Background: Grandparents regularly spend time with their grandchildren and may also depend on their adult children for help as they age. These patterns suggest that many family members live close enough to one another to provide in-person assistance. However, empirical evidence on grandparent–grandchild proximity and intergenerational transfers remains limited. Objective: We measure grandchild–grandparent

Background: Spending time on leisure is widely recognised as a significant source of enjoyable psychological experiences in daily life. However, cross-national studies on time use and gender inequalities frequently overlook the study of leisure. Objective: This study has two principal objectives. First, it presents estimates of leisure time among parents, providing detailed insights into how fathers

Background: Worldwide, the number of people living in a one-person household (OPH) is rising, and young and middle-aged adults play an essential role in this trend. Germany has one of Europe’s highest rates of OPHs. Due to the country’s unique sociohistorical background, this paper looks at a 30-year period to examine how the increase in OPHs among 20–54-year-old men and women has developed since German

Background: Previous studies have investigated immigrant fertility in various European countries, but only a few have compared the fertility rates of women who migrated as children (1.5 Generation), women born in the host society to foreign-born parents (2 Generation), and women born in the host society with one foreign-born and one native-born parent (2.5 Generation). Objective: This study examines

Background: We study the change in fertility intentions in Russia during the period of socioeconomic shocks in 2022–2023 resulting from the Russia–Ukraine armed conflict. Objective: Our objective is to identify factors that influence decision-making in a low fertility context during a crisis, including both objective characteristics and subjective assessment of the current situation. Methods: This

Background: Kolk et al. (2023) use Swedish register data to provide a detailed numerical account of biological kinship. Applying their approach in other countries is challenging due to high data requirements. Objective: We examine whether Kolk et al.’s (2023) findings generalize to another demographically advanced country, the Netherlands, and assess how differences in cohort fertility and divorce

Background: The concept of resilience in familial and social contexts has gained prominence in academic and policy discussions. However, the interplay between family life and social inequalities, and how these relate to each other in the resilience literature, has yet to be documented. Objective: This scoping review addresses this gap by analysing 250 articles published between 1998 and 2023. We compare

Background: Quantitative studies of Amish population dynamics have been methodologically constrained by difficulties identifying Amish in national surveys. If Amish could be reliably identified in, for example, the American Community Survey (ACS), researchers could leverage its rich variables to document both demographic outcomes and their social predictors. Objective: Cross-validate two methods for

Background: Family structures shape caregiving dynamics and are considered key drivers of inequality. While research often focuses on partners and children, recent studies highlight the role of grandparents and parents of adult children in shaping informal labor demands. However, sociodemographic differences in multigenerational structures remain understudied. Most research focuses on multigenerational

Background: Couples in Europe have fewer children than they intend to, resulting in a gap between intended family size and completed fertility. This is partly because first-pregnancy attempts are postponed to older reproductive ages, when giving birth is more difficult due to the decline in fecundity and increased probability of miscarriage. Modelling educational differences in prevalence, timing,

Background: Capturing the complexity of family life courses as predictors of later-life outcomes like wealth is challenging. Previous research has either (a) assessed a few selective but potentially irrelevant summary indicators, or (b) examined entire life-course clusters without identifying specific important aspects within and between them. Objective: Our aim is to investigate which family life-course

Background: Increased employment instability over recent decades has been argued to contribute to delayed family formation. Although previous research has shown negative associations between employment instability – such as unemployment, nonstandard employment, or unstable employment trajectories – and entry into marriage and childbirth, direct evidence on how increased employment instability to delayed

Background: Experiences of hardship, such as trouble paying bills and food insecurity, vary considerably across different household living arrangements, with relatively low levels among married-couple households. Objective: We examine the extent to which disparities across household types can be explained by differences in income, non-income resources such as wealth, demographic characteristics, and

Background: The total fertility rate (TFR) is a fundamental demographic measure widely used for assessing fertility trends in populations. However, the TFR is susceptible to distortion due to timing effects, which can confound the understanding of true fertility patterns. Objective: This study investigates the impact of changes in the distribution of fertility rates on the period total fertility rate

Background: The Black–White mortality gap transitioned from narrowing to stalling and eventually widening between 2000 and 2022. Objective: This study investigates the contributors to the stalling gap in the 2010s, to what extent the widening gap during the COVID-19 pandemic was a result of causes that contributed to the pre-pandemic stalling, and the variations by sex and education. Methods: We use

Background: Religion and religiosity are known as important determinants of health and mortality. Previous studies on the interrelation between religion and mortality have relied on survey data and have mainly been carried out in a North American setting. Objective: We provide a register-based study of life expectancy by religious affiliation for a total national population over the course of five

Background: In low- and middle-income countries, death registration remains low, and mortality estimation is heavily based on surveys and censuses conducted through face-to-face interviews. These operations are costly and time-consuming, and are difficult to conduct during health and security crises. Taking advantage of the rapid increase in cell phone network coverage, mobile phone surveys (MPS) have

Background: Keyfitz introduced in 1971 the “population momentum” – that is, the amount of further population growth (decline) if an instantaneous reduction (increase) of fertility to the replacement level occurred in a stable population. Objective: We wanted to find analytical results for the momentum of pseudostable populations – that is, populations that relax the strict assumptions of the stable

Background: Considering the massive educational expansion and dramatic changes in marriage timing the world is undergoing, this study explores whether the timing of marriage has become increasingly similar across countries amid educational expansion at different levels. Objective: First, we focus on convergence in marital timing, a core family demography indicator often overlooked in the convergence

Background: Labour market dynamics, such as job creation and job destruction, bear different associations with fertility. The relationship between job loss and fertility has been a core topic in family demography. However, little attention has been paid to examining how the expansion of some industries is associated with childbearing. Objective: This study investigates how job creation and job destruction

Background: Housework has long been associated with gender roles, with women traditionally burdened as the primary caregivers in many societies. However, most studies focus on the general population or on couples. This study explores the often overlooked domain of housework in one-person households, where the negotiation of tasks and roles is absent and individuals are solely responsible for their

Background: Basic facts of infant mortality in the 19th-century United States are largely unknown due to a lack of data on births and infant deaths. Contradictory views have emerged from previous research. Estimates from life table exercises with US census data, published in the most recent (2006) Historical Statistics of the United States, suggest that infant mortality among US whites circa 1850–1880

Background: While studies provide context on why mothers foster-out children, there is little discussion about where children reside, transitions in children’s living arrangements over time, distance between fostered children and their mothers, and how such distance might influence mothers’ relationships with children. Objective: We aimed to: (1) examine the geographical location of fostered children

Background: The analysis of multiple causes of death was developed in high-income countries to study complex morbid processes leading to death. In other countries, such studies are severely limited by the lack of death certificates. Some cause-of-death statistics are produced at the local level through verbal autopsies (VAs): the collecting of information on medical history and symptoms reported by

Background: Profound shifts in partnership and fertility in recent decades call for a re-examination of the linkages between partnership and fertility dynamics. Objective: This review systemizes the literature across Europe and the United States studying the intersection between partnership and fertility, providing a roadmap accessible across disciplines. We categorize the pathways through which partnerships

Background: Research has shown that growing family diversity, including motherhood among unmarried women, is associated with child well-being. However, little is known about whether and how intimate partner violence (IPV) shapes the relationship between family diversity and child outcomes. Colombia is an ideal case to study these relationships due to the country’s high prevalence of unmarried motherhood

Background: Despite a non-negligible share of youth in Europe identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer, we know little about the demography behind the development and disclosure of one’s sexual identity, particularly regarding their timing and their variation by LGBTQIA identity. This limited understanding hinders the use of sexual orientation as a predictor in social sciences. Objective: We

Background: Understanding patterns in mortality across subpopulations is essential for local health policy decision-making. One of the key challenges of subnational mortality rate estimation is the presence of small populations and zero or near zero death counts. When studying differences between subpopulations, this challenge is compounded as the small populations are further divided along socioeconomic

Background: Quantitative research on the social, demographic, and economic outcomes of sexual minorities has long been hampered by data shortfalls, with most surveys and censuses limited by sample sizes and/or a lack of direct questions on sexual identity. The growing availability of administrative data presents an opportunity to fill some of these gaps. Objective: This article highlights the challenges

Background: Analysing mortality is relevant for decision-making. Life tables have traditionally been based on age and sex, assuming homogeneous mortality rates within these groups. This omits other factors that could affect mortality risks. Advances in information technology and improved access to official microdata now enable the construction of life tables that incorporate additional variables, offering

Background: Mobile phone surveys (MPSs) have gained traction as a tool for gathering survey data, especially following the emergency of COVID-19. However, our understanding of MPS data quality in contexts with limited mobile phone penetration is still modest. Objective: This study evaluates (1) the circumstances under which mobile phone survey interviews were conducted and how these might influence

Background: In many low- and middle-income countries, the mortality of adults over 50 years of age is poorly monitored because death registration systems are deficient. Nationally representative surveys currently focus on the survival of children or adults aged 15 to 49 years. Objective: We propose to measure adult survival beyond age 50 via parental survival histories, in which survey respondents

Background: Brazil’s profound regional social inequalities raise concerns about their impact on adult mortality and data quality. Although the quality of mortality data has improved in recent decades, substantial regional disparities in death registration and mortality rates persist. Objective: Our study examines the spatial and temporal trends in death record quality and adult mortality across Brazil’s

Background: In recent cohorts, obtaining an advanced educational qualification has become the norm across European countries and women now outnumber men in tertiary education, possibly leading to shifts in men’s preference for equally or higher-educated partners. Women with at most a basic educational qualification might therefore be increasingly marginalized in the partnering market. Objective: We

Objective: To demonstrate the analytical value of a cubic parameterization of the age curve of fertility and to explore its features, especially its usefulness in separating fertility level and fertility timing. Methods: Using mathematical analysis, the cubic fertility curve is derived and examined in both continuous and discrete forms. Results: The cubic curve for replacement level fertility is found

Background: Online genealogies are promising data sources for demographic research, but their limitations are understudied. This paper takes a critical approach to evaluating the potential strengths and weaknesses of using online genealogical data for population studies. We focus on the FamiLinx dataset, which contains demographic information and kinship ties across multiple countries and centuries

Background: There is a long-standing debate about the role of spacing and stopping in the fertility transition, fueled by a lack of methods to appropriately model spacing and stopping. Traditional event-history analysis cannot distinguish between the two processes in analyzing the determinants of birth risks, and attempts to separately model spacing and stopping have been criticized from a methodological

Background: Although the matrix model for kinship networks includes many demographic processes, it is deterministic. It provides values of age-stage distributions of kin, but no information on (co)variances. Because kin populations are small, demographic stochasticity is expected to create appreciable inter-individual variation. Objective: To develop a stochastic kinship model that includes demographic

Background: Mobile phone surveys are gaining traction in low- and middle-income countries, but mobile phone ownership (MPO) is not universal, potentially introducing sample selection bias in ensuing estimates. Objective: To evaluate MPO-associated sample selection bias in adult mortality estimates from sibling survival histories (SSH) administered to women of reproductive age. Methods: Using data from

Background: Over the past few decades, cohort fertility rates in the different countries of the United Kingdom (England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) have diverged, yet the role of parity-specific patterns, including childlessness, is not known. Studies across Europe have found a reversal in the educational gradient of childlessness from positive to negative, which has been attributed

Background: Married and cohabiting partners frequently share the responsibility of caring for their aging parents. Adult children’s union formation and partner selection decisions have important implications for their ability to care for their aging parents. However, extant research has yet to examine how adult children’s partner selection decisions influence the levels of financial, emotional, and

BACKGROUND Incomplete vital statistics systems in resource-limited countries hinder accurate HIV epidemic assessments. Population-based survey data combined with HIV infection biomarkers may partially address this gap, providing excess mortality estimates in households where people living with HIV (PLWH) reside. OBJECTIVE Examine household-level excess HIV mortality in households with PLWH using population-based

Background: A central question in family research is whether parents’ social disadvantages, such as being a single parent or having low education, are becoming more concentrated over time. Objective: We contribute to this literature by examining long-term trends in the gap in single parenthood between more educated and less-educated mothers since the 1970s to around 2015, placing special emphasis on

Background: Ongoing mortality trends affect the distribution of age at death, typically described by parametric models. Cohort effects can markedly perturb the distribution and reduce the fit of such models, and this needs to be specifically taken into account. Objective: This study examines the integration of cohort effects in a three-component parametric model for the age-at-death distribution, applying

Background: There is a large body of research on the gendered division of domestic labor, but differences between women’s and men’s reported contributions to childcare and housework remain a puzzle. Objective: This study examines the reporting gap in the division of housework and childcare to understand how this gap changes across the transition to parenthood and how it is influenced by the couples’

Background: In 2020, as the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread globally, many countries around the world experienced substantial increases in mortality, including in Latin America. In that year, many non-pharmaceutical measures were implemented in Uruguay. The first COVID-19 vaccines were administered in February 2021. Uruguay has various characteristics that were pointed out as risk factors in the course of

Background: To increase the lowest fertility rate in the European Union in 2015, combat poverty, and invest in children’s human capital, the Polish government launched a pronatalist cash transfer program in 2016. Objective: What are the short-term fertility effects of the Family 500+ cash transfer? Which groups of women responded to the cash transfer? Methods: Using the Polish Household Budget Survey

Background: Although prison inmates are known to be disadvantaged in multiple ways, we know less about changes in the socioeconomic backgrounds of prisoners over time. We examine these changes in a period characterized by a decreasing prisoner rate, the introduction of community service, and strong macroeconomic fluctuations. Objective: We analyze changes in the socioeconomic backgrounds of individuals

Background: The relationship between income and fertility appears to be changing across rich societies at the national and regional levels. However, less is known about how the individual-level relationship between income and fertility has changed over time. Objective: To examine how the relationship between income and fertility changed between 2008 and 2022 in the Netherlands, and how this trend differs

Background: How cohesive are families and how do they respond to their members’ needs? How do families transmit advantages and disadvantages within and across generations? Current data confine our answers to these questions to solidarity and transmission in the immediate family, overlooking other relatives who play a significant role in socialization, social integration, social support, and the reproduction

Background: Indicators of longevity like the life expectancy at birth or the modal age at death are always positively affected by improvements in mortality. Instead, for lifespan variation it has been shown that there exists a threshold age above and below which averting deaths respectively increases or decreases such variation. Objective: Within a Gompertz force of mortality setting, we aim to provide

Background: In Europe, the transition to adulthood has been steadily prolonged. Comparative studies have not addressed in detail the role of parental socioeconomic status (SES) and gender in the postponement of events linked to the transition to adulthood. Objective: Our aim is to evaluate whether the timing and the risk of experiencing home-leaving, labour market entry, first coresidential union,

Background: To enhance its data capability, Australia recently set up a longitudinal administrative micro-dataset, the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA). Objective: To ensure that users in both scholarly and applied settings understand how PLIDA can be reliably used, we assess its Combined Location Module, which provides place of residence by combining three administrative datasets since 2006

Background: In Korea, where marriage and childbirth are inextricably linked, the number of childless women is rising. Aside from the increase in permanent unmarried women, the prevalence of late marriage limits a woman’s reproductive period, raises the risk of infertility, and can lead to childlessness. As Korea experienced the universalisation of higher education, the prolongation of education may

Background: In 2008, world food prices skyrocketed. There is little consensus on the effect of the 2008 food price crisis on poverty, food security, and population health. Objective: To estimate the effects of the 2008 crisis on maternal nutrition and child anemia in Senegal. Methods: Child hemoglobin reflects in utero iron deposition, making it a biomarker for maternal nutrition. By comparing the

Background: Spain has one of the most enduring low levels of fertility in the world, but desired fertility there is still close to two children. Objective: We document recent fertility trends and examine the reasons that women and men provide for not achieving their desired fertility. Methods: We use data from the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey (14,556 women and 2,619 men). We provide a cohort and age

Background: Seasonality of mortality is a well-research topic. However, there are few cross-national studies on total populations that would allow a clear comparison of the results. This article replicates Rau and Doblhammer (2003) and adjusts their methods to Polish data nearly two decades later. Objective: The article addresses the following questions about the seasonality of deaths in Poland: How

Background: Sequence analysis is a set of tools increasingly used in demography and other social sciences to analyse longitudinal categorical data. Typically, single (e.g., education trajectories) or multiple parallel temporal processes (e.g., work and family) are analysed by using crisp clustering algorithms that reduce complexity by partitioning cases into exhaustive and mutually exclusive groups

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by widespread childcare and school closures. Emerging evidence – primarily from high-income countries – suggests that these changes increased women’s time in unpaid care, which may be a particular challenge for women with paid employment. Objective: The paper examines how women’s unpaid care responsibilities and employment changed during the pandemic

Background: Many sub-Saharan African countries have large populations of young people, and these cohorts have the potential to bring significant change. Understanding the changing lives of young people is important for ensuring individuals experience healthy and successful transitions to adulthood and for understanding how best to ensure they realise their full potential, for themselves and their communities