Ideations and Intentions in the Transition to Adulthood: A Cross-European Comparison

Interview data from approximately 7500 women residing in Mexico Costa Rica Colombia and Peru was used to test the hypothesis that women with higher exposure to urban environments and with higher educational levels tend to have later actual and ideal marriage ages than women with less urban exposure and lower educational levels. The data was previously collected in surveys sponsored by the United Nations Latin American Demographic Center. In the analysis age at marriage was treated as a dependent variable and the independent variables were: 1) urban or rural residence during the early socialization years; 2) current urban or rural residence; and 3) educational level. Descriptive statistical analysis tended to support the hypothesis; however multiple classification analysis showed that only 2-3% of the variation in actual marriage age and only 1-5% of the variation in ideal age at marriage was explained by the independent urbanization and educational variables. Differences in educational level explained a higher proportion of the variance than the urbanization variables. Descriptive analysis showed: 1) women who married later had lower fertility than those who married earlier; 2) mean actual and ideal marriage ages were respectively 17.72 and 20.45 for the Mexican women 18.62 and 20.53 for the Costa Rican women 18.72 and 20.41 for the Colombian women and 19.10 and 20.72 for the Peruvian women; 3) mean actual and ideal marriage ages were later for women with higher education levels and greater urban exposure than for women with lower educational levels and less urban exposure; and 4) the gap between ideal and actual marriage age was greater for less educated and less urbanized women than for the more educated and more urbanized women. Study results were presented in tabular form.

Lately, social researchers have become increasingly interested and involved in comparative and cross-national research. In part this reflects a growing realisation that key social, economic and political processes are not merely ‘domestic’ but are common across countries and cultures. Although numerous good quality data sets now exist (e.g. the European Social Survey or International Social Survey Programme), in many instances researchers need to design their own bespoke comparative surveys. Such surveys require careful design if they are to produce meaningful data. Herein we introduce, outline and report on one technique which may usefully be employed in order to design better survey items for use in cross-national surveys.

This paper analyses two European social science surveys in a comparative perspective. Some twenty years apart, two groups of scholars launched two European social surveys. In 1981, the first round of the European Values Study (EVS) took place and twenty years later, in 2001, the first round of the European Social Survey (ESS) was launched. From the outset, both surveys were closely connected to national and European social scientific institutions, had ties to the EU and used the most sophisticated survey techniques of their time to address urgent contemporary political and social problems. However, only the ESS has managed to exploit these connections to European political institutions in order to obtain symbolic and monetary resources. The article argues that, in order to explain the trajectory of two social surveys, we need to understand not only the scientific and organizational properties of the two surveys, but just as importantly the constellation of the European field of research policy and the field of social science in Europe. In the twenty years separating the EVS and the ESS, social sciences and not least classical issues like social cohesion and political participation had become a part of issues funded through the EU research policies. In this way, the paper shows that success of social scientific projects are not only a result of the intrinsic qualities of the projects, but need to be understood in relation to and as a consequence of how it relates to of the social institutions and uses opening offers by changes in the settlement.

The second Health Inequalities Module in the European Social Survey (ESS): Methodology and research opportunities.

Why Europe Has to Offer a Better Deal Towards its Muslim Communities: A Quantitative Analysis of Open International Data

Based on data from the European Social Survey (2018), this paper examines ideas about the ideal age to become a parent in 28 European countries. Using multi-level models, it assesses the impact of real timing of childbirth and childlessness acceptance at the country level while controlling for individual characteristics. The findings show that the variability of ideas about ideal age at the country level is relatively limited and correlates significantly with the real timing of childbearing. A higher ideal age is preferred by women, people with higher education, the childless, and parents of one child. Although at the individual level lower childlessness acceptance is associated with a preference for a lower ideal age for childbearing, at the country level this is not the case. In countries where postponement of childbearing is more advanced, differences in attitudes about the ideal age of childbearing, particularly the ideal age to become a father, by education and age are smaller. This paper contributes to the understanding of differences in the perception of age norms of childbearing in Europe and to the factors influencing the postponement of childbearing.

This article presents comparisons of the ages and facts of starting demographic events in Russia based on the findings of three large-scale surveys: the European Social Survey, 2006; the Generations and Gender Survey, 2004, 2007, and 2011; and Person, Family, Society, 2013. This study focuses on the intergenerational and gender differences in the age of sexual debut, first partnership, first marriage, and birth of the first child. Analysis of the data shows that the maximum number of starting demographic events takes place before age 35. In the average biography, the first event is sexual debut, the following events are matrimonial (marriage and partnership/cohabitation), and the last event is the birth of the first child. The greatest gender and generational differences are observed in matrimonial behavior: the popularity of unregistered unions is much greater among younger generations than among their predecessors, and young people’s interest in marriage is much lower. Men begin partnership and marriage about a year or two later than women. In reproductive behavior, there are greater gender differences than generational: men are more inclined to postpone the birth of the first child. This is because women wish to give birth to their first child at a reproductively healthy age, and men prefer to postpone both having their first child and entering their first marriage.

Wood Jonas, 2016, Essays on Socio-Economic Differentiation in European Fertility. The Impact of Economic Context and Social Policy, Brussels, University Press Antwerp, 222 p.In this book, Jonas Wood offers a comprehensive analysis of socio-economic differentiation in reproductive behaviour. Extensive geographical coverage also enables him to take into account differences in economic context and social policy across European countries.The book opens with a well-written introductory chapter summarizing the relevant theoretical ideas; the author presents not only the standard economic arguments (new home economics) but also cultural theories (second demographic transition) and the institutional aspects (welfare state, norms, gender equality) of differential fertility.The four main chapters present original empirical analysis; an additional chapter focuses on data quality. Each chapter is structured as an independent research article as the book is derived from Wood's doctoral research the University of Antwerp under the supervision of Karel Neels. Jonas Wood holds a PhD in sociology but his work is strongly interdisciplinary, covering cultural, economic, demographic and institutional aspects. Wood also holds a Master's degree in statistics and uses sound statistical and econometric methods.The question of how varying configurations of economic and institutional characteristics across European countries coincide with different demographic behaviours is of strong policy relevance in a context where below-replacement fertility levels represent a serious challenge to the financial sustainability of pension systems and public health care. The macro-economic contexts Wood addresses vary from education expansion to economic fluctuations and family policy settings. The combination of individual-level survey data, primarily from the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) and the European Social Survey (ESS), and aggregate-level data (OECD, World Bank) make a cross-national comparative approach possible. The surveys focus on fertility, education and employment viewed retrospectively the time of the interview (i.e., information is available on length of education, time elapsed since first cohabitation, since first job, etc.).Throughout the work, the issue of self-selection bias for higher order childbearing behaviour is accurately taken into account. Women for a second or third birth may constitute a selective group as they already have one child. Self-selection into the group at risk for having a second or third child could be linked to socio-economic characteristics such as education. The opportunity costs of having a first child are heaviest for highly educated women, and those who decide to do so despite those costs might have particular characteristics - e.g., being more family-oriented - that are potentially related to the probability of their having more than one child. This selectivity may affect the impact of education on the transition to second or third childbirth as well as sensitivity to economic and institutional context. To control for this, Wood proposes a random effects discrete-time hazard model, in which the random effect is included the individual level (shared frailty). This allows for controlling for time-constant unobserved individual-level characteristics and therefore captures selectivity in connection with the transition to parenthood. The author finds that women-specific characteristics connected to timing of entry into motherhood have little impact on the educational gradient in progression to second and third births. Selection in terms of timing and occurrence of first births thus does not affect educational patterns in progression to second and third births. This is an important and helpful insight for research based on datasets where the panel is too short to apply shared frailty models.The first research chapter or essay investigates the educational gradient in completed fertility. …

Using data from the 2004 and 2007 waves of the European Social Survey (ESS), we find that for every 100 births intended, about 60 births occur, on average, across 22 countries. This shortfall in fertility masks substantial heterogeneity between subgroups within the populations surveyed. Motherhood status, age, partnership status, and the strength of fertility intentions moderate the relationship between women's childbearing plans and births measured at the country level. Individual-level analyses using data from three countries included in the 2005 and 2008 waves of the Generations and Gender Survey are consistent with our country-level analyses. We demonstrate that repeat cross-sectional data can be used to analyse the correspondence between childbearing plans and births when longitudinal data are lacking.

The present article represents the first attempt to collect all health-related ESS articles for a systematic review. Although the European Social Survey (ESS) is not primarily a health survey, we have seen an increasing use of data from the ESS in comparative health research in the last few years, and the number is increasing year by year. The present article mainly aims at describing the findings from these studies and to highlight the main methodological differences between these studies. Although a synchronisation of methodological approaches would increase the comparability between ESS studies, the varying approaches are one of the main features that increase the interest in the ESS: both because it improves the robustness of the results, but also because it reflects the flexibility that the ESS offers as a data source. Twenty-one studies using the ESS for health-comparative analyses could be found and the number of studies is increasing year by year. A key result from these studies is that fundamental inequalities continue to exist according to many socio-economic indicators in the Nordic countries despite high living standards and egalitarian policies.

Despite increases at age at first birth in the United States, we have little research on how individuals conceptualize the ideal age to have a child. Using qualitative interviews with male and female young adults in greater New York City, we examined individuals’ responses to questions about the ideal age at first birth. We find factors associated with an age being ideal tend to fall in four main domains: structural/social position factors, interpersonal factors, fertility and health-related factors, and aspirational factors. This research suggests that the ideal age is higher than the actual age at first birth, and both males and females consider a number of factors when choosing an ideal age, including education and career. We find that interpersonal and aspirational factors are also important considerations. Understanding ideal age at first birth is important for understanding family formation decision making in relation to age and may have important implications in other areas.

The present article represents the first attempt to collect all health-related ESS articles for a systematic review. Although the European Social Survey (ESS) is not primarily a health survey, we have seen an increasing use of data from the ESS in comparative health research in the last few years, and the number is increasing year by year. The present article mainly aims at describing the findings from these studies and to highlight the main methodological differences between these studies. Although a synchronisation of methodological approaches would increase the comparability between ESS studies, the varying approaches are one of the main features that increase the interest in the ESS: both because it improves the robustness of the results, but also because it reflects the flexibility that the ESS offers as a data source. Twenty-one studies using the ESS for health-comparative analyses could be found and the number of studies is increasing year by year. A key result from these studies is that fundamental inequalities continue to exist according to many socio-economic indicators in the Nordic countries despite high living standards and egalitarian policies.

A person’s ethnic or socio-cultural background has been shown to be an important predictor of a range of social attitudes and behaviours. Ideally, therefore, we want to capture such information alongside other demographic variables in social surveys. However, gathering information about people’s socio-cultural origins as part of a cross-national survey is complicated, not least because of the need to capture complex variation in national, ethnic and other cultural groupings prevalent across countries: The socio-cultural composition of populations vastly differs across countries. The European Social Survey (ESS), a biannual survey of cross-national attitudes and opinions conducted in over 36 European countries since 2001, in 2014/15 trialled an approach to collecting data on socio-cultural origins based on a measure of respondents’ self-reported ancestry, i.e. family origins or descent. A questionnaire item was developed which involved countries fielding the item using a country -specific showcard and recoding responses into a newly developed European Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ESCEG) to create harmonised variables for comparative analysis. Following a thorough evaluation of the item’s performance it has since been decided to include the ancestry item, with some modifications, as a permanent addition to the ESS core questionnaire from Round 8 (2016/17) onwards. This report summarises findings from the evaluation conducted into the development and performance of the new ancestry item in ESS Round 7 and the recommendations made for the item’s further development and deployment. It also makes some suggestions on how to code derived variables for statistical analysis. The evaluation concluded that the item worked well across ESS countries and generated meaningful data on respondents’ socio-cultural origins. There were no significant problems with implementation reported. However, the evaluation also highlighted a number of ways in which the item could be improved especially as regards adaptation for different countries. These include improved guidance on translation, revisions to the harmonised code-frame, and more consistent treatment of sub-national socio-cultural groups. This evaluation report will be of interest both to researcher’s wishing to carry out substantive analyses using the new ESS ancestry measure and survey methodologists interested in lessons learned for the development of cross-national questionnaires and classifications.

Following its establishment in 2001, the academically led European Social Survey (ESS) has become one of the most important and informative resources concerning a broad variety of European populations’ moral, religious, social, economic and political attitudes and behaviours. In addition to its primary goal of tracking changes and stability in European citizens’ attitudes and behaviours, the ESS project also devotes itself to the development and dissemination of advanced standards in survey research. In particular, this applies to questionnaire design, cross-national equivalence of the instruments used and the sampling procedures applied (Jowell et al., 2007; Kohler, 2007; 2008). Designed as a biennial survey in its original blueprint, the ESS has by now been conducted in more than 30 European countries and currently offers data from the first six waves of the survey (2002–2012), including information and answers of approximately 300,000 respondents in total (at the time of writing, fieldwork for the seventh wave of the ESS has just been completed). Its integration of a variety of socially relevant topics, broad coverage of European countries and a growing number of time points make the ESS an increasingly suitable data source for single-country as well as cross-national analyses with time-series analysis now starting to become feasible. For policy makers and scholars from various disciplines and fields of interest alike, the ESS therefore provides a unique and innovative resource on the (changing) social, political and economic conditions in Europe at the outset of the 21 century.

Objective: This study explores cross-country similarities and differences in individuals' perceptions of the ideal age and pathways to become a father, focusing on five European countries: Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Background: Empirical research analyzing family-related social norms and individuals' preferences is still scarce when compared to the abundant literature on family behavior, and especially so when focusing on men rather than women. This study attempts to mitigate this gap in the literature by focusing on ideals and norms related to fatherhood. Method: Using European Social Survey data from the most recent available round (2018/2019), descriptive and multivariate regression analyses are performed to examine: (a) the ideal age to become a father; and (b) approval of men's decision to never have children, to have a child outside marriage, and to keep working full-time when having small children. Results: Findings confirm signs of convergence across countries regarding the “normalization” of postponed fatherhood, as well as increased detachment from traditional attitudes. Differences between "forerunner" and "laggard" countries with regard to family-related norms and family change are visibly narrowing. However, the ideal age for fatherhood and the approval of non-traditional life course trajectories also reflect different incentives and possibilities for the establishment of new family models provided by the gender culture and the welfare regime in each country. Conclusion: Examining social norms regarding male reproductive decisions and the exercise of fatherhood from a comparative perspective is important for understanding men’s choices and the normative social framework potentially constraining them.