Anticipated (Grand-)Parental Childcare Support and the Decision to Become a Parent

Based on a cost-reduction argument, this study explored whether anticipated childcare support from their mothers influenced adult daughters’ decisions to have their first child. Using six waves of the German Family Panel (pairfam), discrete-time hazard models (N = 3155 women) were estimated for the transition to the decision to have the first child. Anticipated childcare support from the women’s mothers was approximated by the travelling distance between adult daughters and their mothers, a measure whose suitability was tested empirically. The results indicated that women in a position to anticipate having access to childcare support in the future decided to make the transition to parenthood earlier. This finding highlights both the strength of social interaction effects on fertility decision-making and the importance of intergenerational relationships for individual fertility histories already at their very beginning.     

Who, What, Where, and When? Specifying the Impact of Educational Attainment and Labour Force Participation on Family Formation

This article studies the impact of educational attainment and labour force participation on the timing of entering a union, marriage, and parenthood, using data from Flemish and Dutch young adults born between 1961 and 1965. This impact is hypothesized to be contingent on sex, the event under consideration, the societal context in which family formation occurs, and the age of young adults. As expected, educational attainment has a stronger negative effect on women's entry into parenthood than on their entry into a union, a stronger negative effect on women's entry into marriage and parenthood in the Netherlands than in Flanders, and a stronger effect during the early stages of young adulthood than later on. Men's educational attainment did not show the expected positive effect on family formation. Enrollment in full-time education delays family formation, but more so in Flanders than in the Netherlands. Unemployment delays family formation among men, but only in Flanders.     

Gender Differences in the Transition to Adulthood in France: Is There Convergence Over the Recent Period?

Numerous studies have shown that educational attainment and labour force status have a strong impact on the timing of family formation for both men and women. The effects of educational level, school enrolment and employment seem to be different for men and women. The aim of this article is to investigate how gender-specific differences in family formation have changed over time, and more particularly, whether these differences have disappeared in recent years. We use a large-scale survey (more than 240,000 men and women born after 1940) conducted within the French 1999 census and apply event history techniques. The sample size allows us to test our hypotheses with more sophisticated models that cover several interactions. Our data fully support the convergence hypothesis for men and women with regard to the effects of educational attainment and working status (working/not working). However, it is only partly relevant for the effects of their school enrolment status on entry into first union and parenthood. For both men and women, the impact of work experience on first union disappears over time, but remains important for first parenthood.     

Employment After Parenthood: Women of Migrant Origin and Natives Compared

Motherhood negatively affects female employment in majority populations across Europe. Although employment levels are particularly low among women of migrant origin, little is known about the motherhood–employment link in migrant populations. This paper investigates whether family formation differentially affects the labour market position of migrant women and their descendants compared to natives. Using longitudinal microdata from the Belgian social security registers, 12,167 women are followed from 12 months before until 48 months after the birth of their first child for the period 1999–2010. Levels of activity (versus inactivity), employment (versus unemployment) and full-time employment (versus part-time employment) are compared between natives and first- and second-generation women of Southern European, Eastern European, Turkish and Moroccan origin. We find that activity and employment levels decrease to a larger extent following the transition to parenthood among women of migrant origin than among natives. With respect to activity levels, differences between second-generation women and natives are largely explained by socio-demographic and pre-birth job characteristics, while differences between first-generation women and natives are not, suggesting that other factors such as tied migration patterns determine labour market attachment among first-generation mothers. With respect to employment levels, unemployment is increasing more among women of migrant origin of both generations than among natives, also when controlling for background characteristics, which signals differential access to stable job positions as well as to family policies. In sum, the results draw attention to the challenge that parenthood creates for mothers of migrant origin in terms of retaining and gaining employment, but also to the role of labour market entry and early career positions.     

Job Insecurity and the Timing of Parenthood: A Comparison between Eastern and Western Germany

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the economic determinants of fertility behavior by addressing the role of job insecurity in couples’ intentions concerning parenthood and its timing. It starts from the hypothesis that cultural values moderate individuals’ reactions to job insecurity and the way it is related to family formation. With a systematic thematic content analysis of a set of semi-structured interviews with childless men and women around the age of 30 in eastern and western Germany, we are able to show that there are substantial differences in the consequences of job insecurity on intentions to have a first child. In western Germany, a relatively secure job career is expected to precede family formation, and this sequence of transitions is rather rigid, whereas in eastern Germany job security and family formation are thought of and practiced as parallel investments. We suggest that the lack of convergence in family formation patterns between eastern and western Germany after the unification of the country in 1990 is partially related to different attitudes toward job insecurity in the two contexts.     

Parenthood and Well-Being: The Moderating Role of Leisure and Paid Work

This study contributes to our knowledge on the association between parenthood and psychological well-being by examining whether pre-parenthood lifestyles (leisure and paid work) moderate the transition to parenthood. We expected that people with less active lifestyles would find it easier to adapt to the demands of parenthood. Using eleven waves of the Swiss Household Panel (N = 1332 men and 1272 women; 1999–2008, 2010), fixed effects models are estimated for men and women separately. Results show that—on average—parenthood was not associated with well-being for men, whereas it increased well-being for women. As expected, the well-being premium/cost to parenthood was contingent upon individuals’ lifestyle before the transition to parenthood. For men, parenthood reduced well-being, but only if they frequently participated in leisure before the birth of the child. For women, motherhood had a beneficial effect on well-being but this effect was weaker for women who combined leisure with working long hours before motherhood.     

The Multifaceted Impact of Education on Entry into Motherhood

This article studies the composite effect of education on young women’s entry into motherhood, using longitudinal data from Norway from 1971 to 2001. In line with previous research, we find that school enrolment delays motherhood, but having finished education there is a catching-up effect, as women who have completed at higher levels have their first child sooner than women who have completed at lower levels. Contrasting behaviour between women within various fields of education further indicate a career-adjustment effect related to differences in opportunity costs and/or preference heterogeneity. Finally, increasing educational differences in the timing of motherhood among younger cohorts suggest that long parental leaves and generous family benefits may fit better with a career track in some jobs than others.Lappegård T. et Rønsen M., 2005, The multifaceted impact of education on entry into motherhood, European Journal of Population 21: 31–49Lappegård T. et Rønsen M., 2005, Les multiples facettes de l’effet de l’instruction sur la maternité, Revue Européenne de Démographie, 21: 31–49     

What’s in a Name? The Negative Implications of Gender Neutrality in the Intimate Partner Violence Prevention and Intervention Literature

Research and interventions for intimate partner violence in current use largely consist of practices aimed at getting victims to leave their abusers, rather than helping perpetrators stop their violence. In the context of parenthood, the focus on programs targeting women experiencing violence has resulted in an emphasis on mothers’ responsibility for mitigating the adverse effects of witnessing violence on children. This has led to insufficient understanding of violent men’s identities as fathers. This narrative review employed content analysis to analyze the discursive constructions of men and women as parents in a selection of peer reviewed articles about the prevention of intimate partner violence during childbearing years that were published between January 2000 and January 2015 (N = 37). A quantitative word count was conducted in order to determine the frequency with which these articles referred to men and women in their parental roles when employing prevention and intervention strategies. Women were consistently identified as mothers in all areas of the literature, while the prevalence of men’s identities as fathers was confined only to the specific, specialized area of the literature that is aimed at men alone. The implications of these findings for future research and practice in the area of prevention and intervention of intimate partner violence specifically in the context of parenthood are discussed.     

为谁参政？--参政妇女的社会性别意识分析

参政妇女代表和反映女性群体的利益和呼声,是妇女参政的意义之所在,也是推动更多妇女进入政治领域的主要诉求之一。中国妇女社会地位调查数据显示,从对传统性别分工和性别角色定型的认识、对男性中心社会传统价值观的看法以及对中国男女平等现状和实现途径的认知等指标来看,与普通妇女和参政男性相比,参政妇女具有更强的社会性别意识,对于妇女参政的态度也更为积极。这一发现反驳了认为参政妇女不能代表妇女群体的利益,是“穿裙子的男人”等观点。     

Late,But Not Too Late? Postponement of First Birth Among Highly Educated US Women

We examine the link between the postponement of parenthood and fertility outcomes among highly educated women in the USA born in 1920–1986, using data from the CPS June Supplement 1979–2016. We argue that the postponement–low fertility nexus noted in demographic and biomedical research is especially relevant for women who pursue postgraduate education because of the potential overlap of education completion, early career stages, and family formation. The results show that women with postgraduate education differ from women with college education in terms of the timing of the first birth, childlessness, and completed fertility. While the postponement trend, which began with the cohorts born in the 1940s, has continued among highly educated women in the USA, its associations with childlessness and completed parity have changed considerably over subsequent cohorts. We delineate five distinct postponement phases over the 80-year observation window, consistent with variation over time in the prevalence of strategies for combining tertiary education and employment with family formation.     

The Effect of Competing Intentions and Behaviour on Short-Term Childbearing Intentions and Subsequent Childbearing

This article examines the effect that intentions to start studying and to enter into employment may have on childbearing intentions and subsequent childbearing. The analysis also includes the impact of the corresponding behaviour: currently studying or being employed. The theoretical background draws on Barber’s study of competing attitudes, with an emphasis on competing intentions. Based on survey and register data for Bulgaria, the analyses reveal the effect of competing intentions. For example, the intention to start studying hampers the construction and subsequent realisation of intentions to have a child within 2 years. The actual behaviour of currently studying has the same effect; both effects are most pronounced for intentions to become a parent and for actual entry into parenthood. Inversely, an intention to enter into employment facilitates childbearing intentions and, for men, so does the behaviour of being employed. The latter result holds for women’s intention to have a second child. The findings indicate that when childbearing intentions and realisation are analysed, it is preferable to consider persons with a competing intention to start studying either as a separate group or group them with those who are currently studying, not with those who are not. Logistic regression models and interaction effects are applied for the analyses.     

青年白领的家庭角色与工作价值取向关系分析

对青年白领的调查资料进行分析,可以发现青年白领的工作价值取向对家庭角色的建立,没有显著性影响;但家庭角色的变化,促进了青年白领对工作外在价值取向的要求,降低了其内在价值取向的要求。从性别视角来看,青年白领女性和男性在家庭角色与工作价值取向的关系中,并没有呈现显著性差异。     

The Effect of Children on Men’s and Women’s Chances of Re-partnering in a European Context

This work examines what role children play in the re-partnering process in five European countries (Norway, France, Germany, Romania, and the Russian Federation) by addressing the following research questions: (1) To what extent do men and women differ in their re-partnering chances?; (2) Can gender differences in re-partnering be explained by the presence of children?; (3) How do the custodial arrangements and the child’s age affect the re-partnering chances of men and women? We use the partnership and parenthood histories of the participants in the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey (United Nations, Generations and Gender Programme: Survey Instruments. United Nations, New York/Geneva, 2005) to examine the transition to moving in with a new partner following the dissolution of the first marital union, separately for men and women. The story that emerges is one of similarities in the effects rather than differences. In most countries, men are more likely to re-partner than women. This gender difference can be attributed to the presence of children as our analyses show that childless men and women do not differ in their probability to re-partner. Mothers with resident children are less likely to re-partner than non-mothers and a similar though often non-significant effect of resident children is observed for fathers. In most countries we find that as the child ages, the chances to enter a new union increase. In sum, our study indicates that children are an important factor in re-partnering and a contributor to the documented gender gap in re-partnering, and this holds throughout distinct institutional and cultural settings.     

When is the Second One Coming? The Effect of Couple’s Subjective Well-Being Following the Onset of Parenthood

Parenthood has strong effects on people’s life. Some of these effects are positive and some negative and may influence the decision of having other children after the first. Demographic research has only marginally addressed the relationship between subjective well-being and fertility, and even less attention has been reserved to investigate how the subjective experience of the first parenthood may influence the decision to have a second child. Performing log-logistic hazard models using HILDA panel data (2001–2012), changes in couples’ objective life conditions and satisfaction within family and work domains after the first childbirth are related to the timing of the transition to the second parenthood. Results show that partners adopting traditional gender specialization in roles proceed quicker to the second child; however, experiencing dissatisfaction in reconciling, in the couple’s relationship and in the work domain negatively affects mothers’ probability of having a second child in the future.     

《女神》中的女性情结探微

郭沫若的《女神》经常被理解为"一曲女性的赞歌",但是该诗集中的很多女性意象呈现出欲望化特征,缺乏形而上的道德崇高感。郭沫若心中真正欣赏的是"女性的男性化"、"男女合一",而且作者对男性的自我认同感相当强烈,在他的意识深层,男性对于女性仍然具有统治地位。     

高等教育领域女性职业生涯发展中的障碍与对策

同女性在其他职场中所面临的困境一样,在高等教育领域女性职业生涯发展也需要跨过诸多障碍,如入职初期面临的尴尬、晋升过程中遭遇的瓶颈等。结合中国高等教育事业发展现状,探索女性在职业生涯发展中突破障碍的有效途径可以看出,扎实的学术功底是基础,卓越的领导能力是利刃,科学的晋升制度是保障,和谐的文化环境是根本。     

社会性别视野下的侨乡女性创业现状与展望——以泉州市女企业家群体为考察对象

分析侨乡女性创业的动机、创业分布领域、管理模式、家庭与事业之间关系等现状,指出女性创业过程中存在的性别歧视、女性创业者心理误区等问题,提出构建先进的社会性别观,发挥妇联等社会组织的作用,加大对女性创业的扶持力度,探索促进女性创业的对策与措施。     

不同文本不同声音——20世纪40年代男、女作家小说中女性形象比较研究

20世纪 40年代 ,男、女作家的小说创作在塑造现代女性形象时是两种文本、两种声音。同是女性对个人的坚执 ,男作家看来是自私、残忍 ,女作家看来则为对自我的尊重 ,对自由的尊重 ;同是女性对欲望的狂炽 ,男作家看来是淫荡 ,女作家看来则是自我生命成熟的标志 ,自我生命意识的张扬。男作家看来 ,如此 ,女性解放走上了反面 ,女作家看来 ,如此仍不够 ,仍不足以撼动男性中心世界的根基 ;男作家的创作有一股郁结之气 ,女作家创作则让人感到世界荒凉。对于人们进一步思考男权社会里女性处境、地位和命运不无启发意义。     

Why do “Women’s jobs” have low pay for their educational level?

Jobs held largely by women have low pay for the amount of education they require. Why is this? One hypothesis is that employers prefer to hire men, and all workers prefer better jobs, so that women can get in only when a job's rewards (relative to its skill requirements) are low enough that men no longer want the job. Thus, wages affect sex composition. Others see the causal arrow to run the other way. In this view, the sex composition of jobs affects the wage that employers offer; employers' biased perceptions lead them to see jobs as less important and less payworthy if they are filled largely by women. These explanations are not mutually exclusive; the causal arrow may run both ways (or neither way). In this paper we use CPS data from 1984 to 1991 and a cross-lag panel model to examine these effects. Jobs are defined with a detailed occupational category within a specific broad industry category. We find that jobs with a higher percentage of females at one point have slower wage growth (or steeper wage decline) for both men and women in the ensuing years. But we find no effect of earlier wage rate on later sex composition. For those interested in reducing gender inequality in earnings, these findings suggest the utility of “comparable worth” policies.     

中国情境下职业成功观的内容与结构

职业成功观即人们心目中的职业成功标准。运用深度访谈、焦点小组讨论的研究方法,通过归类、提炼主题,我们可以得到职业成功观的九个类别:物质报酬、权力地位、绩效贡献、关系网络、安全稳定、才能发挥、获得认同、自由快乐、和谐平衡。依据西方文献中关于职业成功外部标准和内部标准的总体框架,将九个类别进一步抽象化,我们得到了职业成功观的三维结构:外在报酬、内在满足与和谐平衡。