This research investigates whether the social class of divorced parents has any bearing on the likelihood of their children also getting divorced. Specifically it seeks to establish whether having more advantaged parents makes divorcing less likely thereby weakening the intergenerational transmission of divorce. It finds it does not. The researchers analyse 38,000 life histories from … Read more
The intergenerational transmission of family dissolution – and how it varies by social class origin and birth cohort
Stressful Life Events, Differential Vulnerability, and Depressive Symptoms: Critique and New Evidence
This paper considers whether women and less well-educated individuals are more vulnerable to the impacts of stressful life events on mental health. It finds they are not. Taking a new approach to researching life stress using data from a UK household survey, the research sets out to replicate and then go beyond previous work which … Read more
Why do lower educated people separate more often? Life strains and the gradient in union dissolution
This study finds that lower educated couples are more likely to separate than their better educated peers, because they experience strain across multiple aspects of their life, including work, finance, social relationships, health and housing. The research shows that lower educated couples are not in themselves more likely to separate, but rather face a range … Read more
Uncovering social stratification: Intersectional inequalities in work and family life courses by gender and race
This paper looks at the different privileges and constraints that men and women face as they juggle the demands of jobs and careers with having a family. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), the researchers examine the gender and race inequalities facing people in the United States and show that, in … Read more
Understanding the effects of Covid-19 through a life course lens
The Covid-19 pandemic is shaking fundamental assumptions about the human life course in societies around the world. In this essay, we draw on our collective expertise to illustrate how a life course perspective can make critical contributions to understanding the pandemic’s effects on individuals, families, and populations. We explore the pandemic’s implications for the organization … Read more
The effect of unemployment on couples separating in Germany and the UK
This research looks at how unemployment affects the risk of separation for heterosexual couples living together in Germany and the UK. The findings show that the annual separation rate almost doubles after an unemployment spell, increasing from 0.9% to 1.6% per year. The picture was the same whether it was the man or the woman … Read more
Double Trouble: Does Job Loss Lead to Union Dissolution and Vice Versa?
Does relationship breakdown lead to job loss, and job loss to relationship breakdown? Links between the two events are well documented, but this study looks more closely at the data and concludes other factors are at play. Using a large sample of working-age adults who took part in British household surveys between 1991 and 2018, … Read more
Family size and economic wellbeing following divorce: The United States in comparative perspective
Do childless women fare better economically than mothers after divorce? And do mothers with many children suffer more than those with small families? This study compares data from a panel study in the United States with similar information from studies in Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia. It finds that the household incomes of women … Read more
Family forerunners? Parental separation and partnership formation in 16 countries
This paper looks at whether children whose parents separated are more likely to cohabit rather than get married. The researchers looked at the partnerships of more than 130,000 men and women in 16 countries over five birth cohorts spanning 50 years. The research – one of the first to look at partnership formation patterns across countries … Read more
The Comparative Panel File: Harmonized Household Panel Surveys from Seven Countries
The Comparative Panel File (CPF) harmonizes the world’s largest and longest-running household panel surveys from seven countries: Australia (HILDA), Germany (SOEP), United Kingdom (BHPS and UKHLS), South Korea (KLIPS), Russia (RLMS), Switzerland (SHP), and the United States (PSID). The project aims to support the social science community in the analysis of comparative life course data. … Read more