Christine Schnor (Université Catholique de Louvain) and Marika Jalovaara (University of Turku) examined the increase in non-marital childbearing over the period 1970–2009. Their descriptive analysis reveals that the overall increase in non-marital childbearing is mainly due to increases in non-marital childbearing rates among the medium-educated population, contradicting previous evidence on the key role played by lower educated individuals.

How do policy and norms interact and influence labour market participation? To what extent can policies shape the participation of women in the labour market - over and above local social and cultural norms? And are family-friendly policies sufficient to allow women to pursue a full-time career next to their family responsibilities regardless of cultural context? Hannah Zagel (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Zachary Van Winkle (University of Oxford) used  data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (SHARE) to look at women ages 15 to 50 living throughout the 20th century across Europe to answer these questions.

Do family, friends or work colleagues influence each other’s fertility decisions? If so, to what extent does this generate a multiplying effect in societies? In a study published in Demography, Zafer Buyukkececi (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and colleagues answered these questions with data from the system of social statistical data sets provided by Statistics Netherlands.

Thijs van den Broek (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Marco Tosi (Collegio Carlo Alberto) analysed data from the Generations & Gender Programme (GGP) of older parents from eight eastern European countries. By using an instrumental variable approach, the authors show that for women, having multiple children had a causal protective effect against loneliness.