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

This 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.

Understanding the Mechanisms of Intergenerational Social Inequality in Demographic Behavior

In this chapter I contrast the economic and cultural perspective of intergenerational transmission processes of social inequality in demographic behavior. I systematically compile the underlying social mechanisms that are scattered across the literature and apply them to the relationships investigated within the CONOPP project. Identifying a predominant focus on the parental resource perspective in the literature linking family background and young adult demographic behavior, I argue in favor of widening the theoretical perspective. Greater theoretical width will enable social scientists to more comprehensively grasp the persistent social stratification of demographic behavior across generations and the role of context in moderating these relationships. I conclude with some suggestions on how future research can further push the boundaries of understanding these relationships.

Cross-National Variation in the Link Between Parental Socio-Economic Status and Union Formation and Dissolution Processes

The main objective of this chapter is to understand the link between parental socio-economic status (SES) and union formation and dissolution processes from a cross-national comparative perspective. According to the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) theory, it can be expected that the impact of parental background on these union dynamics differs across societal contexts. Integrated results from prior studies using meta-analytical tools indicate that in many European countries, young adults from advantaged backgrounds delay their first co-residential union and have a higher risk to dissolve their union compared to young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds. The strength of this link between parental SES and union dynamics varies across countries. There is suggestive evidence that the link between parental SES and union dynamics is weakest in North-Western European countries that are most advanced in the SDT. However, next to these SDT-related indicators that focus more on cultural change, institutional country-level indicators, like the extent of educational expansion, and economic country-level indicators, such as the level of economic uncertainty, might also play a role.

Explaining Cross-National Differences in Social Background Effects: What Have We Learned?

This chapter provides an overview of economic, cultural and institutional narratives capable of explaining cross-national variation in the consequences of childhood disadvantage for socio-demographic outcomes in adulthood. However, testing these explanations is often hard, given a series of methodological challenges. Next, the ways in which the Contexts of Opportunity Project has tackled these challenges and its key results are presented. Childhood disadvantage has pervasive consequences for demographic outcomes in young adulthood and socio-economic and well-being outcomes in later adulthood. Strong cross-national variation in the strength of these relationships is observed, though. Childhood disadvantage often seems to have weaker consequences in more individualized societies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future challenges for demographic research on cross-national differences.

Social Background and Adult Socio-Demographic Outcomes in a Cross-National Comparative Perspective: An Introduction

An individual choice paradigm, focusing on individual preferences and values, has long dominated our understanding of socio-demographic outcomes. Recently, a trend towards an unequal choice paradigm, stressing how inequality in opportunities structures socio-demographic outcomes, is observed. This chapter outlines these changes and argues for a comparative perspective to examine how childhood disadvantage impacts these socio-demographic outcomes. The expectation is that the consequences of childhood disadvantage for demographic outcomes in young adulthood and for socio-economic and well-being outcomes in middle and late adulthood depend on the opportunities that national contexts offer to abate the adverse impact of economic and social deprivation. Subsequently, all chapters of the book are briefly introduced and their contribution to understanding this key issue is discussed.

Modeling the Genesis of Life Courses

Life course research has been dominated by methods and models that focus on the description of life course patterns and on the causal patterns between agency- and structure-related variables on the one hand and, on the other hand, outcomes in later life. Little attention has been paid to modelling the driving force, the mechanism, that generates the chain of successive events and stages of the life course: the sequences of individual decisions pertaining to all facets of the life course. This paper presents the minimal requirements that models should satisfy in order to be considered as life course generating models. The paper then proposes Hidden Markov Models as one of the main building blocks of life course generating models and discusses a few applications of these models in the domains of family formation, school-to-work transition and their interaction.

Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression: An Alternative to Multilevel Analysis When the Number of Countries Is Small

Hierarchically nested data structures are often analyzed by means of multilevel techniques. A common situation in cross-national comparative research is data on two levels, with information on individuals at level 1 and on countries at level 2. However, when dealing with few level-2 units (e.g. countries), results from multilevel models may be unreliable due to estimation bias (e.g. underestimated standard errors, unreliable country-level variance estimates). This chapter provides a discussion on multilevel modeling inaccuracies when using a small level-2 sample size, as well as a list of available alternative analytic tools for analyzing such data. However, as in practice many of these alternatives remain unfeasible in testing hypotheses central to cross-national comparative research, the aim of this chapter is to propose and illustrate a new technique – the 2-step meta-analytic approach – reliable in the analysis of nested data with few level-2 units. In addition, this method is highly infographic and accessible to the average social scientist (not skilled in advanced simulation techniques).

Adding Well-Being to Ageing: Family Transitions as Determinants of Later-Life Socio-Emotional and Economic Well-Being

This chapter focuses on adult family-related experiences and the manner in which they affect later-life socio-emotional and economic well-being (loneliness, employment, earnings). Particularly innovative is the investigation of these relationships in a cross-national perspective. Results from two studies conducted by the authors of this chapter within the CONOPP project show that deviations from family-related social customs differently impact socio-emotional and economic well-being outcomes as there is: (a) a non-normative family penalty for loneliness (individuals who never experience cohabitation/marriage or parenthood or postpone such events are the loneliest); and (b) a non-normative family bonus for women’s economic outcomes (single and/or childless women have the highest earnings). Moreover, analyses revealed that European countries differ considerably in the manner in which similar family-related experiences affect later-life well-being. For example, childlessness had a stronger negative impact on loneliness in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe and the observed heterogeneity could be explained by culturally-embedded family-related values and norms (childless individuals in countries placing stronger accent on ‘traditional’ family values are lonelier compared to childless individuals in less ‘traditionalistic’ nations). In terms of economic outcomes, results show that the lower the female labor force participation during child-rearing years, the more substantial the differences in later-life employment and income between women with different family life trajectories.

Nonmarital Fertility in Europe and North-America: What Is the Role of Parental SES and Own SES?

Previous research has shown that parental as well as own socio-economic status (SES) influence nonmarital fertility. This chapter examines to what extent the effect of parental SES on partner status at first birth is mediated through own SES. Data from the Generations and Gender Survey, British Understanding Society Survey, Dutch Survey on Family Formation, American National Survey on Family Growth, and Canadian General Social Survey are used to examine 16 national contexts. In the majority of countries, the effect of parental SES on the likelihood of having a first birth in cohabitation and in marriage is partly explained by the intergenerational transmission of SES. A direct effect of parental SES is found in Canada, USA, Norway, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, and Romania. The effect of parental SES on the likelihood of having a first birth while being single and in marriage is partly explained by the intergenerational transmission of SES. In the USA, Austria, and Norway, a direct effect of parental SES was also found. The results suggest that in addition to the intergenerational transmission of SES, differences in family aid may influence the transition to adulthood. It is also possible that parental SES influences the motivation and ability to prevent pregnancies.