Population

Stuart Gietel-Basten, John Casterline and Minja Kim Choe (Eds.): Family Demography in Asia: A Comparative Analyses of Fertility Preferences

Gilbert Ritschard and Matthias Studer (eds.): Sequence Analysis and Related Approaches. Innovative Methods and Applications

Religiosity, Secularity and Fertility in Canada Abstract Using several cycles of the Canadian General Social Survey covering cohorts born from the early 1900s onwards, this paper examines how religiosity and secularity associate with fertility in Canada. The analysis shows that among multiple dimensions of religiosity, religious attendance is the strongest predictor of higher fertility in the country. For the latest cycle conducted in 2011, three mutually exclusive groups of secularized women are compared with the actively religious in their fertility behaviour and intentions. All these secularized women are found to have lower fertility rates compared with the actively religious. Among them, the strictly seculars, a proxy identifier for the atheists, have the lowest fertility and the highest likelihood of remaining childless. Various implications are discussed.

The Time Cost of Raising Children in Different Fertility Contexts: Evidence from France and Italy Abstract This article provides an original comparison of the time cost of children for the parental couple and for each parent in two European countries—France and Italy—that differ in terms of structural and normative constraints. Using time-use surveys carried out in 2008–2009 in Italy and in 2009–2010 in France, it investigates how Italian and French couples' time use varies quantitatively according to the number and the age of their children. We estimate both the direct and indirect time cost of children and take into account the compression of the parents' free time. After controlling for numerous covariates, the results corroborate the hypothesis that Italian children have a higher direct cost for couples (especially those with a large family or with preschool children), but also for mothers and fathers separately. Faced with this huge burden of childcare time, Italian women adjust by substituting housework with childcare. The presence of children reduces parents' free time in both countries, but large families in Italy experience a higher and persistent loss of free time than in France. The gender imbalance in childcare is similar in both countries, but a more pronounced gender gap in time dedicated to domestic work is observed in Italy than in France. The loss of free time is always greater for women than for men in both countries, but in France, women's free time is only partially affected by the number of children, contrary to Italy.

Agreement of Self-Reported and Administrative Data on Employment Histories in a German Cohort Study: A Sequence Analysis Abstract Collecting life course data is increasingly common in social and epidemiological research, either through record linkage of administrative data or by collecting retrospective interview data. This paper uses data on employment histories collected through both strategies, compares the attained samples, and investigates levels of agreements of individual histories. We use data from the German Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study with information on employment histories collected retrospectively from 2011 until 2014 (N = 3059). Administrative data from the German Institute for Employment Research (IAB) were linked to the survey data. After comparing respondents who provide self-reported histories with the subsample of the ones for which administrative data were available, we investigate the agreement of individual employment histories from the two sources (between 1975 and 2010) using sequence analyses. Almost all participants provided survey data on employment histories (97% of the sample), linkage consent was given by 93%, and administrative data were available for 63% of the participants. People with survey data were more likely to be female, to have a higher education, and to work self-employed and in the tertiary sector. The agreement of individual employment histories is high and similar across time, with a median level of agreement of 89%. Slightly lower values exist for women and people working in the tertiary sector, both having more complex histories. No differences exist for health-related factors. In conclusion, it is likely that missing consent and failed record linkage lead to sample differences; yet, both strategies provide comparable and reliable life course data.

Immigration and Integration Policy and Labour Market Attainment Among Immigrants to Scandinavia Abstract Insufficient integration of immigrants into the labour market has been identified as a major problem in the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Integration depends, inter alia, on immigration and integration policy, and for most of the post-war period the policies of the three countries displayed strong similarities. However, in the early 2000s Denmark increasingly deviated from its two neighbours, introducing more restrictive immigration and stricter integration policies. Comparing both pre- and post-reform immigrants across Scandinavia, we assess the wider impact of this comprehensive policy reversal by tracking the evolution of employment and earnings gaps between 1993 and 2006. We use large data sets with individual-level register information allowing us to account for immigrant labour force composition and to examine sub-groups of immigrants. The results do not indicate that the Danish reforms had any clear-cut effect on either employment or earnings among non-Western immigrants. Moreover, integration in Norway and Sweden was not unequivocally worse despite the absence of similar reforms, raising questions regarding the aptness of the Danish reversal.

The Effect of Population Growth on the Environment: Evidence from European Regions Abstract There is a long-standing dispute on the extent to which population growth causes environmental degradation. Most studies on this link have so far analyzed cross-country data, finding contradictory results. However, these country-level analyses suffer from the high level of dissimilarity between world regions and strong collinearity of population growth, income, and other factors. We argue that regional-level analyses can provide more robust evidence, isolating the population effect from national particularities such as policies or culture. We compile a dataset of 1062 regions within 22 European countries and analyze the effect from population growth on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and urban land use change between 1990 and 2006. Data are analyzed using panel regressions, spatial econometric models, and propensity score matching where regions with high population growth are matched to otherwise highly similar regions exhibiting significantly less growth. We find a considerable effect from regional population growth on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and urban land use increase in Western Europe. By contrast, in the new member states in the East, other factors appear more important.

Selectivity of Migration and the Educational Disadvantages of Second-Generation Immigrants in Ten Host Societies Abstract Selectivity of migration varies significantly between ethnic/origin country groups, and between the destination countries which these groups have migrated to. Yet, little comparative research has measured empirically how selective different migrant groups are in multiple destination countries, nor has research studied whether the selectivity of migration is related to the magnitude of ethnic inequalities among the children of migrants in Western societies. We present an empirical measure of educational selectivity of migrants from many different origin countries having migrated to ten different destination countries. We examine whether selective migration of a particular ethnic group in a particular destination country is related to the gap between their children's and native children's educational outcomes. We find that the disadvantage in educational outcomes between the second generation and their peers from majority populations is smaller for ethnic groups that are more positively selected in terms of educational attainment. We also find some evidence that the effect of selective migration is moderated by the integration policies or tracking arrangements in the educational system in the destination country.

The Effects of Ageing on Intergenerational Support Exchange: A New Look at the Hypothesis of Flow Reversal Abstract There has been debate about whether the flow of intergenerational support reverses as parents age. One view is that in western countries, parents remain 'net donors' to children, even in very old age. Such a conclusion coincides with notions of parental altruism and would be in contrast to notions of exchange and reciprocity over the life course. This paper examines the thesis of flow reversal in a new way: it uses prospective longitudinal data, it combines data from samples of ageing parents and samples of adult children, it develops a way to create measures of balance from frequency items on support exchange, and it combines objective measures of support exchange with subjective perceptions of symmetry. The focus is limited to support that involves time and effort. The support that parents give to children declines with age, the support they receive increases, and at around age 75–76, parents become 'net receivers'. The decline in downward support is stronger than the increase in upward support, suggesting that declining parental opportunities to give plays an important role in the flow reversal. In sum, the analyses provide evidence for what we can call delayed and parent-driven flow reversal. Evidence for flow reversal is stronger in the sample of adult children, pointing to the limitations of sampling ageing parents. Finally, there is correspondence between objective measures of support exchange and perceptions of symmetry, although on the whole, few parents regard themselves as 'net receivers'.

Economic Swings, Political Instability and Migration in Kyrgyzstan Abstract Individual-level migration responses to economic fluctuations and political instability remain poorly understood. Using nationally representative survey data from Kyrgyzstan, we look at variations in levels and propensities of internal and temporary international migration and relate them to changes in the economic and political environment in that Central Asian nation in the first decade of the century. A multinomial event history model predicting yearly risks of both types of migration detects no clear association of internal migration risks with episodes of heightened political instability but shows a decrease in those risks in response to the strongest economic shock of the observation period. In comparison, international migration risks, while also insensitive to political turmoil, appear to increase at the time of the most pronounced economic downturn. The results also point to instructive patterns in migration propensities by type of area of residence, education, gender, and ethnicity. These findings are interpreted in light of complex intersections of demography with politics, economy, and culture in this transitional Eurasian setting.