We examined whether the perceived self-fulfillment relevance of childbearing is associated with the link between expected welfare-state childcare support and fertility intentions, and whether this association varies by individuals’ level of postmaterialism. Drawing on the Rapporto Giovani 2022 survey across Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, we analyzed a sample of 2616 childless adults aged 25–34. We first modeled how self-fulfillment valuation of parenthood varies by postmaterialism and welfare expectations. Next, we estimated a moderated mediation model through generalized structural equation modeling with nonparametric bootstrap to assess conditional direct and indirect associations linking values, perceived support, and fertility intentions. The results showed that, among individuals with higher levels of postmaterialism, limited expected welfare-state childcare support was associated with a weaker perceived relevance of childbearing for self-fulfillment and, indirectly, with lower fertility intentions, whereas this indirect association was not evident among those expecting greater support. These findings underscore the importance of integrating motivational and institutional perspectives: the relevance of family policies for fertility intentions may depend not only on structural constraints, but also on whether perceived support resonates with individuals’ value systems.
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is designed for families who are experiencing challenging financial situations, like those experienced by many during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, nationally, after a brief period of growth immediately after public health restrictions were put into place, the average monthly state TANF caseload declined during the pandemic. Using restricted-use, monthly, state-level data from 2017–2022, this study examined state TANF caseload patterns through a racial equity lens. Results from fixed effects regression models indicate differences across racial and ethnic groups. The pre-COVID caseload decline was most severe for non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic recipients, and non-Hispanic Black recipients were the only group that did not experience statistically better coverage at the onset of the pandemic. Results indicate that declining caseload trends after the pandemic peak were less severe for Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander recipients, but returned to pre-COVID trends for other groups. Further analyses that address missing data indicate that post-COVID declines were also less severe for Hispanic recipients. Implications to address racial equity in TANF administration and research are discussed.
Most industrial countries face considerable demographic challenges, especially in the health and care sectors. The working conditions within a country are key to attracting workers from other countries. One of the greatest barriers for migrant workers is problems transferring foreign qualifications, often causing overeducation, which has negative effects on job satisfaction, and mental and physical health. In Germany, where almost 80
Canada has low fertility and relies on immigration to support the labor force and population growth. However, if recent waves of immigrants have the same or lower rates of fertility than native-born Canadians, then immigration becomes a demographic revolving door rather than long-term solution for the country’s population pressures. This paper provides estimates for immigrant fertility in Canada 2001–2021, examining heterogeneity by age at migration, immigration streams, and country of origin. We use the long-form Canadian census (2001, 2006, 2016, 2021) and the National Household Survey (2011). Using the “Own Infant Method”, we estimate total fertility rates for different population subgroups for the period prior to each census. Immigrants to Canada have higher fertility than native-born Canadians, but the gap is narrowing, from 0.24 births in 2001 to 0.11 in 2021. Within immigrant categories, there is great variation. First-generation immigrants have the highest TFR, while 1.5-generation immigrants have even lower fertility than both first-generation immigrants and those who are native-born. Among immigration streams, family stream immigrants have the highest fertility, followed by refugees, and then economic immigrants. Fertility rates of immigrants from almost all of the top ten source countries declined substantially between 2001 and 2021, with most being below replacement level in Canada and much lower than the fertility in the source country. These findings are essential for policymakers as they debate the right levels of immigration, and which immigration streams and source countries best promote long-term population growth.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted late adolescent life in the United States, sharply constraining in-person schooling and social activities while making digital media a primary avenue for coping and connection. Using nationally representative data from six waves of Monitoring the Future (2018–2023; N = 6,698 high school seniors ages 17–18), this study examines whether associations between leisure-oriented digital media use and parenthood desires, interpreted as broad family-formation schemas rather than concrete intentions, shifted between the pre-pandemic period (2018–2020) and the pandemic period (2021–2023), and whether these shifts were patterned by gender. Survey-weighted multinomial logistic regression models estimated for each media type are summarized using average marginal effects. Weekend screen time became more negatively associated with desiring one or more children among young men (period-contrast AME = − 0.036, p < .001), whereas gaming hours became more positively associated with preferring childlessness among young women (period-contrast AME = 0.015, p < .05); weekday screen time showed no systematic changes. Sensitivity analyses confirm these patterns are robust to alternative outcome codings, media specifications, and control sets. The findings suggest that media–parenthood associations are context dependent rather than fixed, and that major social disruptions can reconfigure how everyday media practices align with family-formation schemas through distinct, gendered pathways.
South Korea’s total fertility rate (TFR) has declined to 0.72, raising concerns about the country’s demographic and socioeconomic sustainability. This study employed Q methodology to examine subjective perceptions of low fertility. We conducted a structured, face-to-face Q survey in January 2025 with 40 purposively sampled participants (N = 40) representing sociodemographic backgrounds. Participants sorted 40 statements about economic, cultural, and gender-role aspects on a forced distribution from − 4 to + 4. Data were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation, which revealed four perception types (prioritization of personal life and happiness; recognition of economic burdens of childrearing; emphasis on work-family balance; and concern regarding population decline), together accounting for 62.3
We investigate differences in the earnings penalty of working from home (WFH) by gender and race, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We used a large, nationally representative longitudinal dataset with quarterly information from 2018 to 2022. Our fixed-effects estimates showed that while WFH was generally associated with an earnings penalty before the pandemic, such a penalty diminished for men, especially Black and Brown men, but remained high for both White women and Black and Brown women during the pandemic. To better understand the channels explaining these gaps, we showed how White women became more likely to work remotely (the supply and demand channel) but less likely to be promoted to managerial positions when WFH (the promotion channel). In contrast, Black and Brown women experienced larger reductions in effective working hours while WFH (the labor input channel).
This paper analyzes occupational trajectories of refugees from the last job in their home country to their first and current jobs in Austria as well as the role of co-ethnic and Austrian social networks in job searches, using data from a repeated survey (in the 2017–2022 period) of recognized refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria who have predominantly come to Austria since 2010, thereby covering the major refugee wave of 2015–2016. The results point to a reclining L-shaped pattern, with a sharp initial occupational loss followed by a rather moderate occupational recovery, indicating that refugees are at risk of ending up permanently in the secondary segment of the Austrian labor market. Although native social networks do not play a role in occupational changes, co-ethnic social networks—particularly when used as a stand-alone job search strategy—prove detrimental along the entire trajectory. However, co-ethnic social networks are beneficial if used in combination with the Austrian Public Employment Service or non-governmental organizations. Older or highly educated refugees prove particularly vulnerable, as a pronounced initial occupational downgrading is followed by little subsequent upgrading.
In Australia, official reporting of health and social measures is predominantly based on administrative data sources where all citizens are asked to volunteer their Indigenous status when completing administrative processes to receive services and programs. Due to historical, sociological and political factors, missing data on Indigenous status is common and varies widely, across many administrative databases. Algorithms and linkage across multiple databases are the primary method used to decrease missingness of Indigenous status in administrative data. We used a capture-recapture approach to quantify the overall missingness of Indigenous status in linked data from the admitted public hospital and emergency department of the regional jurisdiction of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). We analyzed Indigenous status yearly data (2010–2022). That same approach was used to measure the missingness of Indigenous status by age and sex. Capture-recapture analyses indicated that the hospital and emergency department datasets may not have identified between 35 and 45
The association between educational attainment and health (i.e., the education-health gradient) among U.S. adults has strengthened in recent decades; however, explanations for this trend are incomplete. This study builds on recent work showing that the strength of the gradient differs across U.S. states. We asked, how and why has the gradient changed over time in each U.S. state? Using 27 years of cross-sectional data from the 1993–2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System on adults ages 30–64 years, we estimated how the association between educational attainment and self-rated health changed over time in each state. We also assessed the contribution of six individual-level factors, such as adults’ income, and three state-level contextual factors, such educational composition and policy context, to changes in the association in each state. The gradient increased significantly in 49 of the 50 states during the period, but the magnitude of the increase differed notably by state. In most states, the largest single contributor to the increasing gradient was household income. Adults’ employment and obesity also contributed to the increasing gradient to varying degrees in many states, while smoking suppressed the increase in the gradient in over half of states. The state-level contextual factors contributed little to the increasing gradient. The findings underscore the value of a subnational focus for explaining and potentially reversing the growth in the education-health gradient.
Globally, one-third of the almost 12 million individuals who are incarcerated remain unsentenced. This figure is monitored as part of the Sustainable Development Goals as it highlights disparities in access to justice. In Mexico, this issue is pronounced, with 42.3
Disability risks among midlife Latino adults in the United States are strongly patterned along axes of stratification such as nativity and citizenship status. Another increasingly salient axis of inequality in disability risk is geographic context, such as U.S. state political environments. While prior research highlights the importance of specific state policies, such as Medicaid, in shaping health-related outcomes, few studies have examined how broader policy contexts and ideologies, such as policy liberalism, influence disability risk, particularly among Latino adults. This study combines data from the 2008–2019 American Community Survey (ACS) with state-level measures of overall, economic, and social policy liberalism to examine how these dimensions of policy context influence disability risks among a diverse sample of midlife working-age Latino adults ( n = 1,103,993). Using logistic regression models, we evaluate the associations between state policy liberalism (overall, economic, and social domains) and disability and assess differences by nativity and citizenship status. Results indicate that greater overall and economic policy liberalism were associated with lower probabilities of disability among midlife Latino adults. The magnitude of this association varied by nativity and citizenship, with U.S.-born Latino adults experiencing greater declines in disability across more liberal policy contexts compared to foreign-born Latino adults. Additionally, compared to the naturalized and non-citizens, citizens experienced greater declines in disability across more liberal policy contexts. These results suggest that state policy contexts that promote and protect social and economic supports, such as improving access to labor protections, can reduce the burden of disability, particularly among U.S.-born and citizen Latino adults.
Using data from the 2014 and 2020 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study extended the analytical framework of fertility research from individual or dyadic perspectives to the intergenerational family context. It examined the correlation between the number of children and the traditional familism values of women, their husbands, and their co-residing parents-in-law in rural China. The results show that: (1) the traditional fertility values of both husbands and wives are significantly and positively associated with their number of children; (2) the association for wives weakens across birth cohorts, whereas it remains stable (but at a lower level) for husbands; (3) parents-in-law’s traditional values remain predictive of offspring couples’ fertility, affecting it indirectly—via the husband’s values and via parents-in-law’s own fertility behavior—rather than directly. These results underscore the importance of multigenerational frameworks for understanding fertility determinants and provide fresh theoretical insights into fertility trajectories in late-developing nations.
We examined the correlates of hardship among affluent households and the characteristics of affluent households make them less likely to report hardships than poor ones. Is it income alone that explains differences in the likelihood of hardship, or do other characteristics—such as wealth and education—play important roles? Using 2021 data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we examined the prevalence of four types of hardship (bill paying, food, housing, and neighborhood) among poor and affluent households, with affluence defined as household income at least five times the poverty line. The predictors of hardship generally did not significantly differ across poor and affluent households. Wealth and the presence of a disabled household member were consistently linked with hardship among both. Decomposition analyses indicated that the difference in income alone was the most important reason why poor households are more likely to experience bill-paying and food hardships than affluent households, but wealth played the largest role in explaining differences in housing and neighborhood hardships. In decomposition analyses without income and wealth—two proximate determinants of hardship—household type (e.g., presence of a married couple), education, employment status, and race helped explain differences in hardship prevalence across poor and affluent households. Overall, our findings suggest that a variety of characteristics—the most important being income and wealth, depending on the hardship—help explain differences in the prevalence of hardship between poor and affluent households.
Discussions about future care needs of U.S. older adults have frequently called attention to ongoing changes in families as the harbinger of a looming family care shortfall. To explore this premise, we paired estimates from the National Health and Aging Trends Study with projections of kinship patterns by age, sex, race through 2040. We defined care gaps in two complementary ways: the number of older adults with care needs who have (1) no family caregivers and (2) unmet care needs, whether they have caregivers or not. We projected outcomes for the overall older adult population and by sex, marital status, and racial groups, accounting first for only population growth and then allowing shifts in age structure, family structure, and family size. We projected that because of population growth alone, by 2040 the number of U.S. older adults with care needs but no family caregivers will reach 7.7 million and the number with unmet care needs will reach 14 million, up 22.9
Universal health coverage (UHC) serves two significant roles in fertility decisions: encouraging (pro-fertility effect) and discouraging/delaying fertility (contraceptive effect). I conducted an analysis to estimate the correlation and potential impact of UHC on the total fertility rate (TFR) across countries for the period 1990–2014. My analysis used data from the World Development Indicators, the World Health Organization, the European Values Study and the World Values Survey, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. To address potential endogeneity, I employed Lewbel’s heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable (IV) approach. The results suggest a negative relationship between UHC and TFR, indicating the dominance of the contraceptive effect over the pro-fertility effect. Furthermore, enhancing UHC performance has the potential to lower TFR, leading to fewer children per woman with improved access to UHC services and financial protection. I relate these findings to the observed global fertility decline. Lastly, a decomposition analysis identifies the UHC program as a significant driver in closing the fertility gap between developed and developing countries, which indicates a convergence phenomenon.
Italy holds one of the lowest fertility levels and the highest mean age at first birth in Europe, with previous studies pointing to a large gap between achieved and desired fertility. Nevertheless, micro-level evidence on the magnitude of the gap throughout reproductive ages and on the reasons for underachieving remains limited. In this study, we aimed at (1) quantifying the desired-realized fertility gap, i.e., the discrepancy between the desired and actual number of children, among women and men in reproductive age; (2) measuring the “fertility timing gap”, i.e., the discrepancy between the desired and actual age at first birth; (3) describing the reasons for underachieving one’s fertility desires. We used primary data collected through an online survey administered in 2025 on a representative sample (based on quotas) of 6009 heterosexual individuals aged 25–49 living in Italy. Our results showed that large proportions of men and women in reproductive age have not (yet) achieved their desired number of children. At ages 45–49, unrealized fertility corresponded to 0.8 children for men and 0.7 for women. We also found a substantial gap between the desired and actual age at first childbirth, especially among respondents who became parents after age 35. Age- and health-related factors, economic- and work-related factors, insufficient family policies, and inadequate housing conditions were the most commonly reported reasons for underachieving. Results suggest that structural interventions enhancing young people’s economic and housing security and work-family reconciliation are pivotal to enable people to achieve their fertility aspirations.
Episodic memory is an important indicator of cognitive function. Women generally report better episodic memory than men later in life, with education having a notable role in this relationship. However, this phenomenon has seen limited cross-national exploration across age groups in middle-income countries (MICs) that have with varied forms of gender inequality and education access. We used cross-sectional, nationally representative data (2015–2019) from the Health and Retirement Study—International Network of Studies (HRS-INS) to examine episodic memory gender differences among middle-aged (50–64) and older adults (65 +) in India, China, Brazil, and Mexico (N = 89,553). We employed country- and age group-specific linear regression models that progressively adjust for age, place (i.e., urban/rural residence), education, comorbidities, and social ties (i.e., marital status; household size). In India, men had better episodic in both age groups, which was significantly accounted for by education, while social ties only had a significant role among older adults. In China, men had better episodic in both age groups and education was a non-significant mediator. In Brazil, women only had better episodic memory in middle age, while place and social ties had a small, non-significant role. In Mexico, women consistently reported better episodic memory in both age groups, while education non-significantly suppressed this relationship. Overall, gender differences in episodic memory, which were better for women in middle age, were largely shaped by education and social ties. These findings relate to unique national contexts and structural needs throughout MICs.
This study examines the changing relationship between women’s educational attainment and fertility rates in Ghana. Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) Program, we show that fertility has declined over time, and that women’s education is negatively associated with fertility. These findings are expected. Interrogating the education-fertility relationship further using decomposition methods, we find evidence that fertility among highly educated women in Ghana today is higher than it was among their counterparts about two decades ago. While changes in the educational composition of the population were responsible for the initial period of fertility decline, other factors, including contraceptive use, employment status, and household wealth index also explain the changing dynamics of the education-fertility association. The findings of this study provide important insights into trends in the association between women’s schooling and fertility rates in a contemporary West African society.
Care work supports the health, well-being, and development of human beings across the life course. Increasingly in the United States and in many societies, formal organizations deliver care alongside the care work done within families and communities. Even market-based care organizations depend on major public investments, however. The care sector is therefore integral to population policy and science. Investment in the care sector may be particularly widespread geographically and occur during economic recession and expansion. Yet there has been relatively little attention to the distribution and growth of care employment across the full diversity of places where the U.S. population lives. Where is care sector employment? In this article, we used unique detailed employment data for industries across U.S. counties and compared the distribution of care sector employment to the distribution of other sectors often targeted by economic policy. Our measure of the care sector included significant geographic detail on educational and health services, large industries in care provision. We studied the beginning of the twenty-first century through the slow growth years before, during and after the Great Recession as important for understanding the care sector during a period of fiscal austerity in the public sector and sluggish employment growth particularly in manufacturing. We found that the care sector grew more and in a significantly less concentrated pattern than other sectors during the slow growth and recession years from 2001–2014. Our results should guide researchers and policymakers in developing policies that support population health and well-being.
