A longitudinal study design is used to find out whether health and health behaviours at age 12–16 predict educational level in early adulthood. The purpose is to study
direct (based on health) and
...indirect (based on health behaviours)
health-related selection mechanisms in adolescence. These mechanisms contribute to the allocation of people into various educational positions and thus to the creation of socio-economic health differences in adulthood.
Baseline data at age 12–16 from the Adolescent Health and Lifestyle Survey (Finland) in 1981, 1983 and 1985 were linked with data on highest attained education at age 27–33, obtained from the Register of Completed Education in 1998. In the baseline surveys, all 12-, 14- and 16-year-olds born within a specified range of birth dates in July 1964, 1966, 1968, or 1970 were included in the samples (
N=11,149). The response rate in the mailed surveys varied between 74% and 88% in boys and between 85% and 92% in girls. Associations between baseline variables and attained educational level were assessed by polychotomous logistic regression analysis.
Health-compromising behaviours and poor perceived health in adolescence predicted low educational level in adulthood. Several behaviours had independent associations with attained educational level, while associations between health and educational level were mostly accounted for by school achievement and sociodemographic background, which were strong and independent predictors of educational level. The study indicates that in adolescence, indirect selection based on health behaviours, rather than direct selection by perceived health, contributes to the production of socio-economic health differences.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
It has been argued that a society's gender system may influence parents' sex preferences for children. If this is true, one should expect to find no evidence of such preferences in countries with a ...high level of gender equality. In this article, we exploit data from population registers from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden to examine continuities and changes in parental sex preferences in the Nordic countries during the past three to four decades. First, we do not observe an effect of the sex of the firstborn child on second-birth risks. Second, we detect a distinct preference for at least one child of each sex among parents of two children. For third births, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish parents seem to develop a preference for having a daughter, while Finns exhibit a significant preference for having a son. These findings show that modernization and more equal opportunities for women and men do not necessarily lead to parental gender indifference. On the contrary, they may even result in new sex preferences.
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CEKLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, UL, UM, UPUK
This study examines fertility variation across housing types and childbearing patterns following housing changes. While the effect of family changes on housing choices has been studied in detail, ...little is known about childbearing patterns within various housing types, and this despite the fact that many studies suggest housing to be an important determinant of fertility. We use longitudinal register data from Finland and apply hazard regression. First, we observe a significant variation in fertility levels across housing types – fertility is highest among couples living in single-family houses and lowest among those residing in apartments, with the variation remaining significant even after controlling for the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of women. Second, our results show elevated fertility levels after couples have changed dwellings, suggesting that much of the fertility variation across housing types is attributed to selective moves. Third, the study reveals a relatively high risk of third birth for couples in single-family houses several years after the move. This suggests that living in spacious housing and in a family-friendly environment for a relatively long time leads to higher fertility.
We investigate the hypothesis that the propensity of a stepfamily couple to have a shared child is inversely related to the responsibility for rearing pre-union children. We compare effects of ...coresident pre-union children to those of nonresident, and effects of the woman's children to those of the man's. Shared children and stepchildren reduce the risk of a birth to a couple, and the reduction is larger for each shared child than for a stepchild. We find larger effects of coresident pre-union children than of nonresident children, and larger effects of a woman's pre-union children than of a man's. The differences are more pronounced in Austria where public support for childrearing and gender equality is lower than in Finland. Our study demonstrates that in addition to the number of pre-union children, coresidence and parentage of pre-union children also need to be considered in future fertility research. /// Cet article explore l'hypothèse, pour un couple en seconde union, de l'existence d'une relation inverse entre la probabilité d'avoir un enfant en commun et la charge d'enfants issus des unions précédentes. L'influence de cette charge est étudiée selon que ces enfants résident avec le couple ou non et selon qu'il s'agit des enfants de l'homme ou de la femme. Les effets sont plus grands si les enfants des unions antérieures sont au foyer du couple et s'il s'agit des enfants de la femme. Les différences sont plus accentuées en Autriche où l'aide familiale et l'égalité entre les sexes sont moins fortes qu'en Finlande. Notre étude montre qu'au-delà du nombre d'enfants nés d'unions antérieures, le lieu de résidence et la prise en charge de ces enfants doivent être pris en compte dans les recherches à mener sur la fécondité des familles recomposées.
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BFBNIB, CEKLJ, FZAB, GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NMLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
En Europe, le vieillissement de la population constitue la tendance démographique dominante de ce siècle. Mais d’autres évolutions démographiques, comme le déclin de la fécondité jusqu’à des niveaux ...bas, voire très bas, la hausse de l’âge à la constitution de la famille et les changements des modèles familiaux, façonnent fortement notre société. Ils constituent des défis pour les politiques publiques, notamment en ce qui concerne la conciliation entre vie professionnelle et vie familiale, l’e...
Increasing proportions of couples are making childbearing decisions in stepfamilies but there has been no general comparative picture across European countries on stepfamily formation. The present ...paper aims to fill this gap and provides a comparison of European countries using macro-level indicators that describe union formation and dissolution and childbearing. We use the individual-level data files (standard recode files) of Fertility and Family Surveys from 19 European countries. Our results highlight the different pathways to a stepfamily in Europe, and show that in most European countries a considerable proportion of women form a stepfamily in childbearing ages, which needs to be considered in studies of fertility.
Previous analyses of period fertility suggest that the trends of the Nordic countries are sufficiently similar that we may speak of a common “Nordic fertility regime”. We investigate whether this ...assumption can be corroborated by comparing cohort fertility patterns in the Nordic countries. We study cumulated and completed fertility of Nordic birth cohorts based on the childbearing histories of women born in 1935 and later derived from the population registers of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. We further explore childbearing behaviour by women’s educational attainment. The results show remarkable similarities in postponement and recuperation between the countries. Median childbearing age is about two to three years higher in the 1960–64 cohort than in the 1950–54 cohort, but the younger cohort recuperates the fertility level of the older cohort at ages 30 and above. A similar pattern of recuperation can be observed for highly educated women compared to women with less education, resulting in small differences in completed fertility across educational groups. Another interesting finding is that of a positive relationship between educational level and the final number of children when women who become mothers at similar ages are compared. Despite some differences in the levels of childlessness, country differences in fertility outcome are generally small. The cohort analyses thus support the notion of a common Nordic fertility regime.
The Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) is one of the two pillars of the Generations and Gender Programme designed to improve understanding of demographic and social development and of the factors ...that influence these developments. This article describes how the theoretical perspectives applied in the survey, the survey design and the questionnaire are related to this objective.
The key features of the survey include panel design, multidisciplinarity, comparability, context-sensitivity, inter-generational and gender relationships. The survey applies the life course approach, focussing on the processes of childbearing, partnership dynamics, home leaving, and retiring. The selection of topics for data collection mainly follows the criterion of theoretically grounded relevance to explaining one or more of the mentioned processes. A large portion of the survey deals with economic aspects of life, such as economic activity, income, and economic well-being; a comparably large section is devoted to values and attitudes. Other domains covered by the survey include gender relationships, household composition and housing, residential mobility, social networks and private transfers, education, health, and public transfers. The third chapter of the article describes the motivations for their inclusion.
The GGS questionnaire is designed for a face-to-face interview. It includes the core that each participating country needs to implement in full, and four optional submodules on nationality and ethnicity, on previous partners, on intentions of breaking up, and on housing, respectively. The participating countries are encouraged to include also the optional sub-modules to facilitate comparative research on these topics.
According to biological indicators trends in young people's health appear favourable, but the psychosocial aspects suggest a different pattern. We studied the differences across schools in common ...health complaints and in three groups of factors behind them: pupils’ individual characteristics, family related factors and school-related factors. Multilevel linear regression models were used to analyse repeated cross-sectional data from Finnish 8th and 9th graders (14- and 15-year-olds,
n
=
60
347
) in 109 schools that were surveyed in 1996, 1998 and 2000. Common health complaints increased steadily during the follow-up for all schools and they varied across schools. Both individual and school-level factors contributed significantly to the variation in common health complaints. The study suggests that young people's psychosocial health involves a range of influences deriving from individual susceptibility and from the social and educational functioning of schools. However, none of these factors can account for the rapid decrease in young people's psychosocial health.
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FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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