Explore the vast range of titles available.

We estimate a dynamic model of employment, human capital accumulation—including education, and savings for women in the United Kingdom, exploiting tax and benefit reforms, and use it to analyze the effects of welfare policy. We find substantial elasticities for labor supply and particularly for lone mothers. Returns to experience, which are important in determining the longer-term effects of policy, increase with education, but experience mainly accumulates when in full-time employment. Tax credits are welfare improving in the U.K., increase lone-mother labor supply and marginally reduce educational attainment, but the employment effects do not extend beyond the period of eligibility. Marginal increases in tax credits improve welfare more than equally costly increases in income support or tax cuts.

Many aggregate-level studies suggest a relationship between economic inequality and sociodemographic outcomes such as family formation, health, and mortality; individual-level evidence, however, is lacking. Nor is there satisfactory evidence on the mechanisms by which inequality may have an effect. We study the determinants of transitions to a nonmarital first birth as a single parent or as a cohabiting parent compared to transitions to marriage prior to a first birth among unmarried, childless young adults in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 cohort, from 1997 to 2011. We include measures of county-group-level household income inequality and the availability of jobs typically held by high school graduates that pay above-poverty wages (i.e., middle-skilled jobs). We find that greater income inequality is associated with a reduced likelihood of transitioning to marriage prior to a first birth for both women and men. The association between levels of inequality and transitions to marriage can be partially accounted for by the availability of middle-skilled jobs. Some models also suggest that greater income inequality is associated with a reduced likelihood of transitioning to a first birth while cohabiting.

Given the recent era of economic upheaval, studying the effects of job displacement has seldom been so timely and consequential. Despite a large literature associating displacement with worker well-being, relatively few studies focus on the effects of parental displacement on child well-being, and fewer still focus on implications for children of single-parent households. Moreover, notwithstanding a large literature on the relationship between single motherhood and children's outcomes, research on intergenerational effects of involuntary employment separations among single mothers is limited. Using 30 years of nationally representative panel data and propensity score matching methods, the authors find significant negative effects of job displacement among single mothers on children's educational attainment and social-psychological well-being in young adulthood. Effects are concentrated among older children and children whose mothers had a low likelihood of displacement, suggesting an important role for social stigma and relative deprivation in the effects of socioeconomic shocks on child well-being.

This paper uses the 1995 and 2002 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth to examine recent trends in cohabitation in the United States. We find increases in both the prevalence and duration of unmarried cohabitation. Cohabitation continues to transform children’s family lives, as children are increasingly born to cohabiting mothers (18% during 1997-2001) or later experience their mother’s entry into a cohabiting union. Consequently, we estimate that two-fifths of all children spend some time in a cohabiting family by age 12. Because of substantial missing data in the 2002 NSFG, we are unable to produce new estimates of divorce or of children’s time in single-parent families. Nonetheless, our results point to the steady growth of cohabitation and to the evolving role of cohabitation in U.S. family life.

Understanding the alignment of Eastern European immigrants’ attitudes with those of their host societies in Western Europe is critical for exploring cultural convergence and divergence, particularly in the context of mass migration and freedom of movement within the European Union (EU). This study examines the extent to which Polish migrants’ attitudes towards non-marital family forms − cohabitation, divorce, and single motherhood − align with those of both their host (Dutch) and sending (Polish) societies, thereby increasing understanding of the challenges involved in cultural assimilation processes in Europe. Using data from the Polish and Netherlands Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) and the Families of Poles in the Netherlands (FPN) survey, we estimate a series of regression models to assess how nativity status influences attitudes towards non-marital family forms. We further examine the role of social integration indicators − such as Dutch language proficiency and usage, post-migration education, and having a Dutch partner − in shaping these attitudes among Polish migrants. Polish migrants show greater acceptance of cohabitation and divorce than Polish non-migrants, although their attitudes regarding divorce are more aligned with those of Dutch non-migrants than Polish non-migrants. They exhibit less acceptance of single motherhood than both Polish and Dutch non-migrants, and these attitudes are not significantly influenced by social integration factors typically associated with host-country assimilation. Our findings suggest that Polish migrants’ attitudes towards non-marital family forms reflect a mix of assimilation and sui generis adaptation, combining elements of origin and host cultures with views shaped by the unique conditions of migration. This study advances the literature on migrant acculturation by identifying unique patterns of attitudes among Polish migrants in the Netherlands. It also suggests that migrants are at the forefront of cultural encounters, contributing to greater convergence on some, but not all, attitudes across EU member states.

This study examines the association between having children born before the current partnership and women's and men's likelihood of transitioning from living apart together (LAT) to co-residing. LAT partnerships are common among individuals with pre-partnership children, but have so far been under-researched. Our study not only focuses on those in LAT relations, but also takes the different pathways to becoming a single parent into account. Event-history analysis was performed using waves 1-4 from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study. The results indicate that separated and widowed mothers were less likely to transition to co-residence with their LAT partner than childless women who had previously been in a co-residential union. Mothers who had previous out-of-union children were found to be even less likely to enter co-residence. Results were mostly similar for men and women. The only exception was the effect of being widowed with children; for men this resulted in higher chances of transitioning to co-residence with a new partner whereas for women the chances were lower. The findings suggest that individuals' parenthood and union histories are associated with the development of their later partnerships, and that these patterns vary by gender. Given contemporary and future patterns of partnership separation, our study provides insights for better understanding how LAT relations develop for different sub-populations.

Income inequality has grown in many countries over the past decades. Single country studies have investigated how trends in family demography, such as rising female employment, assortative mating and single parenthood, have affected this development. But the combined effects have not been studied sufficiently, much less in a comparative perspective. We apply decomposition and counterfactual analyses to Luxembourg Income Study data from the 1990s and 2000s for West Germany and the USA. We counterfactually analyse how changes in the distribution of men’s and women’s education, employment and children across households between the 1990s and 2000s affected overall inequality (Theil index). We find that changes in family demography between the 1990s and the 2000s explain inequality growth in West Germany but not in the USA, where the effects of gendered changes in education and employment offset each other. In West Germany, changes in the distribution of household types, and particularly changes in men’s employment and education, contributed to increases in income inequality. The country differences in the relationship between changes in family demography and inequality growth reflect how the decline in men’s and the growth in women’s employment played out differently in the weakening male breadwinner context in West Germany and in the universal breadwinner context in the USA.

The initial aim of this article is to analyze the clash between everyday family practices and parents’ normative images of perfect children. I identified five sets of features and behaviors of the actual child that mirror daily parents–children interactions (including parental socialization strategies) and three sets of features and behaviors that reflect parents’ perceptions of a perfect child. The analysis revealed two “dimensions of contradiction”: egoism vs. empathy and obedience vs. independence. Investigating how family practices combine with parents’ normative images results in insights into parents’ ambivalent attitudes toward children. The second aim is to identify the social sources of these clashes. The Polish case appears to be intriguing due to a particularly rapid systemic transformation, resulting in overlapping patterns of everyday practices, divergent social norms, variant meanings, and contradictory discourses. This article’s contribution is to illustrate the hypothesis that systemic transformation might have a more immediate effect on changing social norms, meanings, and discourses on parenthood and childhood (and thus change parents’ normative images of children), while family practices are transformed with parents’ resistance. The concept of family practices developed by David H. Morgan is employed as a theoretical framework and starting point for the study. The analysis draws on qualitative data and in‐depth interviews with 24 couples of parents and six single parents.

The principle of personalisation is widespread across the UK's public sector, but precisely what this means is unclear. A number of theoretical typologies have been proposed but there has been little empirical study of how personalisation is translated into practice on the frontline. We address this gap through analysis of a unique dataset: over 200 audio and video recordings of work-focused interviews in Jobcentre Plus offices. Through detailed analysis of these recordings, we show that personalisation reflects two key dimensions: the substantive (what advisers do) and the procedural (how they do it). We illustrate these dimensions, showing how each represents a continuum, and propose a typology of personalisation in practice, reflecting how the dimensions interact. We conclude with some thoughts on the relevance of our findings for advisory practice in the future under the Coalition government's new Work Programme.

This paper analyzes the role of family structure in the gender gap in children’s time investment in studying and non-cognitive skills. We focus on Italy, a country that, similar to many other OECD countries, is experiencing both an increasing number of single-parent families (most of which are headed by mothers) and an increasing gender gap in children’s cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. By using a difference-in-differences specification comparing children’s outcomes in single- vs. two-parent families for boys compared to girls, we analyze the differential effect across gender of living with a single mother on both the amount of time spent studying and the amount of effort put into studying. Our analysis suggests that living in a single-mother family has a more detrimental effect on boys, though all children—regardless of gender—receive fewer parental inputs if they live with a single mother. The greater detrimental effect of living with a single mother for boys seems to be driven by less educated, less well-off families or families with working mothers.