Didn’t Plan One but got One: Unintended and sooner-than-intended Parents in the East and the West of Europe

European Journal of Population - The realisation rates of short-term childbearing intentions are known to be consistently lower in post-socialist countries than in the rest of Europe. However, the...     

The limited effect of increasing educational attainment on childlessness trends in twentieth-century Europe,women born 1916–65

During the twentieth century, trends in childlessness varied strongly across European countries while educational attainment grew continuously across them. Using census and large-scale survey data from 13 European countries, we investigated the relationship between these two factors among women born between 1916 and 1965. Up to the 1940 birth cohort, the share of women childless at age 40+ decreased universally. Afterwards, the trends diverged across countries. The results suggest that the overall trends were related mainly to changing rates of childlessness within educational groups and only marginally to changes in the educational composition of the population. Over time, childlessness levels of the medium-educated and high-educated became closer to those of the low-educated, but the difference in level between the two better educated groups remained stable in Western and Southern Europe and increased slightly in the East.     

Capturing touch in parent–infant interaction: A comparison of methods

Naturally occurring high levels of caregiver touch promote offspring development in many animal species. Yet, caregiver touch remains a relatively understudied topic in human development, possibly due to challenges of measuring this means of interaction. While parental reports (e.g., questionnaires, diaries) are easy to collect, they may be subject to biases and memory limitations. In contrast, observing touch in a short session of parent–child interaction in the lab may not be representative of touch interaction in daily life. In the present study, we compared parent reports (one-off questionnaires and diary) and observation-based methods in a sample of German 6- to 13-month-olds and their primary caregivers (n = 71). In an attempt to characterize touching behaviors across a broad range of contexts, we measured touch both during play and while the parent was engaged in another activity. We found that context affected both the quantity and types of touch used in interaction. Parent-reported touch was moderately associated with touch observed in parent–child interactions and more strongly with touch used during play. We conclude that brief one-off questionnaires are a good indicator of touch in parent–child interaction, yet they may be biased toward representing particular daily activities and particular types of touch.     

Emotional school engagement among minority youth: the relevance of cultural identity,perceived discrimination,and perceived support

ABSTRACT

Minority student school dropout represents a challenging issue for educational systems in many countries. Notwithstanding minority families' overall high academic aspirations, there is a stable achievement gap between majority and minority students. Minority students who are emotionally engaged with their school tend to be psychologically and socioculturally better adapted to their country of residence and, as a result, report higher academic success. Therefore, emotional school engagement represents a relevant factor for integration into the host society. The goal of this paper is to investigate the interrelation between ethnic and national identity, perceived discrimination, and perceived support from parents, peers, and teachers with emotional school engagement. Results indicate that cultural capital within the family, cultural self-identification, and perceived support from peers and teachers play an important role for students’ emotional school engagement.     

Assessing Short-Term Fertility Intentions and Their Realisation Using the Generations and Gender Survey: Pitfalls and Challenges

The use of fertility intention questions to study individual childbearing behaviour has developed rapidly in recent decades. In Europe, the Generations and Gender Surveys are the main sources of cross-national data on fertility intentions and their realisation. This study investigates how an inconsistent implementation of a question about wanting a child now affects the cross-country comparability of intentions to have a child within the next three years and their realisation. We conduct our analysis separately for women and men at prime and late reproductive ages in Austria, France, Italy and Poland. The results show that the overall share of respondents intending to have a child at some point in their life is similar in all four analysed countries. However, once the time horizon and the degree of certainty of fertility intentions are included, substantial cross-country differences appear, particularly in terms of proceptive behaviour and, consequently, the realisation of fertility intentions. We conclude that the inconsistent questionnaire adaptation makes it very difficult to assess the role of country context in the realisation of childbearing intentions.     

The Effect of Sensorimotor Training on the Postural Stability of Visually Impaired Women Over 50 Years of Age

Previous studies indicated that blind and visually impaired people are a group with greater risk of falls. Postmenopausal changes significantly decrease physical efficiency and impair the body’s mechanisms for maintaining postural stability. In addition, the frequency of falls among women is much higher than in men. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of sensorimotor exercise on changes in postural stability of visually impaired women over 50 years of age. Visually impaired women from group E showed a lower level of postural stability measured with EO compared to the healthy women. After completing the exercise, a more pronounced improvement in the level of postural stability was observed in group E.     

Didn’t Plan One but got One: Unintended and sooner-than-intended Parents in the East and the West of Europe

The realisation rates of short-term childbearing intentions are known to be consistently lower in post-socialist countries than in the rest of Europe. However, the East–West differences in the outcomes of intentions to postpone or forego (further) childbearing have not been previously examined. We employ two panel waves of the Generations and Gender Survey in six countries (three from Eastern and three from Western Europe), and, based on the short- and long-term fertility intentions expressed by respondents at the first survey wave, we classify the births occurring between two waves as intended, sooner-than-intended, or unintended. We find that in our study population of non-teenage respondents who had the same partner at both survey waves and a child between the two survey waves, between around 10% (Western European countries) and 30% (Eastern European countries) experienced an unintended or a sooner-than-intended birth. The East–West divide is largely driven by the share of unintended parents which is clearly higher in the post-socialist countries. However, the geographical pattern fades away once we control for the anticipated costs of having a child. Our study gives insight into East–West differences in attitudes to childbearing and into how they affect reproductive behaviour. It also offers methodological improvements of cross-national panel surveys designed to examine childbearing intentions that would allow for a more accurate assessment of childbearing intendedness.     

Public policy towards immigrants in poland’s shrinking cities – The case study of the city of Lomza

Some regions and cities in Poland face challenges due to an accelerating depopulation. Simultaneously, Poland is host to more than 2 million immigrants who mitigate the negative consequences of the population outflow and ageing. While bigger Polish cities adopted particular local strategies and measures addressed to migrants, the situation of smaller cities and towns, especially the shrinking ones, has not yet been explored. Therefore, we took a closer look at Lomza, a downscaled middle-sized city in the east of Poland where two phenomena occur: the accelerating depopulation caused mainly by the outflow of its residents and an inflow of foreign migrants, both asylum seekers predominantly coming from Russia (Chechnya) and economic migrants mainly from Ukraine. We explored the state of the public policy towards immigrants in Lomza in order to see what a shrinking city can offer its newcomers when it cannot count on national strategy in this regard.