Veranstaltungsprogramm

This study examines how fertility intentions change as individuals transition between relationship stages. Prior research has compared fertility intentions across different relationship statuses but has not dynamically analyzed within-person changes across these transitions. This study addresses this gap by investigating whether the commitment level of cohabitation uniquely drives increases in fertility intentions or if dating relationships also influence childbearing plans.

Using data from the German Family Panel (waves 2008–2022), this study employs fixed effects models to estimate annual within-person changes in fertility intentions up to three years before and after partnership transitions. The analysis accounts for individual heterogeneity by controlling for time-invariant characteristics. Subsample analyses are conducted by gender and relationship stability to explore variation in these patterns.

Preliminary results indicate that entering a dating relationship from singlehood is associated with a significant rise in fertility intentions. However, this effect diminishes over time, suggesting that the early stages of dating drive fertility considerations, rather than a steady accumulation of commitment. By contrast, transitioning from dating to cohabitation leads to a sustained increase in fertility intentions, with intentions remaining elevated after the transition to living together. This supports the idea that cohabitation represents a more concrete step toward family formation than dating alone.

Further analysis reveals that the increase in fertility intentions upon entering a dating relationship is stronger among individuals who eventually transition to cohabitation compared to those whose relationships dissolve within four years. Additionally, selection effects are observed: individuals who go on to form stable dating relationships already exhibit higher fertility intentions before dating compared to those who later separate. These patterns highlight the interplay between relationship dynamics and fertility planning, suggesting that selection into stable partnerships and changes within them both shape fertility intentions. In a next step, the analysis will explore gender differences in these transitions.

Do first- and second-generation immigrants in mixed unions with native partners experience more conflicts with their parents than those in endogamous unions with co-ethnics? While selecting into mixed unions may already be linked to greater tensions during singlehood, these unions can further amplify conflicts post-formation, as they drive the negotiation of differences. However, conflicts may also decrease from dating to marriage, as mixed unions may foster mutual acceptance over time. This study uses German Family Panel data (pairfam, waves 1-13) to investigate maternal and paternal conflicts. Random-effects models reveal that first- and second-generation immigrants in mixed unions experience higher parental conflicts, even pre-union formation. Distributed fixed-effects models assess how the relationship between mixed unions and conflicts changes across union trajectory stages (from singlehood to dating, cohabitation, and marriage), while accounting for selection. Findings indicate that, when controlling for selection, transitioning from singlehood to mixed cohabitations and marriages may still result in more paternal conflicts compared to endogamous unions, especially among non-European second-generation immigrants. Conversely, for first-generation immigrants, mixed unions reduce both maternal and paternal conflicts. Thus, this study highlights the importance of life-course approaches and factors like migrant generation in investigating mixed unions’ outcomes and understanding their link to assimilation processes.

In the past years, the interest in the relative earnings of partnered women in different-sex cohabiting couples and also the role parenthood takes in these dynamics has been growing quickly. This strengthened focus on empirical assessments of the micro and macro-level mechanisms affecting spousal relative income (e.g. Angelov, Johansson and Lindahl 2016; Dieckhoff et al. 2019; Musick et al. 2020; Nylin et al. 2021) is important for understanding inequality dynamics within families.

Our paper wants to contribute to this literature by studying trajectories of German couples’ earnings inequalities and how they evolve after child birth dependent on the duration of paternity leave. Germany’s family policy has experienced a paradigm shift (Seeleib-Kaiser and Toivonen 2011; Gülzau 2020) moving from a traditional male breadwinner model to a dual-earner/dual-care-taking model. One central policy change was the parental leave reform in 2007 and the implementation of two “daddy months” (i.e. two months exclusively reserved to one parent) in an effort to encourage equal dual earning and caring. While now more than 40 percent of all fathers take up the two months exclusively reserved for them, only one third of all paternal leave-taking goes beyond those two months. We examine how long-term trajectories of couple earnings inequalities differ depending on the male partner’s leave, differentiating couples where he took no leave, up to two months of leave or more than two months of leave.

The paper draws on longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) offering us micro-level panel data at the household level from 2007 to 2022. We use fixed-effects panel models with robust standard errors clustered within couples to analyze specifically the effect of the event of child birth on the earnings gap and its evolution within cohabiting couples. Preliminary results suggest that father’s paternity leave-taking and its duration have long-term implications for the trajectories of within-couple earnings inequalities.

Der demografische Wandel und die zunehmende Pluralisierung von Lebensformen führen dazu, dass immer mehr Menschen im höheren Lebensalter ohne lokale familiäre Unterstützungsnetzwerke leben. Im deutschen Wohlfahrtsstaat kommt der Familie traditionell eine zentrale Rolle in der Pflegeverantwortung zu. Das wirft die Frage auf, wie soziale Absicherung jenseits familiärer Bindungen gewährleistet werden kann. Gleichzeitig zeigen empirische Studien, dass Unterstützung und Pflege auch teilweise von Freund*innen, Nachbar*innen oder anderen nahestehenden Personen geleistet werden, dann aber rechtlich nicht gleichermaßen abgesichert sind.

Dieser Beitrag untersucht anhand des Deutschen Alterssurveys (DEAS) 2002-2023, erstens welche Personen im höheren Lebensalter weder in einer Partnerschaft leben noch Kinder in der Nähe haben und inwieweit diese Lebenssituation mit Alter, Kohorte, Geschlecht und Bildung zusammenhängt. Zweitens wird analysiert, wer außerhalb familiärer Strukturen Unterstützung und Pflege leistet und ob sich dies über die Kohorten hinweg verändert hat.

Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass etwa jede siebte Person in der zweiten Lebenshälfte ohne unmittelbare familiäre Netzwerke lebt – ein Anteil, der mit zunehmendem Alter steigt. Frauen sind aufgrund ihrer höheren Lebenserwartung hiervon überproportional betroffen. Gleichzeitig ist eine kleine, aber relevante Gruppe von Menschen in der Unterstützung und Pflege für Nicht-Verwandte aktiv, wobei Frauen diese Aufgaben häufiger übernehmen als Männer. Die längsschnittliche Perspektive zeigt, dass sich weder die Anzahl der Menschen ohne lokale, familiäre Einbindung noch der Anteil derjenigen, die Nicht-Verwandte unterstützen über die Kohorten hinweg verändert hat.

Diese potenzielle Versorgungslücke bleibt im sozialpolitischen Diskurs bislang weitgehend unsichtbar. Zwar hatte die Ampelregierung im Koalitionsvertrag die Einführung von Verantwortungsgemeinschaften vorgesehen, um Verantwortungsübernahme außerhalb von Partnerschaft und Familie rechtlich stärker abzusichern – umgesetzt wurde dieses Vorhaben in der Legislaturperiode jedoch nicht mehr. Der Beitrag liefert somit neue Erkenntnisse zu sozialen Unterstützungsstrukturen im Alter und verweist auf blinde Flecken im stark familialistisch ausgerichteten Pflegesystem.

Background:

While a large body of research has investigated the relationship between (general) parent anxiety and child mental health outcomes, parental worry specific to one’s children has been overlooked in explaining child mental health outcomes. As parental worry about one’s children may be an important link in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety, this study seeks to disentangle the longitudinal relations between parental worry and child internalizing symptoms from late childhood through adolescence.

Method:

Using data from pairfam, a longitudinal study of 1,260 children ages 8-15 (936 parents and 4,560 observations) living in Germany, this study first tests for relations among the initial levels (intercept) and trajectories (slope) of parental worry and child internalizing symptoms using parallel latent growth models. Second, this study tests the stability of the relations over time by testing unconstrained versus constrained structural equation models.

Results:

The initial levels of parental worry and child internalizing symptoms (when the child is 8-9) are related. Both parental worry about one’s children and child internalizing symptoms decrease slightly over time. However, there is no relation between the initial levels and trajectories of parental worry and child internalizing symptoms. Moreover, the strength of the association between parental worry about one’s children and child internalizing symptoms remains stable across late childhood to early adolescence.

Conclusion:

Parental worry and child internalizing symptoms are consistently linked throughout development. However, while both children’s symptoms and parental worry tend to decrease, there is no relation between trajectories, likely due to little variation in the trajectories of parental worry. Our findings suggest a lack of an escalating bidirectional relation, as parents do not adjust their worry based on changes in children’s symptoms. This study provides a longitudinal perspective, emphasizing the need to interrupt intergenerational anxiety transmission in early childhood.

In der Schweiz werden heute zwei von fünf Ehen geschieden, bei knapp der Hälfte sind minderjährige Kinder involviert. Während und nach der Trennung eines Elternpaares kommt der Wohnungsfrage eine gesteigerte Bedeutung zu. Die familiale Lebensführung muss räumlich-architektonisch gestaltet und neue Lösungen des getrennten Zusammenlebens gefunden werden. Im Rahmen eines vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds geförderten Forschungsprojekts zu Nachtrennungsarrangements von Familien untersuchen wir in einem Team aus Soziologen und Architektinnen diese räumliche Dimension. Es ist Teil eines Sinergia-Projekts, innerhalb dessen Forschende aus der Psychologie, Soziologie, Rechtswissenschaft und Architektur der Universitäten Lausanne, Neuchâtel und der ETH Zürich während vier Jahren in vier Teilprojekten zusammenarbeiten (www.sinergiafamy.ch). Dabei kommt ein Methodenmix aus (a) einem drei Wellen umfassenden nationalen Online-Panel Schweizer Familien zur Anwendung sowie (b) qualitativ-ethnografischen Ansätzen in Verbindung mit Methoden der Architekturforschung für Eltern und Kinder. Um Veränderungen der Wohnpraktiken und -bedingungen sichtbar zu machen, ist auch die ethnografische Teilstudie in den drei Sprachregionen der Schweiz als qualitativer Längsschnitt mit zwei Wellen im Abstand von 12 Monaten angelegt.

Der Beitrag will das gewinnbringende Zusammenspiel des quantitativen und qualitativen Paneldesigns sowie der Methodenrepertoires von Soziologie und Architektur in den Fokus stellen. Dabei sollen auch die besonderen Herausforderungen der multilingualen Schweiz für die quantitativen und qualitativen Datenerhebungen und -analysen sowie das Forschen im interdisziplinären Zusammenhang thematisiert werden.