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Informed by the life course perspective, this paper investigates whether and how employment and family trajectories are jointly associated with subjective, relational and financial wellbeing later in life. We draw on data from the Swiss Household Panel which combines biographical retrospective information on work, partnership and childbearing trajectories with 19 annual waves containing a number of wellbeing indicators as well as detailed socio-demographic and social origin information. We use sequence analysis to identify the main family and work trajectories for men and women aged 20–50 years old. We use OLS regression models to assess the association between those trajectories and their interdependency with wellbeing. Results reveal a joint association between work and family trajectories and wellbeing at older age, even net of social origin and pre-trajectory resources. For women, but not for men, the association is also not fully explained by proximate (current family and work status) determinants of wellbeing. Women’s stable full-time employment combined with traditional family trajectories yields a subjective wellbeing premium, whereas childlessness and absence of a stable partnership over the life course is associated with lower levels of financial and subjective wellbeing after 50 especially in combination with a trajectory of weak labour market involvement. Relational wellbeing is not associated with employment trajectories, and only weakly linked to family trajectories among men.

This study examines the prevalence and socio-demographic profiles of post-separation parents practicing shared physical custody (SPC) in Switzerland, and its associations with parental health and w...

Changing legal and parental practices across Europe led to a higher share of parents practicing shared physical custody (SPC) upon separation, who tended to be more affluent and less conflict-ridden. Since SPC became more prevalent, profiles of SPC parents pluralized. Far from these developments, no clearly defined legal pathways toward SPC existed in Switzerland before 2017. Profiling the Swiss case, we examine the prevalence of SPC families, and its associations with parental health and well-being before these legislative changes. Among 875 separated parents of 1,269 minors, SPC (i.e., child alternates between parental homes at least 30% of the time) was practiced by about 11% of the sample. A higher share of SPC parents was highly-educated, yet more financially strained compared to other parents. Although no overall differences in health and well-being emerged between SPC and other separated parents (e.g., with sole custody), SPC-health-linkages varied by gender and education. We conclude that lacking institutional support for SPC and gender-biased employment practices reinforce traditional custody models. Because of costly childcare and more skewed time splits among Swiss SPC parents, SPC may represent more of a resource drain—at least economically—than a relief for the parent shouldering more care duties and expenses.

Using a mixed-method design, this study explores the heterogeneity in employment trajectories before and after the transition to lone parenthood in Switzerland. First, we perform sequence and cluster analysis on data from the Swiss Household panel to identify typical employment trajectories around the transition to lone parenthood, and then estimate their association with individual and household characteristics (N=462). Finally, we contrast these results with findings from a content analysis of narrative interviews with lone mothers residing in Switzerland (N=38), focusing on values and norms concerning work and care. We identify five employment patterns characterized by either an increase in labor supply (especially for those with more/older children) or by stability in or outside the labor market (for highly educated or younger mothers respectively). The analyses of the interviews provide insights on how employment opportunities and decisions differ by entry mode into lone parenthood, the post-separation relationship with the children’s father, and the ability to mobilize individual, social and institutional resources. The heterogeneity of employment trajectories calls for more attention to within-group differences rather than focusing exclusively on the divide between lone and coupled mothers. By identifying the multiplicity of factors shaping lone mothers’ decisions on their labor market participation, this work feeds into the literature suggesting that effective policies encouraging lone mothers’ labor-market participation should consider: (i) their normative priorities when facing work and care trade-offs, and (ii) the availability of informal and formal support.

Background: The fertility of immigrants and their descendants is a crucial determinant of population dynamics, particularly where migrants are numerous and ethnically diverse, as in Switzerland. This paper analyses the transition to the first and second births of immigrants and their descendants and compares them with each other and with the native population. Methods: Using survival analysis and drawing on data from the Family and Generation Survey (FGS-2013), we disaggregate the fertility indicators of intensity and timing by ethnic minority and by birth order, controlling for a variety of sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Our results show that while there is no substantive difference in the probability and timing of first births between immigrants, their descendants, and Swiss natives, first-generation immigrants become parents younger and more often. Quite unexpectedly, we found that for migrants a second child is less frequent and comes after a longer birth interval than for Swiss natives, independently of whether or not they are born in Switzerland. Contribution: This pattern of a delayed second birth for immigrants and their descendants differs from those observed in other European countries (Kulu et al. 2017). Our paper contributes to the literature by examining the heterogeneous fertility trajectories of different groups of migrants and their children. Our results by ethnic group and generation document fertility distribution in a highly diversified migration context, where new migrant groups are joining more established groups and where integration and family policies are weak, compared with the rest of Europe.

Les meres sans conjoint et avec des enfants a charge sont plus susceptibles d’etre sans emploi et pauvres, deux facteurs qui augmentent les risques d’etre en mauvaise sante. En Suisse, l’insuffisance des politiques de conciliation entre travail et famille et une fiscalite qui avantage les couples maries adoptant une division traditionnelle du travail se traduisent par de faibles taux de participation des meres au marche du travail. Pour le cas particulier des meres seules vivant avec leurs enfants, l’emploi peut etre associe a une meilleure sante parce qu’il attenue les difficultes economiques liees au fait d’etre le seul pourvoyeur de ressources du foyer. Cependant, le travail peut representer un facteur de stress supplementaire etant donne que les meres assument desormais seules la majeure partie des soins aux enfants. Comment l’etat de sante autodeclare est-il associe a la situation familiale et le statut d’activite en Suisse ? Les analyses du Panel suisse de menages (vagues 1999-2011) montrent que les meres seules qui sont hors du marche du travail presentent plus de risques de declarer un mauvais etat de sante, en particulier si elles disposent d’un diplome du secondaire superieur. En revanche, les meres seules se declarent en meilleure sante si elles travaillent a temps plein plutot qu’a temps partiel, alors que c’est l’inverse pour les meres en couple.

Background: Switzerland hosts one of the largest and most diversified migrant populations in Europe, while currently reinforcing restrictive immigration policies. Knowledge on Swiss immigrant-native marriages, as ultimate signposts of integration, is limited. Objective: We explore the role of origin group and birth cohort in the emergence and dissolution of mixed marriages in Switzerland among both natives and immigrants. Methods: Based on a sample of 12,827 respondents from the 2013 Swiss Family and Generations Survey, we fit competing-risks models for entry into first marriage, and Cox proportional hazards models for entry into (first) divorce. Results: We find evidence of a segmented marriage market, with migrants from neighbouring Western European countries having higher chances of getting and staying married to a Swiss native. As opposed to natives, migrants from younger cohorts are progressively less likely to intermarry. Conclusions: In line with segmented assimilation claims, results suggest differences in integration pathways between immigrant groups. Findings also point to the reactive ethnicity of marginalized groups (e.g., Turks and ex-Yugoslavs) in response to an increasingly hostile immigration climate. Decreasing (inter)marriage with natives among young immigrants reflects shifting marriage market conditions over the last decades. Contribution: Drawing on rich data, we provide an extensive investigation of intermarriage in Switzerland by examining outcomes of both occurrence and longevity, for both native and immigrant groups. The study focuses on a context with significant recent transformations in population composition and immigration climate, making it compelling to test integration theories and investigate how different groups, as well as younger (versus older) cohorts, intermarry in reaction to such changes.

How do changes in employment uncertainty matter for fertility? Empirical studies on the impact of employment uncertainty on reproductive decision-making offer a variety of conclusions, ranging from gender and socio-economic differences in the effect of employment uncertainty on fertility intentions and behaviour, to the effect of employment on changes in fertility intentions. This article analyses the association between a change in subjective employment uncertainty and fertility intentions and behaviour by distinguishing male and female partners’ employment uncertainty, and examines the variation in these associations by education. Using a sample of men and women living in a couple from the Swiss Household Panel (SHP 2002–2011), we examine through multinomial analysis how changes in employment uncertainty and selected socio-demographic factors are related to individual childbearing decisions. Our results show strong gendered effects of changes in employment uncertainty on the revision of reproductive decisions among the highly educated population.

Empirical studies indicate that the transition to parenthood is influenced by an individual’s peer group. To study the mechanisms creating interdependencies across individuals’ transition to parenthood and its timing, we apply an agent-based simulation model. We build a one-sex model and provide agents with three different characteristics: age, intended education, and parity. Agents endogenously form their network based on social closeness. Network members may then influence the agents’ transition to higher parity levels. Our numerical simulations indicate that accounting for social interactions can explain the shift of first-birth probabilities in Austria during the period 1984 to 2004. Moreover, we apply our model to forecast age-specific fertility rates up to 2016.

The first Rostock Debate on Demographic Change, which took place on February 21, 2006, centered on the following question: Should governments in Europe push much more aggressively for gender equality to raise fertility? The four debaters were Laurent Toulemon from the Institut National d'Etudes Demograhiques (France), Dimiter Philipov from the Vienna Institute of Demography (Austria), Livia Oláh from Stockholm University (Sweden), and Gerda Neyer from the Max Planck Institute (Germany)

The existing literature shows that the social interactions in personal networks affect individuals’ reproductive attitudes and behavior through three mechanisms: social influence, social learning, and social support. In this article, we discuss the extent to which the socio-psychological model of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) takes these social mechanisms into account when used in modeling fertility intentions and behavior. We argue that by integrating all three social network mechanisms, the ability of the TPB to explain reproductive events could be enhanced in two respects. First, social influence explains why some beliefs and practices are reproduced at the individual level even in the face of macro-level changes, and social learning mechanisms are crucial to distinguish who finally adopts new behavioral beliefs and practices in response to changes at the macro level. Second, social support relationships represent a capital of services to complement institutional provision (informal child care) as well as a capital of knowledge which helps individuals navigate in a complex institutional environment, providing a crucial element to explain heterogeneity in the successful realization of fertility intentions across individuals. The integration of the three social network mechanisms into the TPB helps to address the connection between changes in what the theory indicates as background factors and variation in individual intentions and behavior. We develop specific hypotheses concerning the effect of social interactions on fertility intentions and their realization and conclude with a critical review of the existing surveys that could serve to test these hypotheses and their limits.

The deep drop of the fertility rate in Italy to among the lowest in the world challenges contemporary theories of childbearing and family building. Among high-income countries, Italy was presumed to have characteristics of family values and female labor force participation that would favor higher fertility than its European neighbors to the north. We test competing economic and cultural explanations, drawing on new nationally representative, longitudinal data to examine first union, first birth, and second birth. Our event history analysis finds some support for economic determinants of family formation and fertility, but the clear importance of regional differences and of secularization suggests that such an explanation is at best incomplete and that cultural and ideational factors must be considered.

This paper introduces a collection of related research studies on the anthropological demography of Europe. Anthropological demography is a specialty within demography that uses anthropological theory and methods to provide a better understanding of demographic phenomena in current and past populations. Its genesis and ongoing growth lies at the intersection of demography and socio-cultural anthropology and with their efforts to understand population processes: mainly fertility migration and mortality. Both disciplines share a common research subject namely human populations and they focus on mutually complementary aspects. The authors of this paper focus on the differences between the disciplines of anthropology and demography the emergence of anthropological demography and its theoretical methodological and empirical aspects. In addition they critically summarize the contributions that were presented in the first workshop of the Working Group on Anthropological Demography of Europe of the European Association for Population Studies held in Rostock in Fall 2005 and reflect on how these papers add to the further development of anthropological demography in Europe i.e. elaborating the epistemology of anthropological demography; applying additional theoretical perspectives to better understand demographic behaviour in Europe ; illustrating the way in which culture plays a role in case studies on European demographic behaviour; and emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to data collection and the added value of triangulating quantitative and qualitative analyses. (authors)

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the economic determinants of fertility behavior by addressing the role of job insecurity in couples’ intentions concerning parenthood and its timing. It starts from the hypothesis that cultural values moderate individuals’ reactions to job insecurity and the way it is related to family formation. With a systematic thematic content analysis of a set of semi-structured interviews with childless men and women around the age of 30 in eastern and western Germany, we are able to show that there are substantial differences in the consequences of job insecurity on intentions to have a first child. In western Germany, a relatively secure job career is expected to precede family formation, and this sequence of transitions is rather rigid, whereas in eastern Germany job security and family formation are thought of and practiced as parallel investments. We suggest that the lack of convergence in family formation patterns between eastern and western Germany after the unification of the country in 1990 is partially related to different attitudes toward job insecurity in the two contexts.

This study contributes to the understanding of the low level of non-marital cohabitation in Poland at the beginning of the XXI century. An interpretative analysis of semi-structured interviews is employed in order to capture the meanings and attitudes associated to non-marital cohabitation by a selected sample of young Poles. The results indicate that although cohabitation has begun to be interpreted as a testing period leading to marriage attitudes towards it are still very ambiguous. The idealization of marital commitment hinders the spread of informal unions. Understanding the determinants of low cohabitation in Poland enables the advancement of grounded hypotheses on its evolution in the near future and more generally to illustrate the ways in which local cultures influence the diffusion of behaviors. (authors modified)

Background: Explanations of the increase in cohabitation often rely on the concept of ideational change and shifting social norms. While researchers have investigated cohabitation and the role of social norms from a quantitative perspective, few studies have examined how people discuss the normative context of cohabitation, especially in cross-national comparison. Objective: This article introduces a Special Collection that uses focus group research to compare social norms relating to cohabitation and marriage in 8 countries in Europe. The Introduction explicates the concept of social norms, describes the focus group project, reflects on the method's advantages and limitations, and summarizes the theoretical and methodological contributions of the project. Methods: Collaborators conducted 7−8 focus groups in each country using a standardized questionnaire. They coded each discussion, analyzed the results, and produced a country-specific chapter on a particular theme. They also collaborated on an overview paper that synthesized the overall findings of the project. Results: The articles provide insights into the meanings of partnership formation in each country. In addition, their findings contribute to three main theoretical themes: 1) life courses, sequencing, and intersections; 2) individualization, freedom, and commitment; and 3) culture, religion, and the persistence of the past. Conclusions: This Special Collection contributes to and challenges current explanations of family change by pointing out how social norms shape partnership behavior. The project informs quantitative research by emphasizing the need for a culturally informed interpretation of demographic behavior. We urge researchers to recognize the multiple meanings of cohabitation within each context and across countries.

The article investigates the different types of social mechanisms responsible for the interdependence of couples' reproductive preferences predicted by diffusion models of fertility and family behavior. We analyze the transcripts of in-depth interviews carried out with 54 women in the northern part of Italy. The rich information on observations and conversations about fertility and family choices with relatives and peers enables us to distinguish four different ways in which social interaction influences reproductive preferences, namely social learning, social pressure, subjective obligation and contagion. Second, we show how the efficacy of each mechanism affecting fertility behavior depends on the kind and the structure of personal relationships involved in the interaction. Finally, we discuss the ways in which individual attitudes and values associated with the transition to parenthood are produced and negotiated in face-to-face interactions, and the importance of focusing on the process of preference-formationand modification for understanding fertility behavior.

We have investigated the phenomenon of deprivation in contemporary Switzerland through the adoption of a multidimensional, dynamic approach. By applying Self Organizing Maps (SOM) to a set of 33 non-monetary indicators from the 2009 wave of the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), we identified 13 prototypical forms (or clusters) of well-being, financial vulnerability, psycho-physiological fragility and deprivation within a topological dimensional space. Then new data from the previous waves (2003 to 2008) were classified by the SOM model, making it possible to estimate the weight of the different clusters in time and reconstruct the dynamics of stability and mobility of individuals within the map. Looking at the transition probabilities between year t and year t+1, we observed that the paths of mobility which catalyze the largest number of observations are those connecting clusters that are adjacent on the topological space. © Sociological Research Online.

Over the past decades Europe has witnessed fundamental changes of its population dynamics and population structure. Fertility has fallen below replacement level in almost all European countries, while childbearing behavior and family formation have become more diverse. Life expectancy has increased in Western Europe for both females and males, but has been declining for men in some Eastern European countries. Immigration from non-European countries has increased substantially, as has mobility within Europe. These changes pose major challenges to population studies, as conventional theoretical assumptions regarding demographic behavior and demographic development seem unfit to provide convincing explanations of the recent demographic changes.This book, derived from the symposium on “The Demography of Europe” held at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany in November 2007 in honor of Professor Jan M. Hoem, brings together leading population researchers in the area of fertility, family, migration, life-expectancy, and mortality. The contributions present key issues of the new demography of Europe and discuss key research advances to understand the continent’s demographic development at the turn of the 21st century.

Die Diskrepanz zwischen tatsachlicher und hypothetischer Fertilitat (im Englischen auch unter dem Begriff Fertility Gap gebrauchlich) wurde in jungerer Zeit zum Anlass fur familienpolitische Masnahmen genommen, um eine hohere Geburtenhaufigkeit zu erzielen. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Relevanz einer anhand von Fertilitatsidealen und -absichten gemessenen hypothetischen Fertilitat, mit der die Schatzung des Fertility Gap angestrebt wird. Ausgehend von einem Uberblick der relevanten Literatur untersuchen wir die Bedeutung dieser Konzepte und deren Operationalisierung anhand empirischer Beobachtungen in drei Vergleichslandern: Osterreich, Deutschland und der Schweiz. Wenngleich der Begriff des gesellschaftlichen Ideals der Fertilitat mehrdeutig ist, kann er bei sorgfaltiger Messung Aussagekraft in Bezug auf Reproduktionsentscheidungen bieten. Die Operationalisierung kurzfristiger und langfristiger Fertilitatsabsichten wird ebenso erortert wie deren Realisierung. Analysen von Absichten sollten auf einem theoretischen Fundament grunden, etwa dem Miller-Pasta-Rahmen oder der sozialpsychologischen Theorie des geplanten Verhaltens. Letztere findet in Osterreich und in Deutschland auf Grundlage von GGS-Daten Anwendung. Der Beitrag kommt zu dem Schluss, dass anhand des Fertility Gap mitunter falsche Schlusse gezogen werden konnen, da sowohl der Indikator der tatsachlichen Fertilitat als auch die Indikatoren der beabsichtigten Fertilitat unprazise sein konnen. Aufschlussreiche politisch relevante Informationen konnen aus einer spezifischen Form der Diskrepanz abgeleitet werden, wenn die Realisierung der individuellen kurzfristigen Absichten des Einzelnen betrachtet wird.

Family members are uniquely situated to influence the decision-making of their kin in nearly every facet of life. We examine the importance of social interactions in fertility outcomes by assessing family members’ scope of influence on their fellow kin’s fertility behavior. With the unique KASS genealogical dataset from eight countries in Europe, we study the effects of family members’ fertility outcomes on individual fertility to assess the presence and the extent of inter-generational transmission of fertility behaviors and siblings’ influences on fertility outcomes. We find only limited evidence of the inter-generational transmission of fertility behaviors, but a relatively important effect of siblings for individual fertility. Rather than parents, siblings’ influences appear to constitute the largest share of familial influences on fertility outcomes. We also find that among siblings, women’s fertility is more subject to the influences of their sisters. These findings indicate the relative importance of close kin influences on individual fertility and demonstrate the consequences of family structure for fertility change.

Anthropological demography is a specialty within demography which uses anthropological theory and methods to provide a better understanding of demographic phenomena in current and past populations. Its genesis and ongoing growth lie at the intersection between demography and socio-cultural anthropology and with their efforts to understand population processes, mainly fertility, migration, and mortality. Both disciplines share a common research object, namely human populations, and they focus on mutually complementary aspects of this research object: demography is statistically oriented and is mainly concerned with the dynamic forces defining population size and structure and their variation across time and space, whereas socio-cultural anthropology is interpretative and focuses on the social organization shaping the production and reproduction of human populations. The main theoretical concepts in anthropological demography are culture, gender, and political economy; its empirical research approach includes a mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies applied to case studies. Ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation are often central to this approach as is an interpretative reading of secondary data and historical material.

BACKGROUNDThe fields of demography, sociology, and socio-psychology have been increasingly drawing on social network theories, which posit that individual fertility decision-making depends in part on the fertility behavior of other members of the population, and on the structure of the interactions between individuals. After reviewing this literature, we highlight the benefits of taking a social network perspective on fertility and family research.OBJECTIVEWe review the literature that addresses the extent to which social mechanisms, such as social learning, social pressure, social contagion, and social support, influence childbearing decisions.CONCLUSIONSWe find that all of the social mechanisms reviewed influence the beliefs and norms individuals hold regarding childbearing, their perceptions of having children, and the context of opportunities and constraints in which childbearing choices are made. The actual impact of these mechanisms on fertility tempo and quantum strongly depends on the structure of social interaction.1. IntroductionDemographers are interested in population fertility and its dynamics. Changes in the tempo and quantum of fertility are macro phenomena; i.e., they are the aggregate result of the childbearing behavior of individual actors. Efforts to better explain fertility dynamics inevitably lead demographers to seek to gain a better understanding of the fertility behavior of individuals (how many children they intend to have, how many children they actually have, and how births are distributed over time). Explanations of fertility must refer to behavioral models, which apply to men and women who interact with others, are embedded in social networks with specific structures, and act in relation to their social environment. The intention to have a child, the value attributed to children, the norms regulating appropriate parenthood, the support available to parents, and all of the other elements involved in childbearing decision-making are created, diffused, and transformed by social interaction (Rossier and Bernardi 2009). The social embeddedness of human actions is the basic axiomatic assumption of the social networks approach (Granovetter 1985).Demographers have turned to theories of social interaction to expand their range of explanations of observed fertility behavior, as well as of individual childbearing. They generally assume that childbearing is a social act, and that individual beliefs and behaviors are interdependent and are moderated by social interactions and social structures. Mechanisms such as social learning, social pressure, social contagion, and social support have been included in fertility models. Similarly, demographic models are designed to allow for increasing room for specifications of the social structure and social networks within which social mechanisms take place. Social network effects are (1) theoretically important because they are middle-range explanations that interpret individual fertility behavior as a form of social action; and they are (2) empirically important because they contribute to models and explanations of fertility outcomes at the individual level (e.g., the age at birth or childlessness) and fertility dynamics at the macro level (more or less rapid changes in fertility postponement or decline).Since the 1980s, the importance of taking into account social interactions and ideational factors when investigating childbearing decisions and fertility decline in historical Europe has been increasingly acknowledged in demographic literature (see, e.g., the contributions in Jayakody, Thornton, and Axinn 2008). Coale and Watkins (1986) convincingly argued that the fertility decline in western societies starting in the 19th century was not caused only by structural factors related to the economic development of societies, but also by ideational factors which traveled across borders through language and cultural diffusion. …