PopDigests

Using longitudinal census and register data combined with childcare coverage rates for 588 municipalities in Belgium, Wood & Neels found that local formal childcare provision has a clear and substantial positive effect on the likelihood of having a child among dual-earner couples.

In a brand new and critical study, Bruno Schoumaker explored vital statistics, surveys and censuses from 163 countries to provide a broad overview of male fertility around the world and over time, and to identify the factors leading to differences between male and female fertility levels and trends.

Glenn Sandström and Lena Karlsson used data from the Generations and Gender Survey and found that in countries considered more gender equal, those with a higher education are less likely to live alone. But in less gender equal countries, the opposite is true with higher educated people more likely to live alone.

Perelli-Harris et al. investigated whether individuals who cohabit have similar levels of subjective wellbeing (SWB) as married people. They studied events and characteristics correlated with entrance into marriage; whether marriage may be more advantageous for those with a lower or higher tendency to marry; and, finally, whether there is variation by country and gender between partnership type and SWB.

Nella Geurts (Radboud University) & Marcel Lubbers (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute/KNAW/University of Groningen) investigated the relationship between migrants’ engagement with the country of origin and second-language proficiency from a quantitative perspective.

Research by Michael Mühlichen studied how mortality rates have developed in two German states since reunification with specific focus on premature mortality. Using official population and cause-of death statistics for Germany, he found that premature mortality has decreased rapidly since reunification, especially in the east.

Jonas Helgertz (University of Minnesota and Lund University) and Anton Nilsson (Lund University) analysed full-population Swedish register data on siblings and twins born between 1973 and 1994, and followed until 2011. This is one of the first studies to look at the effect of birth weight on sick days in adulthood.

Student mobility could foster social mobility, but its role in preserving or dismantling social inequalities is still largely under-investigated in Europe. Besides the fact that higher education reforms at the European Union (EU) and national levels have incentivised young people to study abroad from their home region, its impact on social mobility is yet to be understood.

A new study based on the Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally-representative longitudinal survey of children born in 2000-2 and living in the United Kingdom, explored the association between family structure trajectories and early physical health, as opposed to more commonly reported outcomes such as cognitive development or behaviour in older children.

Daniel Devolder and Joan Ballester (Centre for Demographic Studies, Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Barcelona Institute for Global Health) explored mortality and temperature data from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics and the European Climate Assessment and Dataset project, respectively. The study, published in the prestigious journal The Lancet Planetary Health, is the first to comprehensively assess the impact of the 1°C increase in ambient temperature, observed in Spain since 1980, on mortality due to cardiovascular disease by sex and age.