This paper analyses the impact of divorce on the gross earnings of women and men and investigates how differences in social policy contexts influence these relationships. In particular, it focuses on a policy reform enacted in Germany in 2008 that overturned previous ex-spousal support rules. Data come from the administrative records of the German Public Pension Fund. Drawing on a fixed-effects panel approach with dynamic treatment effects, we examine the earnings trajectories of women and men who separated between 2004 and 2011 (n = 24,135 divorces). We find that women’s earnings increased throughout the divorce process. This pattern was slightly more pronounced after the reform than before. In contrast to women’s earnings, men’s earnings declined throughout the divorce process. After the reform, this decline was less pronounced than before. While divorce was associated with changes in the earnings trajectories of women and men in West Germany, earnings patterns among East German men and women remained largely unchanged around separation, both before and after the reform. The paper concludes by discussing avenues for post-separation policies from a gender perspective.
A large literature documents a negative effect of family dissolution on children’s educational attainment, yet little is known about how this “divorce penalty” varies by migration background. Theory suggests that children of immigrants have “less to lose” from parental separation due to their lower initial socioeconomic resources, although evidence is limited to a few country cases. Moreover, research has largely overlooked the children of mixed couples (consisting of one native and one immigrant parent); however, as we argue, they may be most affected by parental separation due to disrupted ties with their immigrant parent and minority networks. The consequences for their educational attainment may be especially pronounced if the immigrant parent has greater socioeconomic resources. Using data from 12 European countries in the Generations and Gender Survey, we examine variation in the divorce penalty in tertiary attainment by parental migration background and its moderation by parental education. Contrary to previous research, we find no differences in divorce penalties between children with two native and two immigrant parents. The largest penalty occurs among children of mixed couples, particularly those with an immigrant father. This penalty is amplified when the immigrant parent has a tertiary education, suggesting that children lose access to valuable parental resources. Analyses of residential and meeting patterns after separation reveal that for immigrant fathers, this may be due to a greater likelihood of losing contact with their children. Overall, the study sheds light on how family instability, migration background, and social origins jointly shape children’s long-term educational outcomes.
This study explores the association between unplanned pregnancies resulting in a birth and relationship dissolution in the Netherlands. Using prospective, population-based birth cohort data from Rotterdam, the second largest city in the Netherlands, it finds that couples with an unplanned pregnancy resulting in a birth have a 19
Fertility, Employment, Descendants of immigrants, United Kingdom Women’s childbearing behaviour is closely linked to their labour-market participation, yet research that treats these processes as interdependent rarely examines women with migrant family backgrounds. Using twelve waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009–2021), this study employs a multiprocess model to jointly estimate the probabilities of childbirth and employment transitions while accounting for unobserved propensities. We focus on 1.5 generation (migrated before age 16) and second-generation women (UK-born with at least one foreign-born parent), comparing them with women born in the UK to UK-born parents. Results show a partially negative correlation between fertility and paid work, and ignoring this leads to overestimating employment’s negative impact on fertility. Findings by parity show that employed women are more likely to have a first birth, while non-employed women are more likely to have second and third births. This pattern varies across migrant family backgrounds: employment status makes little difference for first births among Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Caribbean women, reflecting a robust cultural orientation toward family formation within these groups. Generational differences also emerge. Pakistani and Bangladeshi 1.5 generation have higher first-birth rates than their second-generation counterparts, pointing to the role of early socialisation. All 1.5 generation women are less likely to enter employment than the second generation, suggesting stronger barriers for the foreign-born. These results highlight diverse work-family pathways shaped by subcultures and constraints, with implications for UK family and labour-market policy.
This study examines the relationship between institutional contexts and the transition to a second child in 11 European countries and the US between the 1990s and mid-2000s. Using harmonized longitudinal microdata and mixture cure models, we distinguish between the probability of having a second child (quantum) and the timing of its conception (tempo). We examine both between-country differences and within-country variation over time in labour market conditions and work-and-family reconciliation policies. The results reveal that women in Northern and Anglo-Saxon Europe experienced higher probabilities of second births and shorter birth intervals, while those in Central and Eastern and Southern Europe faced lower probabilities and longer birth intervals. Between-country estimates indicate that these cross-national differences are strongly associated with variation in reconciliation policies and labour market conditions, suggesting that institutional contexts help explain why fertility patterns differ across countries. Within-country estimates, which assess whether changes in institutional conditions are accompanied by changes in fertility behaviour over time reveal weaker and less consistent associations. This contrast suggests that institutional differences between countries do not necessarily translate into equivalent fertility responses to institutional change within countries, which may be more gradual and context dependent. One notable exception is parental leave: more generous parental-leave schemes of moderate length are associated with both higher second-birth probabilities and shorter intervals to conception.
