News from the Network

In this paper we compare several types of economic dependency ratios for a selection of European countries. These dependency ratios take into account not only the demographic structure of the population, but also the differences in age-specific economic behaviour such as labour market activity, income and consumption as well as age-specific public transfers.

The Internet has now become a habitual channel for finding a partner, but little is known about the impact of this recent partnership market on mate selection patterns. This study revisits the supply side perspective on assortative mating by exploring the role played by online venues in breeding educational, racial/ethnic and religious endogamy. It compares couples that met online (through either online dating platforms, Internet social networking, Internet gaming website, Internet chat, Internet community, etc.) to those that met through various offline contexts of interaction.

Why do migrants choose the Netherlands? It's often thought that it is because of the high quality of the welfare state, but according to Groningen professor Helga de Valk, that’s a misconception. If it were true, then the Scandinavian countries would be the most popular, and migrants would never want to move on. The data does not support this scenario.

This issue defines vulnerability as a key interdisciplinary concept for understanding life trajectories. Moreover, it develops a life course framework to study vulnerability along three structuring axes of research: multidimensionality, multilevel, and multidirectionality.

Demographer Tomáš Sobotka and Sociologist Felix Tropf were honoured for their outstanding research work at the 6th Berlin Demography Forum.

This paper starts with a short review of the growing literature on the topic of older migrants, particularly in relation to this population’s diversity, social vulnerability, loneliness, (transnational) care and support networks. It then introduces the collection of papers of this special issue by proposing an approach to studying older migrants as social actors who develop strategies to surpass vulnerabilities. Older migrants mobilise their resources while taking into account structural opportunities and restrictions from the meso and macro levels.

It is tempting, write Michaela Kreyenfeld and Dirk Konietzka, to regard rising childlessness in Europe as a “distinctly new and ‘post-modern’ phenomenon”. But is it really? “Is ‘voluntary’ childlessness really a new development?”, they ask. And: “Can we actually draw a line between ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ childlessness?”, "What drives childlessness in the twenty-first century?"

Out now: Population Europe's Quarterly Newsletter! Please download it here: Population Europe Newsletter January 2017.pdf

  --- MPIDR press release ---   Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany have calculated birthrates for men in Germany for the first time. They found that in each year since 1991 the average number of children per man was lower than that per woman. In 2013 (latest available data) the birthrate was 1.35 for males and 1.42 for females. For 1994 they obtained a new world record low – the birthrate in eastern Germany was only 0.74 children per man.

-- Press release by the MPIDR -- A low birth weight is considered a risk factor for decreased cognitive abilities in later life. This risk factor now seems to be dissolving; it is much less pronounced in younger birth cohorts.