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Using data from the \"Monitoring the Future\" surveys, this paper shows that from the 1980s to the 2000s, the mode of girls' high school GPA distribution has shifted from \"B\" to \"A,\" essentially \"leaving boys behind\" as the mode of boys' GPA distribution stayed at \"B.\" In a reweighted Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of achievement at each GPA level, we find that changes to gender differences in post-secondary expectations, in particular expectations for attending graduate or professional school, are the most important factors accounting for this trend after controlling for school ability and they occur as early as the eighth grade.

Despite the commonly held belief that a protean career orientation (PCO) enables employees to achieve more balance in their lives, little is known about the relationship between PCO and work–life balance. Using two waves of data collection separated by 2.5 years, this study examined the relationship between PCO and work–life balance among a sample of 367 college-educated employees in the United States. Analysis was conducted to empirically distinguish PCO from conceptually related constructs, and structural equation modeling was used to examine the process that explains the linkage between PCO and balance. We found that PCO was positively related to work–life balance. We also found support for the role of several resources (social capital, psychological capital, and perceived employability) that explain the relationship between PCO and balance. In particular, PCO was associated with extensive career planning activities that were related to the accumulation of three forms of career capital—human capital, social capital, and psychological capital. In turn, social capital and psychological capital were associated with high employability, which was related to greater work–life balance for individuals who take a whole-life perspective on their careers. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings and provide suggestions for future research.

In April 2015, the UK introduced Shared Parental Leave (SPL), allowing mothers to transfer their maternity leave to their partners from two weeks after the birth or adoption of a child. There has been very limited research conducted on this leave policy to date and knowledge on take-up is poor. We present findings from an in-depth survey conducted with expectant mothers in two NHS trusts in England on their knowledge, views and plans around leave after the birth of their child and examine variations across educational and ethnic groups. A total of 575 expectant mothers took part in the survey. Around 7.4 per cent of expectant mothers who were (self-)employed or in education intended to take SPL. Finances and worries over fathers’ careers were cited as the primary barriers to take up of SPL. Individual entitlement for fathers and knowing others who took SPL increased individuals’ reported intention to take SPL. Applying logistic regression models, we found that knowledge of and access to SPL is correlated with education, ethnicity and home ownership. Future research and policy design should attend to such issues to ensure equitable access across families.

\"Despite manifold studies in the field of migration, the process of migration decision-making and behaviour is still not fully understood. In this article a more elaborated theoretical framework for the explanation of migration decision-making and behaviour is proposed by including a life-course perspective on goal formation into a psychological model of action phases. Hypotheses derived from this framework in regard to the influence of all relevant groups of predictors on certain stages of the migration process are empirically tested. The results support an explanation of the migration process within a three-stage model, in that perceived opportunity differentials between the place of living and alternative places, the influences of 'significant others', life-course events, and resources are prominent. Varieties in the importance of those factors in different phases of the life course are analysed and interpreted referring to the changing importance of instrumental goals within the theoretical framework. The data come from a tailor-made panel study with initially 2,400 respondents in Germany. For the analyses generalized ordinal logistic regression and probit models with sample selection are used.\" (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Forschungsmethode: Theoriebildung; Grundlagenforschung; empirisch; Befragung. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 2006 bis 2007.

Fertility, or childbearing, expectations have been increasingly identified as an important area of research, at least in part because expectations may help us to understand family issues of concern across the globe such as unintended pregnancies, low fertility, and delayed childbearing. While much research has focused on the link between expectations and behavior, this study extends the literature by asking how those expectations were shaped initially. Specifically, we explore how one’s economic context is related to expectations. This paper further extends the literature by focusing on two dimensions of the parenthood expectations of young people (men and women aged 18–27). Using the 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011 waves of the Panel Studies of Income Dynamics (PSID) Transition to Adulthood (TA) sample, we considered whether young people expected to have children in the future and, for those who did, when they expected to do so. The results support financial-strain theories of the relationship between (subjective and objective) economic circumstances and childbearing expectations. Women and men with lower earnings, less education, and more worries about their future job prospects are more uncertain whether they will have children. Of those who expect to have children, those with more education and more worries expect to do so later in life. Further analyses reveal that race and gender condition these relationships.

We study the impact of an extension of paid family leave in the Czech Republic from 3 to 4 years on children’s long-term outcomes. We find that an additional year of maternal care at age 3 has an adverse effect on children’s human capital investments and labor market attachment. Affected children are 6 percentage points less likely to be enrolled in college and 4 percentage points more likely to be not in education, employment, or training (NEET) at age 21–22. While the negative impact on education is persistent, with an 8 percentage points lower probability of completing college by the age of 27, the effect on NEET is short-lived. The results are driven by children of low-educated mothers, whose education and NEET outcomes are affected by as much as 12 percentage points. Our findings are consistent with previously documented positive effects of universal childcare on child long-term outcomes and with the fact that the extended maternal care induced by the extension of family leave led to a postponement of public kindergarten enrollment.

Ideations and intentions are important precursors of actual behaviour but are still understudied in the literature on the transition to adulthood. This article provides a descriptive overview of ideations and intentions about the timing of four key events in the transition to adulthood – exit from the parental home, cohabitation, marriage, and parenthood – using cross-national representative data for 33 European countries from the Generations and Gender Survey and European Social Survey. Results show that ideations and intentions about the transition to adulthood are, like behaviours, gendered and display distinctive country differences. The analysis of age-graded ideations and intentions suggests a mismatch between the ideal and actual ages at which key events occur during the transition to adulthood. Young people aged 18 to 34 in Europe consider it ideal to start a non-marital cohabitation, marry, and become parents during their 20s but, on average, experience these events later than their ideal timeline. This mismatch is particularly pronounced among men and for the events of marriage and parenthood.

Examining how youths in fourteen industrialized societies make the transition to adulthood in an era of globalization and rising uncertainty, this collection of essays investigates the impact that institutions working with social groups of youths have upon those youths' abilities to make adult decisions determining their life courses. Covering both Europe and North America, the book includes case studies, and contains country-specific contributions on conservative, social-democratic, post-socialist, liberal and familistic welfare regimes, as well as data from the GLOBALIFE project. Filling the gap in the market on the micro effects of globalization on individuals, and taking an empirical approach to the topic, this impressive volume brings the individual and nation-specific institutions back into the discussion on globalization.

In this paper we present indicators of household structure for 26 of the 27 countries of the post-enlargement European Union. As well as broad indicators of household type, we present statistics on single-person and extended-family households, and on the households of children and older people. Our main aim is to assess the extent to which household structure differs between the “old” and “new” Member States of the European Union. We find that most of the Eastern European countries may be thought of as lying on the same North–North-Western–Southern continuum defined for the “old” EU Member States, and constituting an “extreme form” of the Southern European model of living arrangements, which we term the “Eastern” model. However, the Baltic states do not fit easily onto this continuum.

\"The postponement of partnership formation and parenthood in the context of an early average age at leaving home has resulted in increased heterogeneity in the living arrangements of young adults in the UK. More young adults now remain in the parental home, or live independently of the parental home but outside of a family. The extent to which these trends are explained by the increased immigration of foreign-born young adults, the expansion in higher education, and the increased economic insecurity faced by young adults are examined. Shared non-family living is particularly prominent among those with experience of higher education, whilst labour market uncertainty is associated with an extended period of co-residence with parents.\" (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1998 bis 2008.