PopDigests

It is widely recognised that children who experience parental separation during their childhood tend to achieve lower educational outcomes than those who come from intact families. However, the possible differentiation in the way in which such separation effects influence children from different socio-economic backgrounds is much less understood.

Traditionally, Dutch long-term care arrangements were mainly provided by the government. But to limit costs, during the past few decades the Netherlands has been reforming its historically generous, public long-term care services. The reforms aimed to encourage people to be more active in caring for dependent relatives. Researcher Thijs van den Broek and his colleagues now show that despite the new policies to promote family engagement in care, care ideals in the Netherlands have shifted away from, rather than towards, the family having a prominent caring role.

Many Spanish parents work with a split-shift schedule, which consists of a long lunch break, sometimes two hours, that extends working activities until late in the evening. Empirical evidence by researchers Pablo Gracia (European University Institute) and Matthijs Kalmijn (University of Amsterdam) suggests that this schedule has negative consequences on parents’ time in family and child-related activities.   Work Schedules and Family Time: The Case of Spain

Obesity levels have increased remarkably over the last thirty years throughout the globe. At the same time, there are considerable variations in the proportion of overweight adults across countries. So what are the factors behind this global divergence? Is economic development one of the drivers of such differences?

Do different ageing patterns exist in different European areas, and is there a difference between East and West? To study the distinctive patterns of ageing by gender, and education in 16 European countries, Warren C. Sanderson and Sergei Scherbov use prospective ages in place of chronological ages. Prospective ages take changes in life expectancy into account. Prospective ages are based on how many years people have ahead of them, while chronological age is the number of years people have already lived.

Immigration within the borders of the European Union is driven by social and economic forces that are strongly linked to the legal framework of each state. As John Palmer and Mariola Pytliková found in their recent study, labour market laws influence migrants’ destination choices. In fact, the labour market restrictions imposed by some EU member states after the two enlargement rounds (2004 and 2007) have influenced both the magnitude and composition of intra-European migrant flows.

In the years to come, the size of the working-age populations (WAP) will decline in most countries of the European Union. This might have a negative impact on economic growth measured as the increase in the total volume of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). At the same time, the share of the working-age population will start to decline in all EU countries. The shrinking share of the population in their working ages is called the demographic burden and might have a negative impact on the standard of living, measured as GDP per capita.

Across Europe, there have been consistent educational improvements for both women and men over time. Higher levels of education have been traditionally associated with lower mortality rates. Ivana Kulhánová, et al. estimate how further improvements in educational attainment influence future mortality reductions.

Some immigrants stay in their host countries while others decide to return home, but return motives can be remarkably diverse. Migrants may decide to return if they have not been able to improve their lives through migration, a situation that can perhaps be read as a ‘failure’. Others instead may make the same decision only when they have saved and remitted enough to invest in their country of origin, making the return a measure of success.

Education is one of the most important determinants of citizens’ attitudes towards immigrants. Positive attitudes can be related to a liberalising effect from education, which fosters tolerance and egalitarian values, while negative views can be driven by the perception of so-called intergroup competition: when natives tend to feel threatened by the presence of immigrants, for example, in the labour market.