PopDigests

Finn Hedefalk and Martin Dribe (Centre for Economic Demography and the Department of Economic History, Lund University) looked at the association between neighbourhood conditions throughout childhood and educational attainment in adulthood. Unlike existing research that has focused on present-day and segregated cities in the United States, Hedefalk and Dribe take a long-term perspective and examine the impact of one’s neighbourhood in a more homogenous city in Sweden.

Cosmo Strozza, Virginia Zarulli, and Viviana Egidi of the Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics (University of Southern Denmark) and University of Rome “La Sapienza” analysed the 90+ population in Denmark to study how demographics, socio-economic characteristics and one’s lifestyle affect changes in physical and cognitive health, whether there is a pattern to these changes and how physical or cognitive aspects affect transitions of the other dimensions.

Xiana Bueno (Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics) and Marc Grau-Grau (Harvard Kennedy School) conducted a qualitative study of how parents in Spain think about taking unpaid parental leave. They found that while the parental leave policy may be egalitarian on its face, couples continue to utilize it in a gendered manner.

Marianne Tønnessen & Eleonora Mussino of the Stockholm University Demography Unit investigated fertility trends among immigrant women from low-fertility countries in their destination country of Norway, a moderate-fertility country.

Dunatchik and Özcan find that a non-transferable paternity leave policy in Quebec had a short-term positive impact on mothers’ labour outcomes, including workforce participation and full-time employment.

Juho Härkönen, M.D. (Anne) Brons & Jaap Dronkers found that children of divorce are among the forerunners of cohabitation as a replacement for marriage, choosing cohabitation over marriage at a faster rate than children of intact families. As cohabitation becomes more common, children from intact families "catch up" to children of divorce in their cohabitation patterns. 

Tina Hannemann (University of Manchester), Hill Kulu (University of St Andrews), Amparo González-Ferrer (Spanish National Research Council, CSIC Madrid), Pailhé (Institut National d'Études Démographiques, INED), Rahnu & Puur (University of Tallinn) investigated marriage, divorce, and cohabitation habits among immigrants and their descendants in four very different European countries: the UK, Spain, France, and Estonia. Their analysis demonstrated significant heterogeneity in partnership behaviour across migrant groups both within the same country and across the four European countries.

How do countries differ in decisions to live alone over the life course? Researchers at the Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics & Universidad Complutense looked at global patterns and trends of those living alone based on sex and age. They found cross-national differences by gender and country-specific trends, and concluded that living alone is related to levels of individualism.

Muller, Hiekel & Liefbroer investigate whether the "motherhood (earnings) penalty" holds true in the 21st century. Their results show that family trajectories do indeed have long-lasting consequences for women's personal earnings and employment, with women who follow traditional family trajectories facing the highest penalties.

In the Netherlands, loneliness is more prevalent among Turkish and Moroccan older adults than among older native adults. To investigate possible explanations for this difference, Tilburg & Fokkema used survey data to compare five dimensions of loneliness between native and migrant groups.