John Ermisch

Biographic Data

ID121606
NAMEJohn Ermisch
GIVEN NAMESJohn
FAMILY NAMEErmisch
SIGNATUREERMISCH J
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Oxford
ORCID0000-0002-3633-5246
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS79
TOTAL CITATIONS574
AUTHOR COUNT77
EDITOR COUNT2
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1974
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX15

  • The role of childlessness in changes in cohort fertility: Cross-national comparisons of countries in Europe, East Asia, and North America

    Open AccessJohn ErmischARTICLEDemographic Research2026

    FindingThe role of childlessness in changes in cohort fertility: Cross-national comparisons of countries in Europe, East Asia, and North America

  • Addressing Non-ignorable Panel Attrition Using External Population Data: Analysis of Demographic Events From Survey Data

    Open AccessJohn ErmischARTICLESociological Methods & Research2025Cited by: 1References: 10

    Empirical analysis of variation in demographic events within the population is facilitated by using longitudinal survey data because of the richness of covariate measures in such data, but there is wave-on-wave dropout. When attrition is related to the event, it precludes consistent estimation of the impacts of covariates on the event and on event probabilities in the absence of additional assumptions. The paper introduces an adjustment procedure…

  • The Effects of Social Mobility

    Open AccessR Breen, John ErmischARTICLESociological Science2024Cited by: 5References: 13

    The question of how social mobility affects outcomes, such as political preferences, wellbeing, and fertility, has long been of interest to sociologists. But finding answers to this question has been plagued by, on the one hand, the non-identifiability of "mobility effects" as they are usually conceived in this literature, and, on the other, the fact that these "effects" are, in reality, partial associations which may or may not represent causal …

  • The recent decline in period fertility in England and Wales: Differences associated with family background and intergenerational educational mobility

    Open AccessJohn ErmischARTICLEPopulation Studies2024Cited by: 5References: 37

    During 2010-20, period fertility in England and Wales fell to its lowest recorded level. The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of the decline in period fertility in two dimensions: differentials by the education of a woman's parents (family background) and by a woman's education in relation to that of her parents (intergenerational educational mobility). The analysis finds a substantial decline in fertility in each education group…

  • Using Inverse Probability Weighting to Address Post-Outcome Collider Bias

    Open AccessR Breen, John ErmischARTICLESociological Methods & Research2024References: 13

    We consider the problem of bias arising from conditioning on a post-outcome collider. We illustrate this with reference to Elwert and Winship (2014) but we go beyond their study to investigate the extent to which inverse probability weighting might offer solutions. We use linear models to derive expressions for the bias arising in different kinds of post-outcome confounding, and we show the specific situations in which inverse probability weighti…

  • Trust and Strength of Family Ties: New Experimental Evidence

    Open AccessJohn Ermisch, Diego Gambetta et al.ARTICLESocial Psychology Quarterly2023Cited by: 1References: 23

    We provide a conceptual replication of an experimental study that uncovered a robust correlation between the strength of individuals’ family ties and their distrust of strangers, striving to establish whether the link is causal. Using a different subjects pool and an online setting, we repeat the binary trust-game experiment from Ermisch and Gambetta and enrich it by manipulating the payoffs to create a low-trust and high-trust environment. The k…

  • Estimating the burden of the Covid-19 pandemic on mortality, life expectancy and lifespan inequality in England and Wales: A population-level analysis

    Open AccessJosé Manuel Aburto, Ridhi Kashyap et al.ARTICLEJournal of Epidemiology and…2021Cited by: 7References: 28

    BACKGROUND: Deaths directly linked to COVID-19 infection may be misclassified, and the pandemic may have indirectly affected other causes of death. To overcome these measurement challenges, we estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality, life expectancy and lifespan inequality from week 10 of 2020, when the first COVID-19 death was registered, to week 47 ending 20 November 2020 in England and Wales through an analysis of excess mort…

  • The distributional impact of Covid-19: Geographic variation in mortality in England

    Open AccessR Breen, John ErmischARTICLEDemographic Research2021Cited by: 1References: 1

    By their nature, the impact of epidemics on mortality varies geographically, suggesting that the geographical impact of an epidemic implies a social impact

  • Looking to the future of Population Studies

    John ErmischARTICLEPopulation Studies2021

  • English fertility heads south: Understanding the recent decline

    Open AccessJohn ErmischARTICLEDemographic Research2021Cited by: 11References: 9

    Fertility in England fell substantially during the past decade. The total fertility rate reached its historically lowest level in 2020

  • Sibling Models, Categorical Outcomes, and the Intra-Class Correlation

    Open AccessR Breen, John ErmischARTICLEEuropean Sociological Review2021Cited by: 3References: 25

    In sibling models with categorical outcomes the question arises of how best to calculate the intraclass correlation, ICC. We show that, for this purpose, the random effects linear probability model is preferable to a random effects non-linear probability model, such as a logit or probit. This is because, for a binary outcome, the ICC derived from a random effects linear probability model is a non-parametric estimate of the ICC, equivalent to a st…

  • Trends in educational mobility: How does China compare to Europe and the United States

    Open AccessRob J Gruijters, Tak Wing Chan et al.ARTICLEChinese Journal of Sociology2019Cited by: 6References: 5

    Despite an impressive rise in school enrolment rates over the past few decades, there are concerns about growing inequality of educational opportunity in China. In this article, we examine the level and trend of educational mobility in China, and compare them to the situation in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA. Educational mobility is defined as the association between parents’ and children’s educational attainment. We show that Chin…

  • Migration Versus Immobility, and Ties to Parents

    Open AccessJohn Ermisch, Clara H MulderARTICLEEuropean Journal of Population /…2019Cited by: 19References: 33

    We investigate the association between geographic proximity to parents and the likelihood of moving longer distances (e.g. at least 40 km), using British panel data from the Understanding Society study and probit regression. We also look at the extent to which this association diminishes by introducing measures of frequency of contact, interaction with neighbors and length of residence. Using a number of different models and samples, we find that…

  • Educational reproduction in Europe: A descriptive account

    Open AccessR Breen, John Ermisch et al.ARTICLEDemographic Research2019Cited by: 6References: 9

    Conventional studies of intergenerational social reproduction are based on a retrospective design, sampling adults and linking their status to that of their parents. This approach yields conditional estimates of intergenerational relationships. Recent stud

  • Patrilocal, Matrilocal, or Neolocal? Intergenerational Proximity of Married Couples in China

    Open AccessRob J Gruijters, John ErmischARTICLEJournal of Marriage and the Family2019Cited by: 18References: 58

    ObjectiveThe study describes current patterns of intergenerational proximity in China and analyzes the structural conditions that are associated with couples' proximity to the husband's and the wife's parents.BackgroundPatrilocality is a core aspect of the traditional Chinese kinship system and is deeply rooted in Confucian beliefs. In recent decades, however, this custom has been challenged by internal migration as well changes in family values …

  • The Dynamics of Income Inequality: The Case of China in a Comparative Perspective

    Open AccessTak Wing Chan, John Ermisch et al.ARTICLEEuropean Sociological Review2019Cited by: 1References: 41

    We compare household income panel data from China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Consistent with previous research, we show that income is more unequally distributed in China than in the three Western countries. But China also has a higher level of intra-generational income mobility. Because mobility tends to have an income-equalizing effect, the snapshot measures of inequality overstate the true level of inequality in China…

  • Educational Reproduction in Great Britain: A Prospective Approach

    R Breen, John ErmischARTICLEEuropean Sociological Review2017Cited by: 10References: 20

    We examine the extent to which the educational attainments of a generation are reproduced in Great Britain. We address a very specific question—what was the effect, among people born around the middle of the 20th century, of having acquired a University degree on the probability of having a child who also acquires a degree? We consider the two central processes involved: the effect of having a degree on whether a person had a child and, condition…

  • Income and Trustworthiness

    Open AccessJohn Ermisch, Diego GambettaARTICLESociological Science2016Cited by: 4References: 4

    We employ a behavioral measure of trustworthiness obtained from a trust game carried out with a sample of the general British population, the individuals of which were extensively interviewed on earlier occasions. Our basic finding is that given past income, higher current income increases trustworthiness and, given current income, higher past income reduces trustworthiness. Past income determines the level of financial aspirations, and whether o…

  • Fertility expectations and residential mobility in Britain

    Open AccessJohn Ermisch, Fiona SteeleARTICLEDemographic Research2016Cited by: 11References: 31

    It is plausible that people take into account anticipated changes in family size in choosing where to live. But estimation of the impact of anticipated events on current transitions in an event history framework is challenging because expectations must be

  • Family Theory: Economics of Childbearing

    Open AccessJohn Ermisch, John F ErmischCHAPTERInternational Encyclopedia of the…2015

  • Proximity of Couples to Parents: Influences of Gender, Labor Market, and Family

    Open AccessTak Wing Chan, John ErmischARTICLEDemography2015Cited by: 17References: 23

    We use household survey data from the UK to study how close middle-aged men and women in partnerships live to their parents and their partner’s parents. We find a slight tendency for couples to live closer to the woman’s parents than the man’s. This tendency is more pronounced among couples in which neither partner has a college degree and in which there is a child. In other respects, proximity to parents is gender-neutral, with the two partners …

  • Residential proximity of parents and their adult offspring in the United Kingdom, 2009-10

    Tak Wing Chan, John ErmischARTICLEPopulation Studies2015Cited by: 18References: 32

    Using data from a large household survey representative of the UK population, we studied how closely parents and adult children live to each other. We show that residential mobility over the life course tends to increase with the physical distance between the homes of parent and child. There are large differences in intergenerational proximity between the foreign-born and UK-born, and between ethnic groups. The determinants of intergenerational p…

  • Residential Mobility: Wealth, Demographic and Housing Market Effects

    Open AccessJohn Ermisch, Elizabeth WashbrookARTICLEScottish Journal of Political…2012Cited by: 5References: 1

    The study presents a very simple model in which housing equity can influence mobility, and then estimates parameters that gauge the impact of housing equity, local house prices and other variables associated with household structure and change on residential movement within the UK . The data come from the British Household Panel Study over 1992–2008, which allow us to use within‐person variation to identify the parameters. The parameter estimates…

  • The rising share of nonmarital births: Is it only compositional effects

    Open AccessJohn ErmischARTICLEDemography2009Cited by: 2References: 12

    A recent article by Gray, Stockard, and Stone contended that the increase in the proportion of births to unmarried women since 1974 in the United States was not caused by any major change in underlying fertility behavior, but rather by a decrease in the proportion of women who are married, which increased both the population at risk and the birth rate of unmarried women relative to that of married women. In this comment, I argue that the statisti…

  • Origins of Social Immobility and Inequality: Parenting and Early Child Development

    Open AccessJohn ErmischARTICLENational Institute Economic Review2008

    There is growing evidence that differences in children's intellectual, emotional and behavioural development by parents' socio-economic status emerge at early ages and that these differences cast a long shadow over subsequent achievements. This article demonstrates with the Millennium Cohort Study that differences by parents‘ income group in cognitive and behavioural development emerge by the child's third birthday. It shows that an important par…