealth disadvantage of children in single-parent families is reduced but remains substantial. JEL-codes: D31, D1, J1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examines fairness perceptions of experimentally manipulated savings arrangements in couples (i.e., distribution of control and ownership of savings) to identify distributive justice principles in marriage. Background: Theoretically, competing norms about individual ownership rights and autonomy (equity principle) and marital sharing (equality principle) in interaction with gender ideology (entitlement principle) may explain how individuals perceive the fairness of different savings arrangements, but these explanations have not been tested against each other yet. Method: In a nationally representative factorial survey experiment, implemented in the German GESIS Panel, 3,948 respondents evaluated the fairness of randomly presented savings arrangements (N = 19,648 evaluations). Results: Respondents rated equal control as more important than equal ownership to establish fairness in marriage. The ownership of savings does not seem to be directly linked to control, providing evidence against the equity principle. Inequality in ownership is rated fairer if it is in favor of the husband, whereas inequality in control is rated fairer if it is in favor of the wife. This suggests that gender is an ascriptive characteristic according to which resources should be allocated (entitlement principle). Conclusion: The results indicate that the ideal of marital sharing is widespread, but is rather accomplished by equal control than by equal ownership. Individuals' fairness perceptions of inequality in marriage are gendered, that is, depend on whom inequality favors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To document how changes in household wealth following the dissolution of marriage and cohabitation differ by gender in Germany. Background: Marital property regimes usually prescribe that both partners receive a share of the couple's wealth following a divorce. The dissolution of cohabiting unions is not governed by marital property regimes in most countries, including Germany. Because men, on average, legally own a larger share of couple wealth than women, gender differences in household wealth might be more pronounced following the dissolution of cohabitation as compared to marriage. Method: The analysis consists of individual fixed effects regression models using longitudinal data from the German socio‐economic panel (N = 18,131 individuals) for the years 2002 to 2017. Results: The dissolution of marriage is negatively related to the accumulation of wealth over time and effect sizes are similar for men and women. The dissolution of cohabiting unions is related to losses in wealth for women but not for men. Models accounting for various postdissolution factors suggest that an unequal division of household wealth produces these gender differences after the dissolution of cohabitation. Conclusion: Whereas the dissolution of marriage lowers household wealth for men and women alike, there are gender differences in how the dissolution of cohabiting unions affects the accumulation of wealth. Union dissolution therefore has the potential to contribute to gender inequality in household wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Panel data has become the gold standard for causal assessments of complex human behaviour in quantitative social science. The objective of this review is to examine and discuss how panel data and related methods contribute to the identification of causal relationships in spatial mobility research. We illustrate this by providing a succinct overview of recent progress in spatial mobility research, drawing on panel data. The review outlines research from a number of scholarly disciplines that maps patterns, establishes determinants and assesses the impact of spatial mobility for a range of outcomes. Studies presented in this article are used to decipher complex interdependencies over the life course, scrutinise the selectivity of migrants, and shed light on the interplay between individual agency, social embeddedness and socio-structural contexts. The article concludes with a set of critical issues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the accumulation of personal wealth of husbands and wives and investigates the development of within-couple wealth inequalities over time in marriage. Going beyond previous research that mostly studied the marriage wealth premium using household-level wealth data and that conceptualized marriage as an instantaneous transition with uniform consequences over time, we argue that entry into marriage is a gendered life-course event that dynamically shapes husbands' and wives' wealth accumulation. Using high-quality data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017), we apply fixed-effects regression models to describe wealth accumulation within marriage. We find evidence that wealth premiums are lower during early years of marriage, but increase steadily thereafter. The premium is mostly concentrated in housing wealth. Results from supplementary analyses with limited data, however, suggest that the premium may not be causal for men. Regarding within-couple wealth inequalities, we find a pronounced within-couple wealth gap prior to marriage during pre-marital cohabitation. This gap remains stable over time in marriage. In contrast to findings regarding income, our study indicates that the institution of marriage may not amplify within-couple wealth inequalities further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite considerable variation in gender-role attitudes across contexts and its claimed influence on female labour supply, studies provide little support for a contextual gender-role attitude effect. In this study, we reassess the contextual gender-role attitude effect on female labour supply because earlier studies are hampered by two shortcomings: (a) they are cross-nationally comparative, which makes it difficult to distinguish contextual attitude from institutional effects; (b) they are cross-sectional, which may bias the contextual attitude effect. We aim to overcome these shortcomings by performing longitudinal panel analyses on data from the British Household Panel Survey 1991–2007, comparing 138 counties within the United Kingdom. Our fixed-effects regressions report no significant and substantial association of regional, egalitarian gender-role attitudes with individual women's labour supply, a finding which both holds for women's probability to be active in the labour market and employed women's working hours, and for women with and without (young) children. Female labour supply appears to be much stronger associated with women's own and partners' gender-role attitudes, in particular for women with (young) children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The finding that homeowners own more non-housing wealth than tenants is well known. We examine whether the higher financial wealth of owners can be partly explained with increases in saving when becoming a homeowner in two distinct institutional contexts. Using longitudinal data for the UK (British Household Panel Survey) and Germany (Socio-Economic Panel Study), we find that homeowners save more and are financially wealthier than tenants. However, when controlling for time-constant selection into homeownership, upon entering homeownership households reduce their probability to save in Germany and reduce their average saving rate in Germany and the UK. For Germany, there is some evidence that processes of homemaking (family formation and home improvement) lead to less saving. For the UK, we find no evidence that increasing home equity over time discourages saving. Finally, tenants do not compensate for their lack of housing wealth by accumulating more non-housing wealth over time. This disadvantage for tenants seems more pronounced in the UK compared to Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women, particularly those in coresidential unions, have previously been found to spend less time commuting to work than men. This gender gap among couples’ commuting has been linked to inferior labor market opportunities for women. How gender differences in commuting emerge on entering coresidence is underresearched, however. This study examines changes in commuting times at the transition from singlehood to coresidential unions using the British Household Panel Survey (1992-2008; N = 8,122 individuals). Results from fixed effects regression indicate that men increase their commuting time when entering coresidential unions. For childless women, entering coresidential unions is not associated with changes in commuting time. Mothers reduce their commuting time on entering coresidential unions. Changes in labor income and domestic housework responsibilities, previously suggested as likely explanations, are not found to contribute to observed changes in commuting among those entering coresidential unions in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many young people in Europe face employment insecurity, a condition which will likely persist following the global economic downturn that started with the financial crisis of 2007-08. Previous research has shown that employment insecurity impedes the entry into homeownership. It is, however, less clear how this delayed entry into homeownership is filtered by contextual arrangements at the country level. Using longitudinal data from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (2007-11), we confirm prior findings on the negative effect of employment insecurity across European countries. We also find contextual variations. In more marketised housing provision systems in Northern and Western Europe, where mortgages are readily available to those in secure employment, the negative effect of employment insecurity (relative to having secure employment) on the transition into homeownership is accentuated. In more familialistic systems with strongly regulated labour markets in Southern Europe, the difference between young people in different employment situations is smaller, yet still significant. We find similarsized differences between those in insecure and secure employment in the Baltic States, but not in the other Eastern and Central European countries, where housing shortages impede the entry into homeownership for young people across different employment positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chances are high that not both partners in dual-earner couples stay in employment after long-distance moves, because jobs are distributed heterogeneously in space. Previous research shows that women are more likely to leave employment than men. I extend this literature by adding evidence from Germany and by comparing the effects of moves in Britain, West and East Germany with data from the BHPS and the SOEP. My results show that women in dual-earner couples are more likely to leave employment after moves in Britain and West Germany compared to stayers, while women in East Germany are not adversely affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how researchers' analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of social science research, research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions. Researchers' expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 95% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after qualitative coding of all identifiable decisions in each team's workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that remains hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers' results and conclusions varied is a previously underappreciated explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for greater epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings.

This study examines the association between sibship size and wealth in adulthood. The study draws on resource dilution theory and additionally discusses potentially wealth-enhancing consequences of having siblings. Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP, N  = 3502 individuals) are used to estimate multilevel regression models adjusted for concurrent parental wealth and other important confounders neglected in extant work. The main results of the current study show that additional siblings reduce wealth by about 38%. Parental wealth moderates the association so that sibship size is more negatively associated with filial wealth when parents are wealthier. Birth order position does not moderate the association between sibship size and wealth. The findings suggest that fertility in the family of origin has a systematic impact on wealth attainment and may contribute to population-level wealth inequalities independently from other socio-economic characteristics in families of origin such as parental wealth., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe author declares that he has no conflict of interest., (© Springer Nature B.V. 2019.)