PopDigests

In a recent study, Francesco C. Billari, Osea Giuntella and Luca Stella analysed whether the availability of high-speed Internet influences fertility choices in Germany. The authors worked with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). It is a unique dataset because it provides information on fertility histories, availability of Internet access, and also on whether Internet access is based on broadband (DSL) technology.

Many societies, particularly in the Nordic region, have made efforts over the last decades to create more gender-equal family leave policies. These policies are supposed to encourage fathers to take time off from work to help care for their children by making it easier to do so. Once these policies are in place, it is a matter of making sure fathers actually take advantage of them. Jussi Tervola, Ann-Zofie Duvander and Eleonora Mussino took a close look at these policies to see if immigrant fathers are also using these benefits to take time off from work to help care for their children.

It is well known that having a child requires some lifestyle adjustments. Parenthood can hinder the wellbeing of new parents since it is difficult to combine the demands of a child with work and leisure. In this study, A. Roeters, J.J. Mandemakers and M. Voorpostel  take into account the lifestyle differences of individuals before becoming parents. Using data from eleven waves of the Swiss Household Panel, the researchers investigate to what extent individuals’ participation in leisure activities and paid work moderates the effects of parenthood on wellbeing.

In the last decades, partnership markets in Europe have experienced an increase in so-called “secondary singles”, meaning individuals who have been married in the past and who are now ready to start a new relationship. For some of them, dating someone who has children may be undesirable, since taking the role of a step-parent is associated with anticipated relationship stress. 

When women in Europe become mothers this often negatively affects their labour market position. Even though employment levels of migrant women are comparably low in general, little is known how motherhood affects their working life. 

To understand how health policies can help improve our quality of life in older ages, it is important to look at health behaviours and their relation to health outcomes. In a recent study, Liili Abuladze and colleagues examined this relationship in Estonia, where life expectancies and self-rated health among older adults are comparatively low in Europe.

Using SHARE data from eleven countries, Liudmila Antonova, Tabea Bucher-Koenen and Fabrizio Mazzonna investigate the effects of economic crises that people experience during their prime working age (20-50) on their health later in life. The results show that when comparing individuals that experienced a strong recession (GDP dropped by at least 1%) and those that did not, people that experienced a recession rate their subjective health as worse and have worse objectively measured health. This effect is significantly stronger for people with low levels of education.

What influence do personality traits have on divorce? And how do their effects change over time? Diederik Boertien and Dimitri Mortelmans use the psychological concept of "The Big Five" to understand the association between personality and divorce in Britain, Germany and Flanders. They determined individuals’ "Big Five" personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness to experience) using three questions for each trait based on seven-point scales ranging from "Do not agree at all" to "Fully agree".

Increasing divorce and separation rates among couples make repartnering an important factor to understand the dynamics of partnership formation today. Using register data from Belgium, Inge Pasteels and Dimitri Mortelmans (2017) from the University of Antwerp, explore how economic resources and an individual’s previous union influence the likelihood of finding a new partner.

Why are non-affluent regions still accompanied by high fertility rates? In a new study published in Demography, Pierluigi Conzo, Giulia Fuochi and Letizia Mencarini examined the relationship between life satisfaction and fertility in rural Ethiopia. The study is based on data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey, a longitudinal dataset.