Michaela Kreyenfeld
Biographic Data
| ID | 127225 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michaela Kreyenfeld |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michaela |
| FAMILY NAME | Kreyenfeld |
| SIGNATURE | KREYENFELD M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9420-3818 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 78 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1169 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 69 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 9 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 18 |
The Motherhood Pension Gap in Germany: Which role do the pension-related childcare credits play
The Motherhood Pension Gap (MPG) measures the difference in pension entitlements between mothers and childless women and provides some indication of whether parenthood is a risk factor for women’s old-age security. In this research report, we focus on the role of pension policies in mitigating the MPG. We raise the question of whether pension-related childcare credits are effective in increasing mothers’ public pension entitlements in Germany and…
Economic Conditions, Education and Parity‐Specific Fertility: A Sub‐National Regional Study Across 15 Countries in Europe
There is a longstanding interest in the link between economic conditions and fertility levels. Most research measuring economic development has focused on national‐level patterns and period total fertility levels. We aim to extend existing knowledge by carrying out a sub‐national regional analysis of the link between economic conditions and parity‐specific cohort fertility, while taking into account heterogeneity by educational level. We study th…
Divorce and Mental Health: Is Late Divorce Particularly Harmful for Women with Low Earnings
This paper examines the relationship between divorce and mental health, with a focus on how this association is stratified by sex, age, and individual income. In particular, we test the hypothesis that divorce at advanced ages (50–59) is particularly harmful for women with insufficient personal earnings. Data is drawn from German register data, which includes marital histories of divorcees and diagnosed health outcomes. The analytical sample incl…
Future Caregiving Responsibilities, Employment Uncertainties, and Expected Childbearing Behavior: Survey Experimental Evidence from Germany
In societies experiencing declining birth rates, understanding factors that influence childbearing decisions is of interest. We used a factorial survey experiment to investigate how scenarios of future caregiving responsibilities toward aging parents and employment uncertainties shape the expected childbearing behavior of a fictitious couple. Respondents from the nationally representative German Socio-Economic Panel Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS) ( …
Reflections on CPoS: A Journey Across Five Decades
In this editorial, Michaela Kreyenfeld, former board member, author and reviewer, reflects on her own experiences with and the evolution and significance of Comparative Population Studies (CPoS), formerly Zeitschrift für Bevölkerungswissenschaft (ZfB), highlighting its role as a dedicated, rigorous platform for demographic and population research. CPoS embraces core demographic topics as well as interdisciplinary approaches, exemplified for examp…
Structural labour market change, cognitive work, and entry to parenthood in Germany
Technological change and globalization have caused unprecedented transformations of labour markets, resulting in a growing division between workers who perform cognitive vs non-cognitive tasks. To date, only few studies have addressed the fertility effects of these long-term structural changes. This study fills that gap. We measure the cognitive task content of occupations using data from the Employment Survey of the German Federal Institute for …
Intersectional Inequalities in the Transition to Grandparenthood and Cognitive Functioning: A Longitudinal Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy
This study highlights the importance of social determinants for understanding heterogeneities in older adults' level of cognitive functioning and its association with the transition to grandparenthood. Cumulative disadvantages negatively affect cognitive functioning, hence adopting an intersectional lens is useful to decompose inequalities and derive tailored interventions to promote equal healthy aging
Second Birth Fertility in Germany: Social Class, Gender, and the Role of Economic Uncertainty
Building on a thick strand of the literature on the determinants of higher-order births, this study uses a gender and class perspective to analyse second birth progression rates in Germany. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1990 to 2020, individuals are classified based on their occupation into: upper service, lower service, skilled manual/higher-grade routine nonmanual, and semi-/unskilled manual/lower-grade routine nonmanual …
Earnings Trajectories After Divorce: The Legacies of the Earner Model During Marriage
Divorce marks the legal endpoint of a marital union. While divorce is increasingly seen as a ‘clean break’, the past marital history of the couple may nevertheless shape their present conditions. In particular, there may be a legacy of a highly gendered division of labour during marriage that may affect the ex-spouses’ earning trajectories beyond the date of divorce. Using register data from the German Pension Fund, we examine the earning traject…
The gender pension gap in Germany: Is divorce a gender-equaliser
Germany is one of the few countries in Europe that has implemented a system of ‘divorce splitting’. Under this system, the pension credits that spouses have accumulated during their marriage are combined and then split equally between them upon divorce. This study examines how divorce affects public pension entitlements in Germany, and how these patterns are influenced by the system of divorce splitting. The data for our analysis comes from SHARE…
Die Gutachter: Innen zum 50. Jahrgang (2021)
The Intensification of Parenting in Germany: The Role of Socioeconomic Background and Family Form
Drawing on the international discourse on the intensification of parenting and new data from Germany, this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the unique challenges that parents face in the 21st century. We used data from the survey "Parenthood Today", which was conducted in 2019 to examine parents' views on parenting in Germany. The data comprised standardized interviews with 1652 mothers and fathers. We focused on three dimens…
Research Handbook on the Sociology of the Family
Exploring how family life has radically changed in recent decades, this comprehensive Research Handbook tracks the latest developments and trends in scholarly work on the family. With a particular focus on the European context, it addresses current debates and offers insights into key topics including: the division of housework, family forms and living arrangements, intergenerational relationships, partner choice, divorce and fertility behaviour.
Causal Modelling in Fertility Research: A Review of the Literature and an Application to a Parental Leave Policy Reform
This paper reviews empirical studies that have examined the causal determinants of fertility behaviour. In particular, we compare the approaches adopted in the different disciplines to improve our understanding of how birth dynamics are influenced by changes in female employment and changes in family policies. The wide array of panel data that have become available in recent years provide great potential for advanced causal modelling in this fiel…
Educational Differences in Cohort Fertility Across Sub-national Regions in Europe
Educational differences in female cohort fertility vary strongly across high-income countries and over time, but knowledge about how educational fertility differentials play out at the sub-national regional level is limited. Examining these sub-national regional patterns might improve our understanding of national patterns, as regionally varying contextual conditions may affect fertility. This study provides for the first time for a large number …
Coronavirus and care: How the coronavirus crisis affected fathers' involvement in Germany
Some have hypothesized that the coronavirus crisis may result in a retraditionalization of behaviour. This paper examines this hypothesis by analyzing how the time fathers and mothers spent with their children changed during the first lockdown in the case
Handbuch Bevölkerungssoziologie
Parental Life Courses after Separation and Divorce in Europe
This open access book assembles landmark studies on divorce and separation in European countries, and how this affects the life of parents and children. It focuses on four major areas of post-separation lives, namely (1) economic conditions, (2) parent-child relationships, (3) parent and child well-being, and (4) health. Through studies from several European countries, the book showcases how legal regulations and social policies influence parenta…
Geflüchtete, Familien und ihre Kinder. Warum der Blick auf die Familien und die Kindertagesbetreuung entscheidend ist
Seit 2015 viele Menschen mit Fluchthintergrund nach Deutschland gezogen sind, stand häufig deren Arbeitsmarktintegration im Zentrum des gesellschaftlichen, politischen und wissenschaftlichen Interesses. Lebenslagen und Lebensformen der geflüchteten Familien wurden hingegen viel weniger thematisiert. Dieser Beitrag präsentiert familiendemografische Daten für Geflüchtete der Herkunftsländer Syrien, Afghanistan, Irak und Eritrea und verdeutlicht den…
Why Do Lone Mothers Fare Worse than Lone Fathers? Lone Parenthood and Welfare Benefit Receipt in Germany
This article uses data from the German microcensuses of 2007 and 2012 to examine gender differences in welfare reliance among lone parents. Binary logistic regression was employed as the method of analysis. We show that the risk of welfare benefit receipt is lower among lone fathers than lone mothers. We also find that these gender differences can be partially explained by the socio-economic characteristics of lone fathers; compared to lone mothe…
Policy reform and fathers’ use of parental leave in Germany: The role of education and workplace characteristics
The introduction of the parental leave benefit scheme in 2007 is widely regarded as a landmark reform that has shifted the German welfare state towards a model that better supports work and family life compatibility. In this article, we investigate whether and how this reform has affected men’s use of parental leave based on data from the German microcensus of 1999–2012. We find that parental leave usage has increased across all educational level…
Der Gender Pension Gap in Ost- und Westdeutschland: Welchen Einfluss hat eine Scheidung auf die Alterssicherung
Dieser Beitrag untersucht den “Gender Pension Gap“ in Deutschland auf Basis der sechsten Welle des “Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe“ (SHARE-RV), welcher mit Registerdaten der Deutschen Rentenversicherung aus dem Jahr 2015 verbunden wurde. In die Untersuchung gehen Frauen und Männer der Geburtsjahrgänge 1930 bis 1955 ein. Für diese Kohorten existiert in Westdeutschland ein erheblicher “Gender Pension Gap“. Frauen dieser Geburtsja…
Loose Ties? Determinants of Father-Child Contact After Separation in Germany
ObjectiveThis article examines the determinants of father-child contact in Germany after divorce and separation, with a special emphasis on the role of legal child support.BackgroundThe contact separated fathers have with their children is a policy-relevant issue that has been intensively addressed in previous research for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. For continental Europe, there has been far less research on this topic. Th…
Childlessness in Europe: Contexts, Causes, and Consequences
In recent decades, levels of childlessness have been increasing rapidly in most European countries. German-speaking countries seem to be at the forefront of this development, as more than 20% of the women living in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria who are now reaching the end of their reproductive period will remain childless. But other European countries, such as the UK and Finland, also report high levels of childlessness. Eastern and Southern…
From an Alternative to a Precarious Family Form? The Changing Role of Education in Nonmarital Childbearing in Germany
This paper examines the association of education and family forms based on data of the German microcensus 1996–2012. The investigation shows that highly educated women in western Germany had a higher probability of living in a nonmarital instead of a marital union. With an increase in the share of nonmarital births, the association has reversed. Likewise, the highly educated couples were initially the vanguards of living in nonmarital unions with…
Uncertainties in Female Employment Careers and the Postponement of Parenthood in Germany
This article investigates whether uncertainties in female employment careers result in a postponement of family formation. Data for this analysis come from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which provides longitudinal information on economic uncertainty and fertility for the period 1984–2006. We employ objective measures of uncertainty (unemployment) as well as subjective measures (whether the respondent is worried about her economic situation, wh…
The Educational Gradient of Childbearing within Cohabitation in Europe
Nearly every European Country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in ei…
Changes in union status during the transition to parenthood in eleven European countries, 1970s to early 2000s
Couples who have children are increasingly likely to have lived together without being married at some point in their relationship. Some couples begin their unions with cohabitation and marry before first conception, some marry during pregnancy or directly after the first birth, while others remain unmarried 3 years after the first birth. Using union and fertility histories since the 1970s for eleven countries, we examine whether women who have c…
Time Squeeze, Partner Effect or Self-Selection: An Investigation into the Positive Effect of Women’s Education on Second Birth Risks in West Germany
This paper investigates the role of womenâ s education in the transition to the second child using data from the 1997 German micro-census. We begin our analysis with a simple model, which shows a positive effect of womanâ s education on the transition r
Economic Uncertainty and Family Dynamics in Europe: Introduction
Economic uncertainty has become an increasingly important factor in explanations of declining fertility and postponed family formation across Europe. Yet the micro-level evidence on this topic is still limited
Fertility Reactions to the "Great Recession" in Europe: Recent Evidence from Order-Specific Data
This paper provides recent cross-national evidence of the impact of the great recession on fertility in Europe in the context of the recent decade
A Multilevel Analysis of Child Care and Women's Fertility Decisions in Western Germany
The availability of public day care is often assumed to be crucial to the compatibility of childrearing and women's employment. This article takes a multilevel perspective in investigating the role of child care in childbearing decisions in western Germany. Using information on the local supply of public day care and data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimated first and second birth risks from the 1980s and 1990s. We found that access…
Anticipatory analysis and its alternatives in life-course research: Part 1: Education and first childbearing
Procedures that seek to explain current behavior by future outcomes (anticipatory analysis) constitute a widespread but problematic approach in life-course analysis because they disturb the role of time and the temporal order of events. Nevertheless th
The growing educational divide in mothers' employment: An investigation based on the German micro-censuses 1976-2004
This article investigates whether the increase in the labour force participation of mothers in western Germany has been accompanied by growing social inequalities in maternal employment. The focus is on education-related differences in full-time, part-time and marginal employment, and, in particular, changes therein over time. It is assumed that worsening labour market opportunities for the less educated and a 'familialistic' social policy contex…
Against all odds: Fathers’ use of parental leave in Germany
This paper investigates fathers’ usage of parental leave in Germany based on data from the microcensuses of 1999—2005. Special attention is given to the role that education has in leave-taking behaviour. Our empirical results show that educational differences between the partners are strong predictors of fathers’ usage of parental leave. A father is more likely to take parental leave if he has a partner who is more highly educated or older. We al…
Has East Germany Overtaken West Germany? Recent Trends in Order-Specific Fertility
Some 20 years after reunification, the contrast between East and West Germany offers a natural experiment for studying the degree of persistence of Communist-era family patterns, the effects of economic change, and fertility postponement. After reunification, period fertility rates plummeted in the former East Germany to record low levels. Since the mid-1990s, however, period fertility rates have been rising in East Germany, in contrast to the ne…
Policy reform and fathers’ use of parental leave in Germany: The role of education and workplace characteristics
The introduction of the parental leave benefit scheme in 2007 is widely regarded as a landmark reform that has shifted the German welfare state towards a model that better supports work and family life compatibility. In this article, we investigate whether and how this reform has affected men’s use of parental leave based on data from the German microcensus of 1999–2012. We find that parental leave usage has increased across all educational level…
Does the availability of child care influence the employment of mothers? Findings from western Germany
Fertility Decisions in the FRG and GDR: An Analysis with Data from the German Fertility and Family Survey
The aim of this paper is to compare family policies and fertility patterns in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the German Federal Republic (FRG). Among other aspects, both societies particularly differed in the integration of women into
Anticipatory analysis and its alternatives in life-course research: Part 2: Marriage and first birth
In the second part of these reflections, we use the connection between marriage and first childbearing to demonstrate further issues involved in anticipatory analysis. We show that an anticipatory approach cannot be used to represent intentionality: Pe
Educational Differences in Cohort Fertility Across Sub-national Regions in Europe
Educational differences in female cohort fertility vary strongly across high-income countries and over time, but knowledge about how educational fertility differentials play out at the sub-national regional level is limited. Examining these sub-national regional patterns might improve our understanding of national patterns, as regionally varying contextual conditions may affect fertility. This study provides for the first time for a large number …
Family Policies and the Western European Fertility Divide: Insights from a Natural Experiment in Belgium
Countries in Northwestern Europe, including Belgium, report cohort fertility levels of close to two children per woman; whereas Central European countries, such as Germany, have levels of around 1.6 children. In seeking to explain these differences, some scholars have stressed the role of the social policy context, while others have pointed to variation in fertility‐related social norms. But because these influences are interdependent, it is diff…
Job Displacement and First Birth Over the Business Cycle
In this article, we investigate the impact of job displacement on women’s first-birth rates as well as the variation in this effect over the business cycle. We use mass layoffs to estimate the causal effects of involuntary job loss on fertility in the short and medium term, up to five years after displacement. Our analysis is based on rich administrative data from Germany, with an observation period spanning more than 20 years. We apply inverse p…
Welfare state context, female labour-market attachment and childbearing in Germany and Denmark
This study investigates the role of female labour-market attachment and earnings in childbearing progressions in two very different European contexts. By applying event-history techniques to German and Danish register data during 1981–2001, we demonstrate how female earnings relate to first, second and third birth propensities. Our study shows that female earnings are positively associated with first birth fertility in Denmark, while this is not …
Coronavirus and care: How the coronavirus crisis affected fathers' involvement in Germany
Some have hypothesized that the coronavirus crisis may result in a retraditionalization of behaviour. This paper examines this hypothesis by analyzing how the time fathers and mothers spent with their children changed during the first lockdown in the case
Economic Uncertainty and Fertility
Crisis or Adaptation – Reconsidered: A Comparison of East and West German Fertility Patterns in the First Six Years after the ‘Wende
Kinderbetreuung und Fertilität in Deutschland / Child Care and Fertility in Germany
Eine zentrale Rolle in der Diskussion um eine bessere Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf spielt die Versorgung mit bedarfsgerechter Kinderbetreuung. Eine umfassendes Angebot an Betreuungsplätzen fördert jedoch nicht nur die Müttererwerbstätigkeit, sondern könnte sich auch positiv auf Fertilitätsentscheidungen auswirken. Im vorliegenden Beitrag untersuchen wir auf Basis von Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) und der amtlichen Kinder- und…
The German Generations and Gender Survey: Some Critical Reflections on the Validity of Fertility Histories
This paper validates the fertility histories of the German Generations and Gender Survey (GGS). Focusing on the cohorts 1930-69 of West German women, the total number of children, the parity distribution and the parity progression ratios are compared to external sources. One major result from this validation is that the German GGS understates the fertility for the older cohorts and overstates it for the younger ones. We presume that two mechanism…
Loose Ties? Determinants of Father-Child Contact After Separation in Germany
ObjectiveThis article examines the determinants of father-child contact in Germany after divorce and separation, with a special emphasis on the role of legal child support.BackgroundThe contact separated fathers have with their children is a policy-relevant issue that has been intensively addressed in previous research for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. For continental Europe, there has been far less research on this topic. Th…
Does the availability of child care influence the employment of mothers? Findings from western Germany
Die Verwertbarkeit ausländischer Ausbildungsabschlüsse / The Applicability of Foreign Vocational Credentials: Das Beispiel der Aussiedler auf dem deutschen Arbeitsmarkt / The Case of Ethnic Germans in…
Seit dem Zusammenbruch der kommunistischen Regime in Osteuropa ist der Zuzug von Aussiedlern nach Deutschland sprunghaft angestiegen. In diesem Aufsatz analysieren wir die Arbeitsmarktintegration der Aussiedler auf dem deutschen Arbeitsmarkt anhand von Daten des Sozio-Ökonomischen Panels aus dem Jahr 1998. Unter theoretischen Gesichtspunkten steht die Frage der Verwertbarkeit ausländischer Bildungszertifikate im Mittelpunkt unseres Interesses. Ob…
Women's Employment and Non-Marital Childbearing: A Comparison between East and West Germany in the 1990s
In contrast to West Germany, where marriage and childbirth have been strongly coupled, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) displayed high rates of non-marital childbearing. Researchers attributed this pattern to “misguided” GDR family policies that encouraged women to remain unmarried after childbirth. With German unification, East Germany’s legal and political institutions — including family policies — were replaced by those of West Germany. Ag…
Women's Employment and Non-Marital Childbearing: A Comparison between East and West Germany in the 1990s
In contrast to West Germany, where marriage and childbirth have been strongly coupled, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) displayed high rates of non-marital childbearing. Researchers attributed this pattern to “misguided” GDR family policies that encouraged women to remain unmarried after childbirth. With German unification, East Germany’s legal and political institutions — including family policies — were replaced by those of West Germany. Ag…
The performance of migrants in occupational labour markets
Since the breakdown of communism, Germany has experienced a major influx of Aussiedler who are basically migrants originating from Eastern European countries. In this article, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel of the year 1998 to analyse the labour market performance of this group of migrants. Our key hypothesis guiding the empirical investigations is that in occupational labour markets, such as the German one, migrants are faced w…
Travail feminin et fecondite hors mariage en Allemagne au cours des annees 1990: Comparaison entre l'Est et l'Ouest
Konietzka D., Kreyenfeld M. Travail féminin et fécondité hors mariage en Allemagne au cours des années 1990 : comparaison entre l'Est et l'Ouest. In: Population, 57e année, n°2, 2002. pp. 359-387
Time Squeeze, Partner Effect or Self-Selection: An Investigation into the Positive Effect of Women’s Education on Second Birth Risks in West Germany
This paper investigates the role of womenâ s education in the transition to the second child using data from the 1997 German micro-census. We begin our analysis with a simple model, which shows a positive effect of womanâ s education on the transition r
Crisis or Adaptation – Reconsidered: A Comparison of East and West German Fertility Patterns in the First Six Years after the ‘Wende
A Multilevel Analysis of Child Care and Women's Fertility Decisions in Western Germany
The availability of public day care is often assumed to be crucial to the compatibility of childrearing and women's employment. This article takes a multilevel perspective in investigating the role of child care in childbearing decisions in western Germany. Using information on the local supply of public day care and data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimated first and second birth risks from the 1980s and 1990s. We found that access…
Kinderbetreuung und Fertilität in Deutschland / Child Care and Fertility in Germany
Eine zentrale Rolle in der Diskussion um eine bessere Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf spielt die Versorgung mit bedarfsgerechter Kinderbetreuung. Eine umfassendes Angebot an Betreuungsplätzen fördert jedoch nicht nur die Müttererwerbstätigkeit, sondern könnte sich auch positiv auf Fertilitätsentscheidungen auswirken. Im vorliegenden Beitrag untersuchen wir auf Basis von Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) und der amtlichen Kinder- und…
Fertility Decisions in the FRG and GDR: An Analysis with Data from the German Fertility and Family Survey
The aim of this paper is to compare family policies and fertility patterns in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the German Federal Republic (FRG). Among other aspects, both societies particularly differed in the integration of women into
Müttererwerbstätigkeit in Ost- und Westdeutschland: Eine Analyse mit den Mikrozensen 1991-2002
Auf Basis der Daten des Mikrozensus aus den Jahren 1991, 1996 und 2002 gibt dieser Artikel einen Überblick über das Erwerbsverhalten von Frauen mit Kindern in Ost- und Westdeutschland. Neben der Frage der Ost-West-Angleichung stehen sozialstrukturelle Unterschiede im Erwerbsverhalten im Vordergrund der Analyse. Wir argumentieren insbesondere, dass die familien- und sozialpolitischen Rahmenbedingungen in Deutschland eine Zunahme der sozialstruktur…
Nichteheliche Mutterschaft und soziale Ungleichheit im familialistischen Wohlfahrtsstaat: Zur sozioökonomischen Differenzierung der Familienformen in Ost- und Westdeutschland
Family Formation in Times of Abrupt Social and Economic Change
This chapter, which compares the fertility patterns of East German women born in 1971 with those born between 1959 and 1961, provides descriptive statistics on first birth, second birth, and first marriage. It shows how drastically changes on the macro level manifest themselves in individual life course patterns, examining two potential explanations for the postponement of fertility: “women's work commitments” and “economic uncertainties.” Being …
Anticipatory analysis and its alternatives in life-course research: Part 2: Marriage and first birth
In the second part of these reflections, we use the connection between marriage and first childbearing to demonstrate further issues involved in anticipatory analysis. We show that an anticipatory approach cannot be used to represent intentionality: Pe
Anticipatory analysis and its alternatives in life-course research: Part 1: Education and first childbearing
Procedures that seek to explain current behavior by future outcomes (anticipatory analysis) constitute a widespread but problematic approach in life-course analysis because they disturb the role of time and the temporal order of events. Nevertheless th
Leben Ohne Kinder: Kinderlosigkeit in Deutschland
Ein Leben ohne Kinder
Die Bildungsungleichheit des Erwerbsverhaltens von Frauen mit Kindern / Educational Differences in Maternal Employment in Germany: Westdeutschland im Vergleich zwischen 1976 und 2004 / An Investigatio…
Der kontinuierliche Anstieg der Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen in Westdeutschland seit den 1960er Jahren verdeckt eine erhebliche Vielfalt des Wandels der Erwerbmuster in verschiedenen Teilgruppen der Frauen. Wir untersuchen die Ungleichheit der Vollzeit- und Teilzeiterwerbstätigkeit zwischen hoch und gering qualifizierten Müttern. Die empirischen Analysen auf der Basis der Scientific-Use-Files der Mikrozensen der Jahre 1976 bis 2004 zeigen einen …
Welfare state context, female earnings and childbearing
This paper investigates the role of female earnings in childbearing decisions in two very different European contexts. By applying event history techniques to German and Danish register data during 1981-2001, we demonstrate how female earnings relate to first, second and third birth rates. Our study shows that female earnings are rather positively associated with fertility in Denmark, while the relationship is the opposite in West Germany. We int…
The Educational Gradient of Childbearing within Cohabitation in Europe
Nearly every European Country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in ei…
The growing educational divide in mothers' employment: An investigation based on the German micro-censuses 1976-2004
This article investigates whether the increase in the labour force participation of mothers in western Germany has been accompanied by growing social inequalities in maternal employment. The focus is on education-related differences in full-time, part-time and marginal employment, and, in particular, changes therein over time. It is assumed that worsening labour market opportunities for the less educated and a 'familialistic' social policy contex…
Uncertainties in Female Employment Careers and the Postponement of Parenthood in Germany
This article investigates whether uncertainties in female employment careers result in a postponement of family formation. Data for this analysis come from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which provides longitudinal information on economic uncertainty and fertility for the period 1984–2006. We employ objective measures of uncertainty (unemployment) as well as subjective measures (whether the respondent is worried about her economic situation, wh…
Against all odds: Fathers’ use of parental leave in Germany
This paper investigates fathers’ usage of parental leave in Germany based on data from the microcensuses of 1999—2005. Special attention is given to the role that education has in leave-taking behaviour. Our empirical results show that educational differences between the partners are strong predictors of fathers’ usage of parental leave. A father is more likely to take parental leave if he has a partner who is more highly educated or older. We al…
Has East Germany Overtaken West Germany? Recent Trends in Order-Specific Fertility
Some 20 years after reunification, the contrast between East and West Germany offers a natural experiment for studying the degree of persistence of Communist-era family patterns, the effects of economic change, and fertility postponement. After reunification, period fertility rates plummeted in the former East Germany to record low levels. Since the mid-1990s, however, period fertility rates have been rising in East Germany, in contrast to the ne…
Economics (42 works) · Political science (42 works) · Sociology (41 works) · Demographic economics (36 works) · Demography (35 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (32 works) · Geography (31 works) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (30 works) · Population (30 works) · Fertility (28 works)