Although the school performance of children of migrants in the Netherlands continues to improve, it still lags behind compared to that of children of Dutch origin, which contributes to inequality in socio-economic outcomes. To reduce this performance gap it is of great societal importance to gain insight into the factors influencing language proficiency of children of migrants. This paper investigates to what extent the share of people from children's own origin group in the network - network isolation - influences their Dutch language proficiency and subsequent sorting in educational secondary school tracks. To measure network isolation of children we used a whole-population network from Statistics Netherlands containing family members, household members, neighbours, classmates and colleagues. The score on the language component of the final-year primary school exam is used as an indicator of Dutch language proficiency. Results show that higher levels of network isolation, i.e., a higher share of the own origin group in the network, are associated with lower Dutch language proficiency. Furthermore, higher levels of network isolation are related to lower teacher track recommendations for secondary school, and this relationship is fully mediated by language proficiency. These findings highlight the importance of considering the broader social context -beyond language exposure in the household - when promoting social mobility of children of migrants.

Using Dutch register data from the System of Social Statistical Datasets, we examine how school peers’ partnership formation relates to individual transitions to co-resident unions—either cohabitation or marriage—among 123,212 third-grade secondary school students followed from 2011 to 2016. We estimate discrete-time event history models that account for peer clustering through random effects. The results demonstrate that transitions to a first co-resident partnership during adolescence and early adulthood are associated with the partnership behaviour of school peers. Co-resident partnership formation clusters within school peer groups, and this association is strongest while adolescents remain embedded in the secondary school environment. The observed association is driven primarily by male peers’ behaviour and male individuals, with no association found for female peer behaviour or cross-gender peer effects. These findings support the life-course concept of linked lives and extend the peer influence literature beyond risk behaviours and fertility to a central family formation transition.

Objective This study explores how geographical distance between adult children of immigrants and their parents changes in response to partnership formation and partnership dissolution.Background Geographical distance between generations is a key factor in intergenerational support. However, there is limited knowledge about how proximity changes over the life course, with most research confined to Western cultural settings. The lack of comparative work is surprising since intergenerational proximity and solidarity are often associated with an international migration background.Methods Using longitudinal register data from the Netherlands, we follow individuals born to parents from Suriname, Turkey, and the Netherlands, assessing their geographical distance from parents between ages 22 and 42. Two-part regression models with impact function specifications are employed to estimate the effects of partnership formation and dissolution on intergenerational proximity.Results In all groups, intergenerational distance increased with partnership formation and decreased following partnership dissolution. In the case of partnership formation, the divergence effect was stronger for women than for men. Following partnership dissolution, the convergence effect was stronger for women than for men of Turkish origin, but similar for men and women of Surinamese and Dutch origin. Leaving home for partnership formation and returning home after partnership dissolution played an important role in explaining the changes in proximity, especially for individuals of Dutch origin, and for men more than for women in all groups.Conclusion Our findings confirm the effects of partnership transitions on intergenerational distance among migrant families and emphasize cultural influences on intergenerational gendered proximity and family interdependencies in migrant communities.

Urban areas are facing increasing social inequalities, which governments try to tackle with social policy. This study examines one of the most ambitious urban policies in the history of Dutch policies that aims to increase educational attainment amongst disadvantaged children in one of the poorest areas in the Netherlands. We investigate to what extent inequality in educational attainment based on parental education has changed during the first period of this programme. We further examine to what extent school characteristics affect educational attainment and how these effects relate to targeting disadvantaged areas for policy intervention. Register data on the individual, school and area level were employed to study these issues. We find that the effect of parental education on secondary school attainment has been stable since the start of the programme, indicating that inequality has not decreased in the context of the programme. Furthermore, several school characteristics, including socioeconomic status and retention rate, were relevant in explaining differences in educational attainment. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding the allocation of public resources for policy programmes based on area and school characteristics.

This study investigates the consequences of female rural-urban migration with respect to their education, career, and relationship and family formation in the Netherlands. The study is based on four birth cohorts of Dutch women born in 1970-1973 in rural areas, comparing those who had migrated to urban areas before the age of 25 with those who had remained behind. Outcomes were measured at age 42. The data were derived from administrative registers available at Statistics Netherlands. The results show that female migration to cities served to increase women's resources: they were more often university educated and had better paid jobs, in line with the idea of cities as socioeconomic escalators. The city also functioned as a relationship market with a relative abundance of men with resources. Both lower and university educated city women were more likely to be in a relationship with a highly educated man compared to their rural peers. However, lower educated women had an increased probability of being single at age 42 when they lived in cities at age 25. This was not the case for university educated women. In conclusion, for lower educated women urban migration may entail risks as well as benefits, especially with respect to family formation. University educated women on the other hand benefited both in terms of their own socioeconomic outcomes and in terms of their partners' resources.

This data brief presents a whole population network file constructed from administrative data. The network incorporates 1.4 billion relationships between all 17 million inhabitants of the Netherlands in 2018. Relationships are identified between individuals who live in the same household, live close to each other, work for the same company, attend the same educational institution, or belong to the same extended family. The network file is available for analysis at Statistics Netherlands for research purposes. The data brief explains the network construction, the underlying data, data access, and discusses its applications for social research. The network has great potential for the social sciences due to its scale and comprehensive coverage of individuals. As a use case, we present a random walk approach to estimate segregation between people of different educational backgrounds. Further applications of whole population networks are also discussed.

Moving during childhood is an important life event that is often stressful and potentially disruptive. With the majority of existing studies on childhood internal mobility using a one-dimensional measure of mobility and focusing on the total population, there is still limited knowledge on differential childhood mobility patterns for children of different migrant origins. In this study, we acknowledge the multidimensional nature of mobility by covering frequency, timing, distance, and change in place type to understand internal mobility patterns for children aged 0 – 16 without and with different second-generation migrant backgrounds. Internal mobility is analysed for children born in the Netherlands between 1995 and 2003 using longitudinal full population register data. K-means cluster analysis reveals five types of mobility: nearby preschool-aged, nearby school-aged, long-distance to more densely populated areas, long-distance to less densely populated areas, and frequent movers. Results of multi-nomial logistic regressions show that having a second-generation migrant background increases the likelihood of being in any of the mobility clusters and reveals variation in types of mobility patterns for different migrant origin groups. We conclude that childhood mobility patterns are diverse and overall more often experienced by children of second-generation migrant origin potentially adding to a more vulnerable situation and inequality over the life course.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that men’s educational profiles dominate couple migration decisions. However, most of these investigated the US context or were conducted in the previous century. This study examines the role of both partners’ educational attainments in couple migration in recent years in a new context: the Netherlands. The Netherlands is one of the countries in which women surpass men in educational attainment. We take a geographical perspective and test Costa and Kahn’s (2000) hypothesis that power couples – two partners with university degrees – are more likely than other couples to migrate to metropolitan areas with dense labour markets in order to solve their “colocation problem.” Data are derived from the Dutch Labour Force Survey between 2006 and 2015. The research population consists of all opposite-sex married and unmarried couples aged 18-45 (N = 90,314 couples). By linking the respondents to integral register data, we tracked all couples until three years after the interview date. The results show that both men’s and women’s human capital increases migration propensities, although effect sizes are relatively small. Social factors such as the geographical distance to birthplace and parents appear to play a significant role in couple migration. We found only partial support for Costa and Kahn’s (2000) colocation hypothesis. Power couples who live in the core region are less likely than other couples to migrate to more peripherally located regions. However, periphery-to-core migration is only affected by the male partner’s human capital, not by hers. Hence, the concentration of power couples in Dutch metropolitan areas probably stems from highly educated, single, young, urban adults who migrated there individually and who tend to stay there after union formation.

Crime in networks of youth This study examines the entire population of over three million young people living in the Netherlands and their entire networks of family members, household members, neighbors, classmates and colleagues. These networks are derived from administrative registers using a new method and depict formally registered relations. Young people have a higher probability of being registered as a suspect by the police if the proportion of suspects in their networks is larger. Previous studies have mainly been based on a small number of young people and network members and have focused on specific types of networks. This is the first time that the correlation in crime between network members and Dutch young people has been established on such a large scale.

The National Program Rotterdam South is a large-scale ambitious Dutch urban policy that aims to increase educational attainment amongst disadvantaged children in one of the poorest areas in the Netherlands. This study investigates to what extent inequality in educational attainment based on parental education has changed during the first period of this program. We further examine to what extent area and school characteristics affect educational attainment. Register data on the individual, school and area level were employed to study these issues. We find that the effect of parental education on secondary school attainment has been stable since the start of the program, indicating inequality has not decreased in the context of the program. Furthermore, several school characteristics, including socioeconomic status and retention rate, were relevant in explaining differences in educational attainment. We discuss how our findings relate to the allocation of policy means.

In this analysis we present a whole population network which uses administrative data to construct a network incorporating 1.4 billion relationships between the 17 million inhabitants of the Netherlands. Relationships are identified between individuals who live in the same household, live close to each other, work for the same company, attend the same educational institution, or belong to the same extended family. This network has properties that are rare in observed social networks, which opens up new applications for network science in the social sciences. To demonstrate the applications of such a network, we use a random walk approach to estimate segregation of individuals from differing educational backgrounds and whether specific types of relationships increase or decrease this segregation. The results suggest that relationships between people in the same household greatly increase segregation whilst work, school and neighborhood networks relationships increase exposure to individuals with different backgrounds. The size of these effects is context dependent. Further applications of a whole population network are also discussed

Earlier research shows that wide regional variations exist in the success of athletes' talent development but is divided with respect to the role of urbanity: both low and high urbanity have been identified as settings that contribute to the presence of talent hotspots. In this article, we intend to provide more insight into the role of urbanity in talent development in Dutch football. We used public data on the regional background of male elite players (N = 825) and combined this with public data on municipal characteristics from Statistics Netherlands and other sources: urbanity, football participation, instructional resources and population composition effects (migration background and income of inhabitants). Linear regression analysis showed that football participation, the proportion of non-western migrants and median income predict "talent yield", i.e., the proportion of young people that reach an elite level in a municipality. Urbanity does not have an independent influence when the proportion of non-western migrants in the municipality is taken into account. The presence of instructional resources does not have an independent influence. The results suggest that characteristics of the built environment, such as indoor and outdoor play opportunities, may be less influential in talent development than previously assumed.

This study aims to advance the spatial conceptualization of ‘social homophily’ by relating the match, or mismatch, between a household’s social and sociocultural characteristics and the characteristics of the neighbourhood of residence to the probability of moving away from that neighbourhood. Three matching dimensions were investigated: economic status, ethnic background and sociocultural disposition. This paper’s focus is on the sociocultural dimension because this has not been included extensively in large-scale research so far. Initially we investigate how level of education at the household level interacts with education composition at the neighbourhood level. To further investigate the sociocultural dimension, we then include the share of each partner’s income in the total household income in our analyses. Based on the spatial literature at the intersections of class, gender and family, we assume that, together with higher education, the intra-household distribution of income reflects a broader set of sociocultural values. We make use of large- N register data to analyse the residential and mobility behaviour of all registered stable couples in the four largest Dutch urban regions between 2008 and 2009. Our analyses indicate that the degree to which a household ‘matches’ its social surroundings negatively affects its probability of leaving. This is the case for all three dimensions, with sociocultural disposition having the largest effect. The conclusion reflects on the importance of these findings for social homophily, sorting and residential segregation, and proposes directions for further research.

Artikel 'Intergenerationele overdracht van opleidingsniveau inadoptiegezinnen in Nederland' in Mens & Maatschappij, rubriek 'In de etalage', door Lotte Scheeren, Marjolijn Das en Aart C. Liefbroer. Oorspronkelijk artikel: Scheeren, L., Das, M., & Liefbroer, A.C. (2017). Intergenerational trans-mission of educational attainment in adoptive families in the Netherlands. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 48, 10-19.

IMPORTANCE Urban life has been proposed as an environmental risk factor accounting for the increased prevalence of schizophrenia in urban areas. An alternative hypothesis is that individuals with increased genetic risk tend to live in urban/dense areas. OBJECTIVE To assess whether adults with higher genetic risk for schizophrenia have an increased probability to live in more populated areas than those with lower risk. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Four large, cross-sectional samples of genotyped individuals of European ancestry older than 18 years with known addresses in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands were included in the analysis. Data were based on the postcode of residence at the time of last contact with the participants. Community-based samples who took part in studies conducted by the Queensland Institute for Medical Research Berghofer Medical Research Institute (QIMR), UK Biobank (UKB), Netherlands Twin Register (NTR), or QSkin Sun and Health Study (QSKIN) were included. Genome-wide association analysis and mendelian randomization (MR) were included. The study was conducted between 2016 and 2018. EXPOSURES Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia derived from genetic data (genetic risk is independently measured from the occurrence of the disease). Socioeconomic status of the area was included as a moderator in some of the models. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Population density of the place of residence of the participants determined from census data. Remoteness and socioeconomic status of the area were also tested. RESULTS The QIMR participants (15 544; 10197 [65.6%] women; mean [SD] age, 54.4 [13.2] years) living in more densely populated areas (people per square kilometer) had a higher genetic loading for schizophrenia (r(2) = 0.12%; P = 5.69 x 10(-5)), a result that was replicated across all 3 other cohorts (UKB: 345 246; 187 469 [54.3%] women; age, 65.7 [8.0] years; NTR: 11212; 6727 [60.0%] women; age, 48.6 [17.5] years; and QSKIN: 15726; 8602 [54.7%] women; age, 57.0 [7.9] years). This genetic association could account for 1.7% (95% CI, 0.8%-3.2%) of the schizophrenia risk. Estimates from MR analyses performed in the UKB sample were significant (b = 0.049; P = 3.7 x 10(-7) using GSMR), suggesting that the genetic liability to schizophrenia may have a causal association with the tendency to live in urbanized locations. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The results of this study appear to support the hypothesis that individuals with increased genetic risk tend to live in urban/dense areas and suggest the need to refine the social stress model for schizophrenia by including genetics as well as possible gene-environment interactions.

To improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the strong association between family background and children's educational attainment, we examined intergenerational transmission within families where genetic transmission is absent. Specifically, we investigated the effect of parent's education and income on the educational attainment of their foreign-born adopted children. A large-scale register database was used, which contains information on the adoption status, educational level in secondary school and parental characteristics of all 15-year old children living in the Netherlands in the years 2011-2013. This study demonstrated that parental education mainly influenced their children's education when they were genetically related and that the influence was weak when they were adopted. Parental income, on the other hand, affected both adopted and biological children's educational attainment. Hence, the results suggested that genetic transmission and economic capital play a substantial role in intergenerational transmission of educational attainment. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Parental divorce has repeatedly been shown to increase the risk of divorce for offspring, but research on the influence of other social ties is scarce. This study examines the association of divorce between siblings and whether such an association varies under specific sibship characteristics. Hypotheses were tested using event history models on five complete Dutch birth cohorts (1970–1974), derived from register data. Married individuals (N = 64677) and their sibling were followed from 2000 up to 2012. Results show that individuals with a divorced sibling had a higher risk of divorce even after correcting for a number of shared background factors, including parental divorce. The divorce of a younger sibling had a weaker association with an individual’s divorce risk than the divorce of an older sibling, and the effect of sibling divorce weakened over time.

Starting from a life course perspective, this study aims to gain more insight into mobility patterns of recently separated mothers, focusing especially on moves to the location of their own mother: the maternal grandmother. Separated mothers, having linked lives with their own mothers, may benefit from their practical and emotional support. Additionally, the grandparents' home can be a (temporary) place to stay shortly after divorce. Data come from the System of social statistical datasets (Statistics Netherlands). This unique dataset combines longitudinal data from a vast number of administrative registers. It covers the complete Dutch population, making it exceptionally well suited for life course and mobility research. We studied mothers with minor children between 1/1/2008 and 31/12/2010. Our study included 579,500 mothers, of whom about 8,800 (1.5%) experienced a separation in 2008. Separated mothers moved to the grandmother's municipality more often than non-separated mothers, which might be partially motivated by the need for childcare. They also coresided with the grandmother more than non-separated movers, mostly because of a vulnerable socio-economic position. Although often temporary, coresidence appears to have a prolonged impact on the mothers' location choice; mothers frequently stayed in the grandmother's municipality after moving out. Finally, our results indicated that some mothers seemed to use the parental home as a stepping stone to cohabit with a new partner. © 2016 The Authors. Population, Space and Place published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The social relationship between an individual and their residential environment is shaped by a range of housing market rules and regulations, by residential choice and by constraints. This paper elaborates on that relationship by focusing on the distance between an individual’s (and his/her household) social position and the social position of the neighbourhood of residence. Through the analysis of large-scale longitudinal register data for each resident in the four largest cities of the Netherlands, we studied the relations mentioned, as well as the residential moves triggered by such relations, as well as the outcome effects on individual-neighbourhood relations in the destination neighbourhoods. We found that the larger the social distance (positive or negative) between an individual and the median social position of their residential neighbourhood, the higher the odds that the individual would move from that neighbourhood. Those individuals that moved tended to select destination neighbourhoods that reduced their social distance. Our findings offer new input for debates and policies relating to de-segregation and social mixing.