News and Updates

First 12 months with mum: will you be happier later on?

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In Episode 3 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Katharina Heisig and Larissa Zierow from DIAL’s IMCHILD project discuss their research looking at the impacts of parental leave reform in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). They discuss the happiness outcomes of adults who, as children, as the result of the policy reforms, spent 12 months at home with their mother rather than in State run childcare. 

The baby year parental leave reform in the GDR and its impact on children’s long-term life satisfaction is a DIAL Working Paper by Katharina Heisig and Larissa Zierow from DIAL’s IMCHILD project. 

 

Unemployed parent? How does that affect a teen’s school choices and achievements?

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In the second Episode of Series 2 of our podcast looking at research emerging from the Equal Lives project, we talk to Jani Erola and Hannu Lehti from the University of Türku in Finland about their research, The heterogeneous effects of parental unemployment on siblings’ educational outcomes. They use high quality Finnish data and robust methods to see how having an unemployed parent affects how teenage children get on at school. They discuss their findings and what they might mean for those seeking to support the families of people out of work and to reduce inequalities over the life course.

 

Aiming high and missing the mark?

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In Episode 2 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Jesper Fels Birkelund from the Lifetrack project talks about his research looking at the educational aspirations and achievements of the children of immigrants in Denmark. He shares findings from the research and outlines their implications for policy in Denmark and more widely in Europe. 

Aiming high and missing the mark? Educational Choice, Dropout Risk, and Achievement in Upper Secondary Education among Children of Immigrants in Denmark is research by Jesper Fels Birkelund, and is published in the European Sociological Review.

 

 

The UK LGBT Action Plan: a look behind the celebratory rhetoric

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In Episode 1 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Professor Yvette Taylor from DIAL’s CILIA LGBTQI+ project talks about her research with Matson Lawrence looking behind the celebratory rhetoric of the UK Government’s LGBT Action Plan published in 2018. She also discusses emerging findings from the project and  LGBTQI+ people say about their lives and how they view the ‘progress’ claimed in the plan and more widely by politicians. 

The UK government LGBT Action Plan: Discourses of progress, enduring stasis, and LGBTQI+ lives ‘getting better’ is research by Matson Lawrence and Yvette Taylor and is published in the Journal of Critical Social Policy.

 

 

Exploring the early environment and childhood development at the second DIAL workshop at Newcastle

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Newcastle conference report 13. – 14th January 2020

The second DIAL thematic workshop – Education for Life – was organized on 13th and 14th of January 2020 at the Newcastle University. Researchers from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Finland gathered together to present and discuss their ongoing research. The presentations of this two-day workshop covered topics such as socioeconomic differences in child development, with a special focus on linguistic and behavioural development, preterm babies, maternal mental health and social mobility. The conference finished with a vivid discussion on science communication to political actors and practitioners.

Read moreExploring the early environment and childhood development at the second DIAL workshop at Newcastle

Aleksi Karhula wins the 2019 ALCR Young Scholar Award

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DIAL congratulates PhD Aleksi Karhula for winning the 2019 Advances in Life Course Research Young Scholar Award with his paper:

Karhula, A., Erola, J., Raab, M. & Fasang, A. 2019. Destination as a process: Sibling similarity in early socioeconomic trajectories. Advances in Life Course Research, 40: 85-98.

Karhula and his colleagues studied sibling similarity in their early socioeconomic trajectories. A  pronounced similarity in the early socioeconomic trajectories was found, in particular in disadvantaged and advantaged trajectories. The study concludes that social mobility measures that focus solely on final outcomes risk underestimating the full extent of the social origin effects.

You can read the paper here!

Do Nordic countries live up to their promise of creating fairer and more equal societies?

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In the first Episode of Series 2 of our podcast looking at research emerging from the Equal Lives project, we talk to Marika Jalovaara from the University of Türku in Finland and Anette Fasang from Humboldt University in Berlin about their research, Family Life Courses, Gender and Mid-Life earnings. The research explores whether the reputation of Nordic countries for having family friendly policies  that create a fairer and more equal society is deserved. Using register data from Finland, the researchers look at the earnings of adults based on their family lifecourse and reveal 2 groups of young adults who should be a focus for policy makers and researchers going forward. 

 

Alessandro Di Nallo: Job loss and divorce: worse for disadvantaged couples?

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In Episode 12 of the DIAL Podcast, Alessandro Di Nallo from the University of Lausanne talks about his research looking at the links between job loss and divorce for couples to see if the likelihood of separating is greater for more or less advantaged couples.

The heterogeneous effect of job loss on union dissolution. Panel evidence from Germany, Switzerland and the UK is research presented at the DIAL Mid Term Conference in June 2019.