This paper asks how researchers can statistically assess differences in groups of life-course trajectories. The authors address a long-standing inadequacy of social sequence analysis by proposing an adaption of the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and the likelihood-ratio test (LRT) for assessing differences in groups of sequence data. Unlike previous methods, this adaption provides a useful … Read more
Comparing Groups of Life-Course Sequences Using the Bayesian Information Criterion and the Likelihood-Ratio Test
Does re-partnering behavior spread among former spouses?
This study investigates whether divorcees who re-partner play a role in their former spouse’s decisions to do the same. The researchers used administrative data from Statistics Netherlands to look at divorcees who remarried or lived with a new partner and the likelihood of their former spouse doing the same soon after and showed this was … Read more
Cross-country differences in anxiety and behavioral response to the Covid-19 pandemic
This research uses the COVID-19 Attitudes and Beliefs survey to look at the anxiety levels and behaviour responses of nearly 100,000 people in 54 countries during March 20 2020 and May 21 2020. It goes on to link the findings to the economic preferences and development of those countries. Findings show that women were more … Read more
Work and family life courses among Jewish and Israeli-Palestinian Women in Israel
This research looks at young Jewish and Palestinian Israeli women to see whether leading a more advantaged family and work life is linked to their ethnicity and background. It shows that Jewish women are substantially more likely to be in better paid more stable jobs whilst their Palestinian counterparts were more likely to be at … Read more
Parenthood Wage Gaps across the Life-Course: An Intersectional Comparison by Gender and Race
Read a longer summary from Zachary Van Winkle’s website. This paper aims to assess how parenthood wage gaps vary across individual lives for different gender and race groups in the United States. The research uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97) covering the years 1979–2003 to map parenthood wage gaps … Read more
Life Course Trajectories and Wealth Accumulation in the United States: Comparing Baby Boomers and Millennials
This paper empirically assesses the widespread belief that Millennials are economically worse off than their parents’ generation, the Baby Boomers. The research used US data from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth to analyse the work and family life courses of Millennials and Baby Boomers from age 18 to 35, and then … Read more
Family Life Courses, Gender, and Mid-Life Earnings
This paper suggests that extensive Nordic family friendly policies designed to support work – family balance and to increase social and gender equality do not achieve the aim of minimising earnings inequalities between men and women and between different family types. Using Finnish register data on 6,621 men and 6,330 women born between 1969 and … Read more
Destination as a process: Sibling similarity in early socioeconomic trajectories
This paper finds that when trying to better understand how individuals achieve a social position, it is key to consider not just where they start and finish, but how their lives unfold and change over time. The research makes use of rich Finnish register data to compare the education, work and earnings between the ages … Read more
Family, Firms, and Fertility: A Study of Social Interaction Effects
This research shows that when an individual has a baby can be directly linked to the fertility decisions not only of their closest family and colleagues but of wider networks. The findings demonstrate for the first time and in a robust way, a clear fertility spillover effect from family to the workplace and vice versa. … Read more
Family Size and the Persistency of Poverty following Divorce: The United States in Comparative Perspective
This paper assesses how the short- and medium-term economic consequences of divorce on women vary by family size. It finds, surprisingly, that having children contributes to a woman’s economic recovery in the medium term. The researchers made use of household survey data in the US, UK, Germany, Australia and Switzerland and advanced modelling techniques to … Read more