scholarly journals Family policies’ long-term effects on poverty: a comparative analysis of single and partnered mothers

2022 ◽  
pp. 095892872110356
Author(s):  
Hannah Zagel ◽  
Wim Van Lancker
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Single Mothers ◽  
Transition To Parenthood ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
The Other ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Child Benefits ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Over Time

This study investigates whether generous family policies at the transition to parenthood reduce single and partnered mothers’ economic disadvantages later in the life course. Previous research usually focused on the immediate effects of family policies and disregards potential longer-term effects. In this study, we suggest taking a life-course perspective to study the relationships between family policy and mothers’ poverty risks. We empirically investigate how investment in child benefits, childcare services and parental leave measures at the transition to parenthood are associated with poverty outcomes at later life stages and whether these associations hold over time. We draw on pooled EU-SILC data, and an original policy dataset based on OECD expenditure data for child benefits, childcare and parental leave from 1994 to 2015. We find that mothers’ observed increase in poverty over time is slower in countries with high levels of spending for childcare at the transition to parenthood than in lower spending countries. The gap between partnered and single mothers was also diminishing in contexts of high childcare expenditure. For the other two policies, we did not find these links. These results do lend support to the claim that childcare is a prime example of a social investment policy with returns later in the life course and represents a life-course policy that seems to be able to disrupt economic path dependencies. The results for the other two policies suggest, however, a limited potential of family policy spending at transition to parenthood to reduce the poverty gap between partnered and single mothers over the course of life.

Family policies and family life course complexity across 20th-century Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Van Winkle
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Family Formation ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
The Family ◽  
Life Courses ◽  
The Life Course

The family policy landscape changed dramatically across and within European societies during the 20th century. At the same time, family life courses have become more complex, unstable and unpredictable. However, there are no empirical studies that attempt to link changes in family policies with increasing family life course complexity. In this study, I address two research questions: (1) What is the association between family policies and family life course complexity? and (2) Do these associations vary by the life course stage at which individuals experience family policies? Retrospective data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe are used to construct the family life courses of individuals from the age of 15 to 50, born between 1924 and 1956, from 15 European countries. I use metrics developed in sequence analysis that incorporate life course transitions and unpredictability to measure the complexity of family formation. Annual policy information from 1924 to 2008 for each country are combined to generate cohort indices for three policy dimensions: familization, individualization and liberalization. These cohort metrics express the policy experiences of individuals over the course of their lives, rather than at a specific historical time point. I find that while familization is associated with less complex life courses, individualization is related to higher levels of complexity. Furthermore, my results indicate that the levels individualization experienced early and later in the life course are linked most strongly with complexity. I conclude that family policy reforms may partially account for increasing life course instability and unpredictability across Europe.

scholarly journals Recomposing persons: Scavenging and storytelling in a birth cohort archive

2021 ◽  
pp. 095269512199539
Author(s):  
Penny Tinkler ◽  
Resto Cruz ◽  
Laura Fenton
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Cohort Studies ◽  
Birth Cohort ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Relational Embeddedness ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Over Time

Birth cohort studies can be used not only to generate population-level quantitative data, but also to recompose persons. The crux is how we understand data and persons. Recomposition entails scavenging for various (including unrecognised) data. It foregrounds the perspective and subjectivity of survey participants, but without forgetting the partiality and incompleteness of the accounts that it may generate. Although interested in the singularity of individuals, it attends to the historical and relational embeddedness of personhood. It examines the multiple and complex temporalities that suffuse people’s lives, hence departing from linear notions of the life course. It implies involvement, as well as reflexivity, on the part of researchers. It embraces the heterogeneity and transformations over time of scientific archives and the interpretive possibilities, as well as incompleteness, of birth cohort studies data. Interested in the unfolding of lives over time, it also shines light on meaningful biographical moments.

Predictors of Alcohol Use Disorders Among Baby Boomers Across the Life Course

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (8) ◽  
pp. 880-888
Author(s):  
Adam Quinn ◽  
Orion Mowbray
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Use ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Baby Boomers ◽  
Alcohol Use Disorders ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Older Adulthood ◽  
Use Patterns ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Over Time

Research suggests that baby boomers entering older adulthood may possess unique alcohol use patterns over time. Using the life course perspective as a guiding framework, this empirical study sought to examine correlates of alcohol use disorders among baby boomers by examining representative data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health at two points in time, 1998 ( N = 6,213) and 2010 ( N = 5,880). Results from logistic regression analyses suggest that predictors of alcohol use disorders evolve over time as baby boomers continue to age. Risk factors for alcohol use disorders among baby boomers may include concurrent unprescribed pain reliever use, p < .01, while protective factors such as income, p < .01, and social supports, p = .01, may be of increased importance. Based on the findings of this study, practice implications and future research are discussed.

scholarly journals Religion and old age

1998 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
GRACE DAVIE ◽  
JOHN VINCENT
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Human History ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
One Stage ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
Over Time

The interconnections between religion and old age are complex; the more so given that the concept of age itself has – for a large part of human history – been determined by religious understandings of life. In traditional societies, religion played a crucial part in structuring the transitions between one stage of the life and the next and in defining maturity and fulfilment. And up to a point it still does: in Western societies at the turn of the millennium the association of religious rituals with key moments in the life course – birth, adolescence, marriage and above all death – remains widespread. Such interconnections change over time, however; they also vary from place to place.

Time, Scheduling and Cinema-Going

2011 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jancovich
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Activities ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Time Scheduling ◽  
Consumption Change ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Over Time

The article considers the ways in which the meanings of film consumption are shaped by their timing or scheduling within people's lives. It begins by considering the ways in which these meanings are shaped in relation to historical time, and how the meanings of film consumption change over time. It then moves on to consider the ‘life course’, or the ways in which meanings of film consumption are affected by the different stages that people pass through across a lifetime. Finally, the article considers more cyclical patterns and routines such as those of the year, week and day. In the process, it seeks to demonstrate that film consumption is about much more than the interpretation of individual programs, and involves a series of social activities that are meaningful within broader social contexts.

scholarly journals The Persistent Influence of Socio-Economic Background on Family Formation Pathways and Disadvantage in Young Adulthood

2021 ◽  
pp. 61-77
Author(s):  
Jarl Mooyaart
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Family Formation ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Economic Background ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis chapter focuses on the linkages between socio-economic background, family formation and economic (dis)advantage and reveals to what extent the influence of parental education on family formation persists over time, i.e. across birth cohorts. The second part of this chapter examines to what extent the influence of socio-economic background persists over the life-course. This part covers: (1) the influence of parental education on union formation over the life-course, and (2) the influence of socio-economic background on income trajectories in young adulthood, after adjusting for the career and family pathways that young adults followed during the transition to adulthood, thereby examining the influence of socio-economic background on income beyond the first stage of young adulthood. This chapter reveals two key insights on the linkages between socio-economic background, family formation and (dis)advantage: (1) Whereas union and family formation patterns have changed across birth cohorts, socio-economic background continues to stratify union and family formation pathways; (2) Although the influence of socio-economic background on family formation and young adults’ economic position decreases throughout young adulthood, socio-economic background continues to have an impact in young adulthood.

Second-Generation Contextual Mobility: Neighborhood Attainment from Birth to Young Adulthood in the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 356-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Van C. Tran
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Longitudinal Data ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Neighborhood Context ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Over Time

This article examines trajectories of neighborhood mobility for the post-1965 second generation in the United States. It advances the concept of second-generation contextual mobility, defined as the change in neighborhood context over the life course among the second generation. This analysis uses unique geocoded longitudinal data over three decades to documents patterns of second-generation neighborhood attainment. Compared to US blacks, the second generation has achieved significant contextual mobility both over time and across generations. Specifically, the second generation in this New York sample lived in better neighborhoods in young adulthood compared to birth neighborhood where their parents once lived. Most groups moved away from the most disadvantaged areas, with the exception of Dominicans. While the second generation has yet to achieve neighborhood parity with US whites, they have already surpassed US blacks in neighborhood attainment. Second-generation contextual mobility is thus an important, but missing, piece in established accounts of neighborhood mobility in the United States.

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