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Recent years have seen a global increase in the number of refugees fleeing from persecution at home. Measuring their adaptation in receiving countries is a key first step towards minimizing and preventing inequality. However, it has become apparent that an intergenerational perspective is required in order to fully capture the long-run challenges faced by refugees and their descendants. This paper uses Swedish register data to examine the importance of family structures and parental socio-economic status in the educational attainment of the children and grandchildren of refugees, relative to those with four Swedish-born grandparents. Surprising findings emerge. Not only do we reveal signs of increasing inequality for later generations of refugees’ descendants, but we also show that these inequalities are determined by parental socioeconomic inequality in multiple domains of life. Counter to theoretical expectations, those who are most likely to experience education inequality are the descendants of refugees with mixed—native-born and foreign-born—parents or grandparents. These findings suggest a need for policies that help refugees to obtain levels of socioeconomic status—in education, employment and earnings—that are typical of those in their new destination, not only because this is of benefit to themselves, but also because this is likely to result in considerable benefits for their children.

A resurgence of religiosity has been observed in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. However, since the late 1990s, there has been a lack of research on the impact of religion on contraceptive use and the differences in such use across religious groups in the country and Central Asia. The two major religious groups, Islam and Christianity, have closely aligned with the country's two main ethnicities, Kazakhs and Russians, which have shown significant variations in fertility development and stages of demographic transition. This study utilizes Kazakhstan's Generations and Gender Survey 2020 to examine the variations in contraceptive use among different religious affiliations and explore the potential factors behind these differences. Causal mediation analysis is employed separately for women and men. The findings reveal that Muslims exhibit lower contraceptive use compared to Christians. While higher demand for children, increased religiosity, and socioeconomic factors partially explain these differences, existing theories fail to fully account for the diverse patterns of family planning observed within the same national context.

Personality plays an essential role with respect to important life outcomes such as education or career success. Although these outcomes are linked with family formation processes, the association between personality and family formation (dissolution) has been underexplored in demographic research. My study contributes to existing research by examining the prospective association between two personality facets (social maturity (SM), and emotional stability (ES)) and family formation and dissolution processes, i.e. 1) marital status, 2) fertility, and 3) partnership dissolution as both a) divorce and b) cohabitation dissolution, based on large Swedish register data. Poisson regression, Linear Probability, and Cox proportional hazard models were applied for different outcomes. My findings suggest that males with high scores on SM and ES measured at age of assignment to military service (17-20 years) are more likely to get married by age 39 and higher. Regarding fertility, SM and ES reveal positive associations with offspring counts and negative associations with the probability of remaining childless by age 39 and higher. Relationship dissolution is linked with SM via a U-shape pattern, i.e. highest and lowest scores on this trait are associated with higher separation risks. Further analyses using sibling comparisons support these findings.

National contexts have been overlooked by previous comparative studies on the impact of same-sex union (SSU) legislations on public attitudes toward homosexuality. This study examines the role of religion focusing on two aspects: the secular-religious divide and the GAL/TAN political cleavage. Using 2002–2016 European Social Survey from 24 countries, I demonstrate that partnership legislation has more diverging impact in more secular countries, with core church members developing stronger homonegativity. Stronger secular-religious divide in the population and the strength of GAL/TAN political cleavage induce more negative impact for legislation, regardless of individual religiosity or partisanship. The study’s analysis of how national contexts influence the impact of SSU legislations on attitudes sheds light on the influence of secularization changes and political polarization enhancing “moral polarization” in Western societies. However, the resulting backlash mostly occurs among strongly religious people, while others become increasingly liberal.

Immigrants are less politically engaged in Western societies, and it is important to improve that situation. Religious engagement, as one form of civic engagement, is often suggested as having the potential to promote political participation for immigrants by providing civic skills and native networks. However, being both religious and an immigrant is also often associated with economic deprivation, which could discourage political participation. In this study, I revisited the question in the Swedish context, where the political participation levels are generally high, the immigrant community is ethnically and religiously diverse, but the political climate on the migration issue is increasingly polarized. Using the Swedish Level of Living Survey for the Foreign Born and Their Children (LNU-UFB), I show that, contrary to findings in the previous literature, religious engagement is negatively associated with political participation for immigrants, particularly for those who have experienced discrimination. Religious engagement leads to more engagement in other civil societies, but it does not facilitate political participation for immigrants by providing civic skills or native networks. Also, economic disadvantage does not explain why religious immigrants refrain from political participation. Thus, more policy efforts should be made in Sweden to improve the political integration of immigrant religious organizations.

The point of departure of this study is labor market competition theory which argues that the reasons for negative attitudes toward immigrants can be found in conditions prevailing on the labor market. In countries with rising unemployment and many immigrants the latter are considered to be a threat to the economic standard of living of the native population. The logic of the present study is that neither factor has a strong effect on xenophobic attitudes in the absence of the other. The contribution of this paper is (1) a macro-level analysis combining data from European Union Labour Force Survey on the conditions in 174 regions nested in European 19 countries with attitudinal data from the European Social Survey and (2) beside the main (additive) effect of each factor involved expands the analysis with an interaction (multiplicative) term. Looking at contexts where native born residents experience a simultaneous threat from increased unemployment and rising immigration flows provide an opportunity to test some of the underlying assumption from the labor market competition theory. The results indicate that when native unemployment is low the attitudes toward admitting immigrants into the host country are not influenced by immigration, but when native unemployment is rising high immigration flows are perceived as a threat. For attitudes toward immigration, an increase in the share of immigrants has a negative effect on attitudes and this effect is stronger in areas with weaker economy.

Since 2013, forced marriage has been understood and responded to in Australia as a form of human trafficking and a slavery-like practice. This framing occurred as the result of it being introduced as a criminal offence under Section 270.7A and 270.7B of the Criminal Code Act (1995) (Cth). During the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence (RCFV), submissions from family violence practitioners, front-line service providers and forced marriage specialist services recommended the inclusion of forced marriage as a statutory example of family violence under the Family Violence Protection Act (2018) (Vic). This was one of the 227 recommendations made in the RCFV final report (specifically recommendation 156). In late 2018, the Victorian Parliament passed the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence Protection and Other Matters) Act (Vic), which formally recognised forced marriage as a form of family violence. Victoria is the only state in Australia to have recognised forced marriage as a form of family violence in law, although it has been identified as one issue for consideration as part of the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and their Children (2022-2032). Despite these commitments and developments, little is known about the impact of this new legal recognition of forced marriage in Victoria, in particular the implications for family violence and other service responses by practitioners and frontline service providers, and the interaction between the state-based criminal justice and service response, and the federal criminal justice and service response. There is also little published data of how well Victorian services meet the needs of persons coming forward to seek assistance and intervention for potential, threatened or formalised forced marriage/s. In exploring both the shift that has followed the inclusion of forced marriage as a statutory example of family violence and the opportunities it presents, this project seeks to contribute to: (1) ongoing national commitments to ending violence against women, and (2) the ongoing commitment to building a robust evidence base on modern slavery and human trafficking practices, under the National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery (2020-2025). This report is based on research that has sought to lay a foundation that illuminates the current state of service response to forced marriage in Victoria, and to identify next steps in relation to how this may be improved. This report details the consistent support for the inclusion of forced marriage as family violence and the recognition that this is a welcome opportunity to expand service supports for persons affected by forced marriage. However, our findings also call to attention the urgent need to review: (1) the suitability of current family violence support services in meeting the varied needs of the different groups of persons affected by forced marriage and, (2) the strong association of forced marriage with CALD communities reflected in current risk assessment processes. The findings in this report detail the importance of undertaking careful and considered research and review to ensure that the intention of recognising forced marriage as a statutory example of family violence is fully realised. In particular, that it results in women (and men) impacted by forced marriage accessing appropriate, tailored services that can support their safety. We write this report with great respect and admiration for practitioners and service providers who are navigating a challenging situation as they address forced marriage with a dedicated commitment to helping potential victims, while also having to adhere to government discourse and long-standing models. We hope that our analysis, discussion and recommendations offer a starting point for rethinking some of the assumptions built into forced marriage interventions and responses.

The paper considers role of son preference in formation of desires to have an additional child in countries of South and Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa and Balkans. Although son preference has been shown to influence actual fertility and to be present in fertility ideals in many of those countries, no systematic cross-country study of its influence on desires for the next child yet exists. Discovering the role of son preference in shaping these desires is important because they are highly predictive for actual fertility behavior. At the same time, there are reasons to assume that for desires concerning the next child son preference effects can be observed in a less distorted way than they are observable for actual parity progressions. Using Demographic and Health Surveys administered between 2010 and 2020, the relationship between number of living sons to desires concerning the next child was studied with the help of linear probability models for women from 13 countries of the selected regions. The analysis was applied to women having at least one living child and gave three main results. First, the desire to have another child showed a regular negative relation to having at least one living son. Second, son preference also regularly affected desires concerning timing of the next child bearing, as the desire to have the next child within the nearest two years was more probable among women without a living son in most of the countries. The third result, unlike the first two, has indicated considerable cross-country differences. In some countries desires for the next child were weaker associated with son preference in those groups of women in whose families less pronounced gender asymmetries were expected (urban women, highly educated women and women employed outside their household). In other countries, however, effects of son preference did not differ significantly across these groups, contrary to expectation. Possible explanations of these cross-country differences are discussed.

https://drugsgenderandsexuality.org/2020/01/15/final-report-published-lived-experiences-of-stigma-and-discrimination/

This report presents findings from a project conducted in partnership between the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre and No to Violence. This report presents findings from a study examining how domestic and family violence (DFV) perpetrator intervention programs respond to intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV). The need for focused attention on sexual violence as part of reforms to address DFV is highlighted for example, in both the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2023 (Department of Social Services [DSS] 2022) and the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence (RCFV 2016). The need for increased attention on sexual violence reflects that it is an under-reported form of DFV and is a sign of escalating abuse and heightened risk including risk of lethality (RCFV 2016; Bagwell et al. 2015). Further, IPSV has unique impacts that are different to the harms of both non-sexual intimate partner violence, and sexual violence perpetrated by other assailant types.

Studies on the integration of the descendants of migrants––the second generation––show a mismatch between their educational achievements and labor market outcomes compared to ancestral native population. This descriptive study focuses on overqualification––a downward educational mismatch––as an indicator of the labor market integration of second generations. Using the Swedish total population register from 2001 to 2016, I investigate the pattern of overqualification among second generations and compare them to the ancestral native counterparts. I further investigate heterogeneities in overqualification between ancestral Swedish population and 10 second generation ancestry groups. The descriptive findings show that second generations report a lower prevalence of overqualification than immigrants and a similar prevalence compared to ancestral natives. Yet, the differences between ancestral Swedes and second generations widened over time. The results from logistic regression analyses confirm second generation’s improvements and the remaining gaps between second generations and ancestral Swedes. Further analyses stratified by ancestry report that the differences between ancestral natives and second generations are driven by non-Western G2 women and men, such as Iranian, Middle-Eastern, and Yugoslavian/Bosnian second generation individuals. This paper concludes by elaborating on the potential explanations of the findings while highlighting future research suggestions.

This report is a snapshot of the lives of young Australians in 2021. We asked young Australians about their health, education, employment, money, housing, food, safety, and citizenship, and examined the policy and educational implications of their responses.

This study aimed at a deeper understanding of underrepresented international students’ engagement in a doctoral program in an Australian research-intensive university. Experiences of students were analysed at different stages of the program. Findings indicated that the students’ primary values, aspirations and expectations transformed towards the end of the program due to their professional experiences and global forces that pushed them to adopt safer and flexible career options. Moreover, students’ knowledge and mindsets were developed more through interaction with their supervisors than their peers. The situated interaction between the students and the program revealed tensions and misinterpretations.

The experiences and realities of queer young Australians are often topics of incredibly public and political discussions. This paper presents a deep dive into these experiences by drawing on data from the 2021 Australian Youth Barometer. Just over one in five young people who participated in the Youth Barometer self-identified as a member of the queer community. Their responses provide us with insight into the strengths of queer young people and the disproportionate challenges they face in contemporary Australian society. Queer young people can have markedly different experiences of belonging and inclusion in their education. Too many young people face barriers to queer-friendly health and mental health support. This paper aims to stimulate action and recommends practical evidence-based actions that educators, policy makers and allies of the queer community can take to build thriving communities for every young Australian.

Psychological wellbeing is closely related to physical wellbeing and life satisfaction, and therefore crucial when studying older individuals’ situation and capacity for a full life. The study aims to find explanations of older partnered individuals’ psychological wellbeing by focusing on their gender attitudes, household division of labor and conformity to younger partnered individuals’ commonly held gender attitudes and household division of labor. Analyses are based on a subsample (n 1764) from the Swedish Generations and Gender Survey (2012/2013) including individuals aged 60-80. The analytical strategy is logistic regression with psychological wellbeing as outcome. Findings show that traditional gender attitudes are more negatively associated with psychological wellbeing than transitional (i.e., attitudes in between traditional and egalitarian attitudes) and egalitarian gender attitudes. Lower conformity to commonly held gender attitudes is also associated with lower psychological wellbeing. However, neither the household division of labor nor conformity to common household division are associated with psychological wellbeing. In later life, gender attitudes, thus, seem more important for psychological wellbeing than the household division of labor. It may be that attitudes are more important than behavior among older couples as behavior is likely more restricted by practical circumstances.

Introduction: the “second-generation” (descendants of migrants) represent the fastest growing sector of the child and young adult populations in Europe today. Research suggest that their mortality is high relative to individuals born to non-migrants. Sources of data: peer-reviewed publications. Areas of agreement: second-generation status is a marker of elevated mortality risk within Europe in early life (including stillbirth, perinatal, neonatal, and infant mortality) and adulthood, particularly if their migrant parent(s) were born outside of Europe. Areas of controversy: It remains unclear what causes-of-death are driving this raised mortality or which background factors (e.g., medical, socioeconomic) are most influential. Growing points: the second-generation will continue to grow and diversify—now is the time to intervene to address these inequalities. Areas timely for developing research: place more emphasis on the role of background factors related to health, migration, integration, and the characteristics of the local area.

This thesis addresses the issue of the achievement of stability and order in work, given the conditions characterising modern, complex production systems. Four sources of instability are discussed: economic conditions; the employment relationship; managerial decision-making; and work motivations. The thesis draws the implication that the conditions that frame the organisation of work are the result of complex interactions between structures and processes at several analytically distinct levels, ranging from the meaning work has for people to the economic structure of the capitalist mode of production. In response to this, 'work' is conceptualised as a system of action connecting the microsocial structures and processes of individuals' lifeworlds to the global structures of the modern world economy. The institutionalisation of the practices by which order and stability are achieved can be seen as the outcome of the capacity of the system of production to respond to uncertainty. The thesis identifies two levels at which such responses can be analysed: the integration of elements in a system of production; and the relationship between the system and the activities of actors. These two levels are developed from Lockwood's (1964) distinction between system integration and social integration. The thesis argues that generic forms of organising work are the outcome of institutionalised responses to system and social integration problems. The problem of 'social integration' focuses on the relationship of workers to the system of production. It links motivation to production in a context of increasingly diverse motivations and differentiating sites of production. Social integration is achieved largely through the channelling of individual motives into institutionalised orientations to work: and through four key structural features of work settings: work roles; routines and procedures; social groups; and the workflow. 'System integration' refers to the degree of stability and order, given continuous change at the level of the mode of production (exemplified by technological innovation, organisational differentiation, commodification and the globalisation of production). The thesis proposes that changes at the system level generate new conditions to which organisations are forced to adjust and it is through these adjustments that system integration can be achieved. Two general types of adjustment, centring on the management of uncertainty, are proposed: the way firms organise themselves to respond to external conditions (through the use of information to manage risk); and the co-ordination and control of the intra-organisational division of labour (through the reproduction of trust). The thesis concludes with a review of the implications of the theory and empirical findings for future research; an assessment of future possibilities for the organisation of work; and implications for improving the principles of job design.

Childhood cancer is no longer a universally fatal disease. Four out of five children diagnosed with cancer will now survive the disease due to advances in paediatric oncology in recent decades. Much social science research has focused on children and primary carers dealing with childhood cancer through the acute stages of diagnosis and treatment. Emerging data has also examined the long term health and social implications of children and young adult survivors of childhood cancer. However, primary carers of children whose cancer has abated have not been a focus of research attention. In this sociological thesis I investigate the everyday lived experiences of primary carers of children who have survived cancer in an Australian context. I look beyond the medical success story and beyond the ‚ÄövÑvªback to normal after cancer‚ÄövÑvº rhetoric by regarding childhood cancer as a significant disruption in carers‚ÄövÑvº lives. I paid particular attention to the ways in which carers constructed meaning and responded in the cancer aftermath by drawing on the symbolic interactionism perspective and a constructionist version of grounded theory. Qualitative data from 38 primary carers was conceptualised to represent a new normal. The findings illustrated how pre-cancer identities and taken-for-granted assumptions and expectations are no longer tenable. Carers responded by constructing a new sense of normality, characterised by insidious cancer memories and the knowledge that they had lost control of their child‚ÄövÑvºs life and well-being. With the abatement of cancer the carers gave new meanings to define their self and situation, and with particular front stages and back stages of interaction according to their insider or outsider audiences. They also developed new understandings of being a carer of a child in remission; by weaving together new meanings of hope and uncertainty with strategies of emphasising everyday life to mitigate the impact of cancer in their lives. The extent of child morbidities deriving from cancer treatment is the most pertinent constraint in shaping everyday life after cancer rather than cancer per se. By examining childhood cancer and its survival from the participants‚ÄövÑvº perspectives, the thesis offers understandings of health and illness as an ongoing social process that sits between the binaries of acute and chronic illness, cancer and survivorship and children and primary care. The findings offer ways to enhance current and future families impacted by childhood cancer, with policy direction to inform health and allied health professionals and cancer support services.

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The number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths differed across countries for several reasons, including the timing and pathways of the spread of the virus and societies’ responses to it. Patterns also differed between regions and groups within countries. We combine data on excess mortality with data on cause-of-death specific mortality in the case of Sweden to identify which groups had excess mortality beyond what can be captured by analyses of Covid-19 specific deaths. We also explore the possibility that some groups may have benefited in terms of reduced all-cause mortality, potentially due to home-centered living conditions during the pandemic. In contrast to the idea that the pandemic primarily hastened inevitable deaths, our results show that many of those who died in 2020 would not have done so in this year without the occurrence of the pandemic. We also find indication of underreporting of COVID-19 mortality, mainly during the first part of 2020 when widespread testing had not yet been implemented. This pattern is most pertinent for individuals with a migrant background. We also found groups for which mortality decreased substantially during the pandemic, even when accounting for COVID-19 mortality. Progression across the first and second waves of the pandemic during 2020 shows that more groups appeared to have become protected over time and that there was less replacement mortality and under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths towards the end of 2020.

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Young adults crossing borders between wealthy countries for work and adventure is an under-studied group of international migrants. In this paper, we use a unique combination of full population register data from both Sweden and Norway to explore the so called ‘Party-Swedes’ – young people emigrating from Sweden in 2010-12 to work in Norway. We follow them and their median income before leaving Sweden as well as during their stay in Norway and after possible return to Sweden. Additionally, using individual level data, we model selection into migration and return, as well as income levels after return. This enables us shed light on several theories and concepts in international migration research, such as those on selection into emigration and return, income maximization vs. target earning and concepts related to youth migration, such as the gap year within a context of liquid migration. Overall, our results suggest that in economic terms, the ‘party penalty’ seems clearly larger than the ‘party premium’. Even if these young Swedes earned well while staying in Norway, this did not translate into higher income than among their non-migrating peers after returning to Sweden. Additionally, a pronounced income drop the year after return and results showing that migrants rather postpone than abstain post-secondary education, speak of the youth migration to Norway as a ‘period of delay’ within the transition to adulthood.

While women form an increasing proportion of the Australian labour market, their experience of work is often reactive and characterised by 'drift'. To counteract this, women are advised by an ever increasing number of researchers, consultants and lay people to engage in long term planning and decision making, in sum, to both think and act strategically. The opportunity to think strategically, however, may not necessarily arise and may not necessarily result in the pursuit of particular strategies. The possibility and opportunity for women to strategise is dependant on their domestic circumstances both in their responsibilities and the degree of dependence. The way in which the two intersect affects the possibility of women actively strategising. A typology of such responses is developed showing that it is only under specific conditions that women will be able to 'strategise'. Under other conditions their responses may by characterised as 'tactising', 'routinising' or 'feminising'. This thesis therefore is specifically interested in the effects of domestic dependancy and responsibility on women's strategising and how this, in turn, affects the range and variety of strategies which they can pursue. In order to explore the proposed link between women's domestic arrangements and strategising, the thesis reports results from a study of a bureaucratic organisation, the Department of Community Services of the Tasmanian Public Service. Recent reforms have made it a friendly work environment for women such that, formally, they have the same opportunities as their male counterparts. However women's opportunity to strategise will be affected by their domestic circumstances. The empirical findings from this study are broadly consistent with the theoretical approach. Women with heavy domestic commitments, find it negatively affects the time and energy available for work in the public sphere, and respond by 'routinising'. By contrast, women relatively free of such responsibilities can devote time and effort to their occupational lives. They are free to engage in a range of 'occupational \strategies\"' in order to be occupationally mobile and to advance their careers."

This cross-sectional study focuses on attitudes in accordance with the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) in the adult population of Israel. Such attitudes are expressed by favoring an establishment of a family at older ages and favoring a small family size. Such attitudes are also expressed by supporting certain forms of living arrangements that are alternative to marriage. Based on results from Israel’s Social Survey (ISS), it seems that during 2009-2019, there was a nationwide rise in support of attitudes in accordance with the SDT. This trend is well apparent, despite a moderate decline in support of divorce as the best solution in insolvable relationships. In addition, it was found that the level of religiosity had a substantial and negative effect on the probability of supporting attitudes in accordance with the SDT. Furthermore, the type of residence (i.e., living in an urban environment) had no substantial effect on the probability of supporting these attitudes. Additionally, although differences in support of these attitudes were found between residents of Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, they were less consistent and substantial after the effects of religious affiliation and religiosity were considered. However, residing in Tel-Aviv had substantial and positive effects on the probability of accepting unmarried couples’ parenthood and on the probability of preferring establishing a family for women aged 30 and above. This study also points out that certain attitudes are more supported by Jews, while others are more supported by Muslims.

This thesis is about the 'politics of meaning' in the context of environmental debate in Tasmania. The central argument is that movement-generated political parties play a vital role in this politics, particularly in generating new interpretations and new frames of meaning. Party political actors operate from a privileged position within 'public arenas' and their participation within public debate differs significantly from that of movement activists. Party formation entails the politicisation and pragmatisation of debate, enhances the use of official media strategies, results in a diffusion of issues and encourages compliance with established political boundaries. These processes are viewed as critical for the organisation of new frames of meaning into more systematised and institutionalised knowledge. The analytical framework for studying politics of meaning is developed throughout chapters two and three. It is derived from three bodies of literature: on new social movement and new political parties; on public arenas; and on mass media. A distinction between social movement organisations and political parties forms the basis for an argument that these two play different roles in contests over meaning. Literature on public arenas forms the basis of analysis of how meanings are circulated and knowledge is contested in public domains. Literature on mass media provides a source of concepts used in the analysis of framing and agenda formation. Chapter four outlines a research strategy, and chapter five is a case study of environmental debate in Tasmania. The coverage of the Tasmanian Greens and environmental movement organisations is examined over two key periods: before (1984) and after (1994) the formation of Tasmanian Greens. Content analysis of The Mercury is supplemented by analysis of internal movement media - the Tasmanian Greens' journal The Daily Planet and the Wilderness Society's journal Wilderness - as well as analysis of election campaign materials and policy documents issued by the party. The level and mode of attracting media attention, range and scope of issue agenda, and framing activities of social movement activists and party officials are examined in the context of environmental debate.

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A large body of research has studied the channels driving ethnic inequalities in unemployment rates. Especially recently, research has almost exclusively examined barriers to unemployment exit (becoming employed) in the form of hiring discrimination conveying the idea that inequality in unemployment is all about hiring. Roughly no studies, in fact, have focused on the role of unemployment entry in explain ethnic and racial inequalities in unemployment. We contribute to this debate by examining inequalities in exiting and entering unemployment across second-generation immigrants and natives in Sweden and propose two possible explanations: hiring discrimination and precariousness. This marks an important extension to existing research because we shed light on the most relevant dynamic in accounting for the ethnic unemployment gap. Analyses are based on Swedish population registers. Correlated random-effects dynamic models are used to derive group-specific steady-state probabilities (SSP). In addition, we estimate counterfactual SSP where second-generation immigrants have natives’ unemployment 1) entry probabilities and 2) exit probabilities. Our results show that equalizing unemployment exit does not reduce unemployment inequality. Rather, the unemployment gap disappears when equalizing unemployment entry. This points towards differences in precariousness to be a likely force at work.

We theoretically explore the interrelations between population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T) for various environmental impacts (I), using IPAT-type modelling. To illustrate differences across environmental dimensions, climate and land use impacts were modelled using middle-of-the-road projections for population and per capita income. Different forecasting methods were implemented, including historical extrapolations, models based on stochastic IPAT (STIRPAT), and technological forecasting trajectories in the literature. The different approaches were compared within the IPAT framework. We also explored consequences of alternative trajectories for P, A and T, and we discussed implications for reaching global goals, with a basis in our modelling. Further, our findings were analysed in light of three theories in environmental sociology that give different emphasis on the different components of IPAT. We argue that the large technological mitigation assumed in many forecasts makes affluence and population relatively irrelevant for climate change. However, both factors will likely be influential determinants of land use impact in the twenty-first century.

Many immigrants to North America and Western Europe originate from countries where fertility patterns differ considerably between ethnic groups. Yet, earlier research on immigrant fertility in Western destination countries typically does not distinguish among immigrants’ origin at a finer level than country of birth, an approach that risks hiding variation between sub- and transnational ethnic groups. This study uses Swedish population register data on the so-called information language of newly arrived immigrants to distinguish between BCMS-speaking (Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian) and Albanian-speaking women immigrating to Sweden from the former Yugoslavia during 1992-2001. The study uses event-history analysis to compare parity-specific transition rates of about 29,000 Yugoslavian-born women and 2.4 million native-born women from 1992 to 2017. Results show that Albanian-speakers have higher first-, second-, and third-birth transition rates than both BCMS-speakers and native women. The transition rates of BCMS-speakers are considerably closer to those of natives. Results point to partial adaptation towards native fertility patterns by duration of stay within the G1 and between the G1 and G1.5 among both BCMS-speakers and Albanian-speakers. The study contributes to the understanding of fertility patterns among Yugoslavian migrants, which is one of the largest immigrant origin groups in several European destination countries. The study also makes a general contribution to research on immigrant fertility in demonstrating that distinguishing among immigrants from the same origin country by subnational ethnicity can uncover considerable within-group heterogeneity.

Background: Children of immigrants often have excess mortality rates, in contrast to the low mortality typically exhibited by their parents’ generation. However, prior research has studied children of immigrants who were selected into migration, and who move to a different context, thereby rendering it difficult to isolate the intergenerational impact of migration on adult mortality. Methods: We use semi-parametric survival analysis to analyse all-cause and cause-specific mortality among all adult men and women who were aged 17-67 and resident in Finland from 1970-2020. We compare children of forced migrants from ceded Karelia—an area of Finland that was ceded to Russia during the Second World War—with the children of parents born in present-day Finland. Results: Children with two parents who were forced migrants have higher mortality than children with two parents born in Northern, Southern and Western Finland, but lower mortality than the subpopulation of children whose parents were born in the more comparable areas that border ceded Karelia. For women and men, this mortality advantage is largest for external causes and persists after controlling for socio-economic factors. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that forced migration has a beneficial impact on the mortality of later generations, at least in the case where forced migrants are able to move to contextually similar locations that offer opportunities for rapid integration and social mobility. The findings highlight the importance of making appropriate comparisons when evaluating the impact of forced migration.

Research concerning internal migration increasingly acknowledge family members also outside the household as important factors in (im)mobility decisions. Through multi-generational support exchange and location specific capital, older generations and familiar environments have shown to constitute strong geographical attractors. However, less is still known about immobility across generations, whether it is transmitted between generations and under what conditions. Using Finnish register data spanning over five decades, we provide an overview of regional (im)mobility patterns across three generations. We then analyse who is more likely to live in one’s birth region also as a grown up in relation to local ancestral ties. Finland offers a highly useful case due to its two official national languages, Finnish and Swedish, and thereby two main ethno-linguistic groups, characterized by historically different mobility patterns and geographical concentrations. Main findings show how local ancestral ties are indeed related to sedentary behavior, especially if stretching several generations back in time. In terms of effect sizes, ancestral ties have relatively large determinant roles behind individual’s immobility behaviour. Significant differences between the ethno-linguistic groups are found, with a stronger relationship between ancestral local ties and sedentary behaviour among the Swedish speaking minority group than among the Finnish speaking majority population.

Nordic countries are considered advanced in gender equality, but also in these countries women still take longer family leaves and have lower earnings than men. This study provides novel insight by assessing the differences in accumulated earnings by midlife associated with childbearing among women and men in Finland and Sweden. We place particular attention to the magnitude of gender gaps in accumulated earnings across groups. We hypothesize larger gender gaps among those with a larger number of children, among those with a lower level of education, and overall, in Finland. The study is based on full-population register data, with highly accurate measures of earnings across decades. Our results indicate that women born in 1974–1975 accumulated on average 32 % and 29 % less labor earnings than men by age 44 in Finland and Sweden, respectively. Childbearing strongly modifies the gender gap especially in Finland, and the highly educated have moderately smaller gaps in both countries.

The nature of support for environmentalism - conceptualised here as attitudes and behaviour supportive of ecological prudence and the green movement - has grown to become a major issue of contention among contemporary social scientists. Some researchers suggest that support for environmentalism stems from a 'new' or 'new middle' class, post World War II generation and, in particular, from among highly educated and left leaning urban dwellers. Others maintain that social location has diminishing utility for explaining social phenomena, and claim instead that new value orientations are the key to understanding support for environmental movements and concerns. This research aims at reviewing and evaluating these claims. Part I reviews the theoretical arguments underlying the diverse class, generation and social status accounts of environmentalism. Critical evaluation of these accounts forms a springboard for empirical analysis. Part II examines empirically the social bases of environmentalism in Australia using nationally representative survey data. The impact of (new) class, status group, generation/cohort, and other aspects of social location, as well as 'postmaterial' values on environmental concerns and activism is assessed using multivariate techniques. Particular attention is paid to the hypothesis that support for environmentalism in Australia comes from certain status categories of people sharing similar lifestyles. In general, there is a weak relationship between social location and environmental commitment and activism, although the relative explanatory value of social location varies according to the aspect of environmentalism under consideration. Age, new class location, postmaterialist value orientations and political partisanship are the best predictors of environmental concerns and activism, while lifestyle also has an impact upon environmental group support. While 'social base' effects are discernible, they have limited utility for explaining environmental new politics. Like other aspects of the new politics, environmental concerns and activism in Australia are detached from the 'old' social bases of class, generation and status. Green supporters and sympathisers in Australia do not form clearly circumscribed social groupings, and they do not seem to be motivated by the traditional group interests that propelled 'old' politics. The social constituencies of environmentalism appear to be vague and fluid thus posing a major challenge to the established sociological approaches to environmentalism.

Demographic change almost never happens fast, except during wars, natural disasters, and pandemics. We ask what the joint consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for fertility and birth outcomes are by drawing on full population administrative data from Spain. We find a surprising improvement in birth outcomes in November and to a less extent in December 2020 (8–9 months after the first wave of the pandemic) compared with monthly trends in the ten previous years (2010-2019). The improvement in birth outcomes was shortly followed by a decline in the total fertility rate (TFR), especially among women at the beginning and the end of their reproductive age. These findings are consistent with the idea that the pandemic selectively affected conception, which showed up first as a birth-outcomes improvement due to the missing conception of frail-children-to-be (including pre-term children) and then as a lowered fertility rate due to the missing conception of at-term children.

Theories suggesting a unilineal development toward secularization have been challenged by research showing diverse patterns of religious changes across contexts. In Europe, the relevant research has been limited, lacking representative data for minority groups, especially in highly secular and historically religiously homogeneous Nordic settings. We offer a pioneering study using national register data to study the religious changes in Finland over the past five decades. Finland has two native ethnolinguistic groups—Finnish and Swedish speakers—which share the same religious tradition and offer a unique study context. We use register data with longitudinal information on every individual’s religious affiliation to investigate whether the two groups differ in this respect, exploring the possible mechanisms behind this. We find that the Swedish-speaking population is consistently more affiliated with the National Lutheran Church than the Finnish-speaking population. The Swedish-speaking group in Finland has a higher National Lutheran Church affiliation rate, despite being in some aspects socioeconomically advantaged in Finnish society, which is contrary to the expectation of modernization theory. The higher affiliation rate of Swedish speakers can be partly explained by lower levels of internal migration, possibly driven by stronger community attachment. We also find less socioeconomic differences in religious affiliation among Swedish speakers.

This thesis is a demonstration of the practical achievement of sociological knowledge in the absence of epistemological foundations. Its argument is derived from, and applied to, the disciplinary rhetorics in sociologies of knowledge and presidential addresses to the American Sociological Society Association. The formal sociologies of knowledge are shown to be representations of discipline, and the addresses, delivered by formal representatives of the discipline, to be 'folk' sociologies of knowledge. 'Discipline' epitomises the location of sociology in the processes studied within it, and of the sociology of knowledge within sociology at large. As subsumed in 'Mannheim's paradox', the sub-/metadiscipline has always been characterised by such epistemological difficulties as circularity, infinite regress, or the apparent self-negation of relativised knowledge. These difficulties, which are also characteristic of the discipline at large, are clarified in Latour's account of the modern as a separation of epistemological from political senses of representation. Sociologists of knowledge have resolved 'Mannheim's paradox' by two recurrent forms of representation; or modes of ordering. Either they relate knowledge to its context in binary terms (which then either axiomatically or tacitly favours the epistemological over the political), or they avoid this preemption through trinary orderings. The deferral of analytical closure in trinitarianism is used in a description of disciplinary knowledge as a 'fractal ordering' of 'disciplinarity', 'disciplining' and 'discipline', where 'fractal' denotes a jagged self-similarity across different scales of study. In their little-studied addresses to the ASS/ A, the presidents are rhetorically required to discuss disciplinary knowledge but are rhetorically constrained from doing so with formal rigour. The addresses are then a practical enactment of 'Mannheim' s paradox', and the presidents are folk sociologists of knowledge. Folk and formal disciplinary rhetorics are linked through equation of the 'discipline' from the sociologies of knowledge with 'the discipline' of American sociology, through quantitative matching of 'real factors'from the presidents' organisational characteristics with 'ideal factors' from their addresses, and through use in the addresses of 'disciplinarity', 'disciplining' and 'discipline'. In demonstrating that isomorphism between sociologies of knowledge and the presidents' occasioned response to occasioned constraints, the thesis amounts to a practical resolution of Mannheim's paradox. The trans-scalar interaction of fractal ordering shows that sociological knowledge is achieved pragmatically in a space defined by its epistemological difficulties.

Case Management Systems (CMS) are a software tool which guides practitioners case work. The tools have evolved as the dominant method to ensure consistent, efficient, and accountable practice. Typically, CMS have been designed around a risk management agenda and to enforce standardisation in a bid to ensure quality practice. More recently the rate of adolescents entering the care system have grown rapidly and social work with the cohort is emerging as a specialist area of practice. The present thesis recognising that development of CMS has occurred within a socio-economic and political context of neoliberalism and the risk society, explores the previously unconsidered effects of CMS on social work practice and the potential influence this has on practitioners constructions of adolescents in care. Important findings indicate CMS can contribute indirectly and directly to how and when young people in care are observed by practitioners, creating cyclical events whereby negative behaviours and characteristics are amplified or constructed. Risk reduction oriented case management is shown to be in obvious tension with the unpredictability and relationship-oriented stage of adolescent development creating unfavourable conditions for how young people in care come to be perceived by their social workers. Four negative characteristics are identified as becoming commonly associated with young people through the mechanism of CMS and in the context of the present political and economic context of social work. The labels of risky, resistant and responsible are observed to emerge from the practice context facilitated by CMS and also label this cohort as harder to work with or representing increased workload. In summary the research addresses a gap in knowledge regarding the appropriateness of CMS as a tool guiding social workers work with adolescents and considers ways to inform future design and implementation of CMS in emerging specialism of social work with adolescents.

Over the last 30 years, the social policy discourse surrounding Australian sole mothers' relationship to the labour market has altered dramatically. Policy has swung from supporting sole mothers to stay home to rear children to, now, obligating market activity once a child reaches school age. These policy shifts have been fuelled by social, demographic changes, plus, more latterly, changes in political ideology around the nature and purpose of the welfare state. Moves to overhaul the Australian welfare system coincide with the rising influence of neo-liberalist ideologies across social and family policy prescriptions. Under welfare reform, income support reliance is cast as welfare dependency and addressed by applying mutual obligation principles to sole parents. Policy rationales centre on negative comparisons of the workforce activity of sole m,others with that of married mothers. Simultaneously, family policy is creating direct disincentives for partnered mothers to return to the workforce. The juxtaposition of these competing policy directions creates a conflict in the ideological positioning of sole and married mothers within a market economy. The central question of this thesis emerges from this policy dichotomy, and asks: is sole mothers' relationship to the labour market different from that of married mothers? Using data from the Negotiating the Lifecourse Survey (NLC) 1996/97, the thesis comparatively examines sole and married mother respondents (N = 585) across three labour market dimensions. The ideological dimension compares the mothers' attitudes towards the compatibility of mothering and market work; the practical dimension examines the sole and married mothers' current workforce status and reasons for this level of market activity; and the financial dimension explores the comparative impact of mothers' occupational and partnered status on household material well-being. The results indicate that for sole and married mothers, the pathway to labour market activity is the same and intimately connected to the mothering role. Yet within this core similarity, the results also suggest that sole mothers' relationship with the labour market is more complex, with the soleness of sole motherhood emerging as a significant explanatory factor in all three comparative analysis. The thesis concludes that despite motherhood being the defining feature of each group's labour market relationship, the environment in which sole and married mothers negotiate their labour market determinations differs. To illustrate this vital difference in the personal, social, and political reality of sole motherhood, within the core of motherhood similarity, a Domain of Motherhood Model is developed. The model's two panels emphasise the essential similarity in sole and married mothers' relationship with the labour market while also demonstrating that each dimension of the sole mothe!s' labour market relationship - the ideological, the practical and the financial - is, itself, enveloped within the lived experience of being a sole mother in the Australian 'liberal' welfare state. Finally, a range of policy alternatives is explored and the likely directfon of future welfare reform on sole mothers' . relationship with the labour market is canvassed.

How do individuals project into the future? How are aspirations activated? How do individuals and groups navigate the future in unsettled times? These questions resonate in the renewed scholarly interest in future making in the social sciences and, particularly, sociology. In this article we argue that the processes shaping how individuals imagine alternative futures and their potential for achieving them necessitates cross-fertilization in theoretical terrains. We combine concepts within the sociology of futures – projectivity, temporalities and the relational – with those of the capability approach – the capability to aspire, agency freedoms, conversion processes, all of which shape the potential for agency and the power to act. Through this cross-fertilization, we develop a multi-dimensional dynamic framework for agency and futures, operationalized in an analytical model that can be applied to empirical research. Situating agency and futures within specific institutional, organizational, societal and cultural contexts, we reveal the pathways through which aspirations are awakened and agency is enabled in which the capability to aspire is central. To illustrate our model, we use examples from our empirical research on the aspirations for alternative futures in two cases: transnational migrants employed in the care/domestic sector and low-skilled employees in multi-national firms. These narratives underscore how crucial the capability to aspire is for the agency of vulnerable groups to navigate the future in unsettled times.

Immigrants and their descendants increasingly shape fertility patterns in many European contexts. While childbearing among immigrants is well explored, less is known about fertility patterns of the descendants of immigrants. Using Swedish register data, we studied differences in parity-specific fertility between immigrants and their descendants in Sweden and compared them with patterns of the native-born population. The analyses were done with life-course data for women as well as for men. We distinguished between individuals with a background in high- and low-fertility contexts, and whether the descendants of immigrants were offspring from endogamous or exogamous country-background relationships. For most migrants, we found elevated first birth rates shortly after arrival. First birth rates among the second generation were generally very close to - but lower - than the rates observed among native Swedes. Fertility among offspring from exogamous relationships tended to be closer to that of native Swedes than what was the case for offspring from relationships in which both parents were migrants. Second birth rates were very similar across all population subgroups but were generally lower among immigrants and their descendants than for native Swedes. Third birth rates were somewhat polarized into patterns of high- and low-fertility behavior. Overall, we found that fertility patterns among the second generation are clearly drifting away from the patterns observed among immigrants. Especially individuals with one immigrant and one Swedish-born parent exhibited fertility behavior which was very similar to those with two Swedish-born parents, suggesting that fertility differences between migrants and natives tend to vanish in one to two generations.

Acculturation refers to cultural change that occurs when members of differing groups come into contact with one another. Acculturation has been linked to several outcomes, including intergroup relations and well-being. This quantitative, cross-sectional research examined the impact of perceived discrepancies in acculturation orientations—intergroup, intragroup and intrapersonal—on intergroup relations, intragroup relations and well-being among a Chinese minority sample in Australia. Perceived acculturation discrepancies were shown to have significant associations with all three outcomes. However, this was most pronounced in the intergroup context, with intergroup relations being particularly susceptible to the negative impact of perceived acculturation discrepancies.

Human beings tend to organize themselves in social groups with hierarchical structures. Leadership skills (LS) increase the chances of ascending to a higher rank in such hierarchies, which allows individuals to provide greater support for a partner and, eventually, a potential child. Research on the association between LS and fertility outcomes has been relatively scarce though. Our study increases the understanding of this correlation by exploring the prospective association of LS on completed fertility (number of children, childlessness) based on population data from Sweden. Poisson regression and Linear Probability models were applied for this purpose. Additionally, analyses using fixed effects models examine potential differences between within- and between-family considerations. Our findings demonstrate a positive association between LS measured at age of assignment to military service (17-20 years) and number of children by age 39 or later. In addition, men with lower LS scores are more likely to remain childless. Stratifications by potential mediators reveal that patterns are particularly clear among males of lowest income deciles, highest education, and those who have never been married. Males in higher income deciles, the lowest educational group, or who have ever been married do not have large fertility differences by LS scores. Further research is still needed for a better understanding of the personality-fertility link, e.g. whether personality characteristics are associated with the timing of childbearing, or whether similar results can be found in other cultures.

There is evidence that the mortality disadvantage of widows and widowers relative to married men and women has been increasing over the last decades. At the same time, a rising life expectancy and heavy size fluctuations between birth cohorts have been reshaping the demographic characteristics of the widowed population, which may have implications for how to interpret the excess mortality of the widowed. This study uses Swedish register data to compare trends in the excess mortality of widows and widowers in younger and older age groups during the years 1970-2019, and link the trends to the demographic changes that occurred in the population in the same period. The results show that the excess mortality increased in all age groups during the period, with the strongest increase occurring in younger ages and among women. At the same time, the widowed population became significantly older, and the contribution from the groups aged 75 or younger to the overall excess mortality of the widowed declined. Further, the results show that widowhood overall became slightly less common among the old during the period, that the relative number of men entering widowhood rose and that the proportion who remarried after widowhood remained negligible throughout the period. The transition to widowhood also began to occur increasingly late in life while the average duration of widowhood before dying or remarrying fell, especially for women. The findings of the study suggest that while increasing selection into widowhood contributed to the rising excess mortality, other mechanisms were at work as well. Other potential explanations include an increasing overlap between widowhood and periods of sickness and disabilities, and a decline in access to formal care and assistance.

As men’s contributions to household work began to rise across Europe and North America, so did parental union dissolution. Because children’s residency with their mothers has been nearly universal for decades, in all couples in which fathers share at least some of the care work, a union dissolution slows societal increases in gender equality. A new family form—children’s 50/50 residency with both their parents—has begun to alter the consequences of union dissolution. As it requires the father to take on all care for half of the time—something few partnered fathers do—it may even push parents into more egalitarian sharing. We studied care work through Swedish administrative data on parents’ leave from work to care for a sick child. We created a panel of leave-sharing for children aged 2–11 and used fixed-effects models to estimate the within-couple effect of dissolution on sick-child leave. The results show that in the parental unions dissolving today, fathers’ share of sick-child leave is higher in the years following the dissolution than it was in the years in which the union was still intact. Whereas union dissolutions slowed the gender revolution for decades in Sweden, they now accelerate it.