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Publications (133)
Research has shown that severity of depression increased in freshmen during their first months at university due to increased social and academic pressures. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, several cross-sectional studies have suggested that levels of depression in university students are higher than before the pandemic, but longitudinal d...
Alternative family configurations are becoming more prevalent, yet current legislative statutory does not support stepparents in medical decisions for their stepchildren. We investigate opinions of Belgian and Dutch adults regarding inclusion of stepparents in medical decision-making in minors. We make two observations. First, participants wanted s...
In nineteenth-century Europe, local and regional marriage markets turned into national marriage markets as a result of modernisation. However, the question is whether this applied also to Belgium, a nation that became increasingly divided over a language dispute between French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemings. To answer this question ,...
This study investigated Belgian and Dutch parental opinions on confidentiality and consent regarding medical decisions about adolescents. Through an online survey, we presented six cases (three on confidentiality, and three on consent) to 1,382 Belgian and Dutch parents. We studied patterns in parental confidentiality and consent preferences across...
Background: In this study, we investigate how socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender and education) and informal care relationship characteristics (e.g., time spent on care, number of informal caregivers, professional care) are linked with informal care burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we expect this burden to differ by per...
During the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, individuals relied heavily on media sources to stay informed about the disease and public health measures. However, differences exist in the type and frequency of news media consumption, which can be linked to their perceived vulnerability to disease. In this longitudinal study, 1000 Flemish (Belgium) i...
According to social policy literature, people utilize five criteria – Control, Attitude, Reciprocity, Identity, Need – to distinguish the deserving from the undeserving. Most studies rely on proxy variables rather than measuring deservingness criteria directly. We propose and validate a new instrument – the Migrant Deservingness Scale – that captur...
The Antwerp COR*-database is a longitudinal micro-level database, which covers all entries from individuals whose last names started with the letters COR (and individuals who shared at some moment in time a household with a COR*-person) from the population registers and the vital registration of births, marriages and deaths for the 19th- and early-...
Adding to longitudinal data of three waves that were presented in an original dataset on perceptions and behaviours regarding government measures, fear of getting ill, and media use during the COVID-19 pandemic in Flanders (Belgium), this article presents information on two additional waves that were collected at two key moments in the pandemic in...
The data presented in this article provide one of the first large-scale insights on adult preferences for confidentiality and consent with regards to medical decision-making for minors. We collected data on these preferences through 12 hypothetical scenario’s that were presented, for which each participant had to indicate if they would (not) follow...
When physicians take medical decisions about minors, they can confront complex issues, especially in cases involving adolescents and/or biological and stepparents. We investigated the opinions of Flemish adults on some of these issues using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Many of our participants do not support full confidentiality f...
Door de wereldwijde verspreiding van COVID-19, vanaf maart 2020, namen landen
wereldwijd maatregelen om de verspreiding van het virus tegen te gaan. Eén ervan
was dat scholen geen face-to-face onderwijs meer mochten aanbieden; onderwijs
verliep voortaan digitaal. Dat had ingrijpende gevolgen voor de leeromgeving én de
leeraanpak van kinderen en ado...
This paper examines the impact of secularization on marriage seasonality in two Flemish provinces and Brussels, using place of marriage to distinguish between rural and urban areas. The evolution of the level of church control and secularization between the early 19th and the early 20th centuries is measured through a daily Lent and Advent (DLA) ma...
To improve our understanding of the mental health consequences of the shift to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examined which factors are associated with increased school-related stress in adolescents. The sample consists of 16,093 adolescents, aged 12 to 18, who were enrolled in secondary education in Flanders, Belgium i...
Objective:
Patient trust and consent are complex topics for health care workers in pediatrics, specifically when relating to adolescent's legal status. In the context of medical decisions, not much work has been performed to understand the opinion of parents on health care decision-making, especially on confidentiality concerning their adolescent...
Broer-zusrelaties zijn onderbelicht in praktijk en onderzoek. Ook het sociaalwetenschappelijk onderzoek rond broers en zussen die een ouderlijke scheiding meemaakten, is beperkt. In deze bijdrage maken we gebruik van literatuur, eigen onderzoek en concrete casussen over de beleving van kinderen en jongeren die een ouderlijke scheiding en eventueel...
Objective: Inspired by previous research, we investigated how perceptions about family have changed among first-year university students at KU Leuven (Flanders, Belgium) between 1997 and 2018.
Background: The question of what constitutes a family has puzzled scholars for years, yet empirical information on this topic, especially from young adults,...
Despite evidence of increasing prevalence of depression in university students, few studies investigated how depression evolves over the first months at university. We investigate severity of depression among first‐year university students during their first semester at university, and whether it was associated with impairments in personality, ment...
This paper identifies subjective well-being trajectories through happiness measures as influenced by time, socioeconomic , demographic and behavioural determinants. Hierarchical age-period-cohort models are applied to European Social Survey (2002-2016) data on the population aged 30 and older in 10 countries. A U-shaped relationship between age and...
Objectives
Health care professionals regularly struggle with issues relating to confidentiality and consent for physical and/or mental health issues among adolescents. We investigate late adolescents’ own and assumed parental preferences towards health-care related confidentiality and consent.
Methods
We analyzed online survey data of four vignett...
Nearly a year after the classification of the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic, it is clear that different factors have contributed to an increase in psychological disorders, including public health measures that infringe on personal freedoms, growing financial losses, and conflicting messages. This study examined the evolution of psychosocia...
Elke (echt)scheiding stelt het aanpassingsvermogen van de betrokken kinderen op de proef. Het gezinsleven verandert ingrijpend: (frequent) verhuizen, financiële gevolgen, een (tijdelijk) verminderde beschikbaarheid van de ouders, soms ook een verander(en)d opvoedingsklimaat. Na een periode van twee à drie jaar bereiken de meeste gezinnen een nieuw...
While COVID-19 spreads aggressively and rapidly across the globe, many societies have also witnessed the spread of other viral phenomena like misinformation, conspiracy theories, and general mass suspicions about what is really going on. This study investigates how exposure to and trust in information sources, and anxiety and depression, are associ...
The Leuven research team working on historical demography is grateful for their opportunity to have collaboratively and intensively worked with Professor Dr. Kees Mandemakers over an extended period of time. We wish him a wonderful emeritus status, not only in academia, but also in the warm nest of his family, relatives, children, and grandchildren...
In the field of social policy, van Oorschot and colleagues have made important contributions to the literature on welfare deservingness, focusing on the differential support among the public for welfare provisions for different social groups based on
the so-called CARIN criteria: control, attitude, reciprocity, identity, and need (Jeene et al., 201...
We investigate if and how attitudes of college-aged students in Flanders, Belgium, toward marriage and divorce have evolved between 2002 and 2018. Because students in 2018 are more frequently confronted with divorce, unmarried cohabitation, extramarital fertility, and “alternative” family types, we expect them to hold more positive attitudes toward...
The Antwerp COR*-IDS database 2020 is a transformed and harmonized historical demographic database in a cross-nationally comparable format designed to be open and easy to use for international researchers. The database is constructed from the 2010 release of the Antwerp COR*-historical demographic database, which was created using a letter sample o...
The Antwerp COR*-IDS database 2020 is a transformed and harmonized historical demographic database
in a cross-nationally comparable format designed to be open and easy to use for international researchers.
The database is constructed from the 2010 release of the Antwerp COR*-historical demographic database,
which was created using a letter sample o...
The Antwerp COR*-IDS database 2020 is a transformed and harmonized historical demographic database in a cross-nationally comparable format designed to be open and easy to use for international researchers. The database is constructed from the 2010 release of the Antwerp COR*-historical demographic database, which was created using a letter sample o...
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic brought about several features that increased the sense of fear and confusion, such as quarantine and financial losses among other stressors, which may have led to adverse psychosocial outcomes. The influence of such stressors took place within a broader sociocultural context that needs to be c...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments installed measures to contain the disease. Information about these measures was disseminated through news media. Nonetheless, many individuals did not abide by these guidelines. We investigated how perceived vulnerability to disease and personality characteristics related to support for public health measur...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have become increasingly fearful of the disease as death tolls rise, while governments attempt to combat it by installing restrictive measures. News media play a vital role as they are the main sources from which people gather information regarding the disease and the public health measures. The present longitud...
Following the refugee crisis, European countries have tried to stimulate the integration of migrants into local society. However, the public, influenced by negative framing of migrants by media and political actors, may feel that not all migrants are equally deserving of settlement. In this study, we obtain greater insight into the public's attitud...
Recently, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been rapidly expanding across the globe. In order to respond to this pandemic, many countries are combining suppression and mitigation activities aimed at delaying major surges of patients and leveling the demand for hospital beds, while protecting the most vulnerable from infection. Bedford et...
De kenmerken van de zogenaamde tweede demografische transitie (gestart rond 1965) zijn gekend: de huwelijks- en vruchtbaarheidsratio's daalden, en ongehuwd samenwonen, buitenhuwelijkse vruchtbaarheid en (echt)scheiding namen toe. Parallel daarmee steeg de deelname van vrouwen aan het hoger onderwijs en hun tewerkstelling buitenshuis. De opvattingen...
The topic of migration has become particularly contentious in national as well as international debates. Media have a discernable impact on overall societal attitudes towards this phenomenon. Polls show time and again that immigration is one of the main issues occupying people’s minds. IM²MEDIATE (Images of Immigrants in the Media: Thought-provokin...
LAdS focust op het in kaart brengen van structurele en culturele diversiteit van hedendaagse gezinnen. Het is in de eerste plaats een onderwijsproject. Studenten sociologie en communicatiewetenschappen verzamelen de gegevens. Bij de uitbouw van LAdS gaat veel aandacht naar de methodologische kwaliteit van de data. De huidige aanpak wordt grotendeel...
This chapter will focus on how news media consumption and trust have an impact on attitudes about immigrants and refugees both in Belgium and Sweden. Moreover, we will analyze if and to what extent the level of importance of the migration issue and the presence of intergroup contact are mediators of news consumption. Generally, in Belgium the debat...
In the transition from secondary to tertiary education, first-year students experience stress due to the academic, cultural, and social environment they must adapt to. This may negatively impact their subjective well-being, which in turn may negatively influence academic performance and increase the probability of dropping out. We report findings f...
This study examines how household composition and news media consumption and trust are related to attitudes towards two minority groups-immigrants and refugees-in a representative sample of the adult population (n = 6000) in Belgium, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands. We find that Swedes hold the most positive attitudes towards both groups, while...
Demos: Bulleting over Bevolking en Samenleving (ISSN 0169-1473) - Europese landen hebben de laatste jaren te maken gekregen met een vluchtelingenstroom die zich manifesteerde onder meer in gepolariseerde opvattingen over vluchtelingen. Een enquête onder de bevolking van België, Frankrijk, Nederland en Zweden laat zien dat er aanzienlijke verschille...
In this article, we study how potentially conflicting forces of socio-economic modernization and enduring language barriers influenced one of the most intimate acts of social interaction: marriage. In the period during which Belgium underwent social and economic modernization – often thought to have diminished barriers between social groups, increa...
The period comprising the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century in Belgium has been described as one of rapid societal transformation including industrialization, urbanization, and, also in some extent, secularization. This is the historical period in which first mortality and later fertility also declined, facilitated by so...
Belgium, and Europe in general, has seen a strong influx of refugees over the past three years. At the same time, we also note an increasing polarization of Belgian public opinion on this subject. One of the main actors to shape this public opinion is news media, as they contribute to or combat stereotyping of (sub)groups in the population. The pur...
Best Poster at the European Population Conference 2018 -
We will investigate to what extent public opinion concerning immigrants and refugees is related to household composition, and to use and trust in media. An online survey among a sample of the adult population (aged 18-65), representative for gender, age, nationality, and region, in the four c...
In this article, we investigate to what degree infant mortality risk was transferred from grandmothers to mothers in the Antwerp district, Belgium, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. We also investigate some of the determinants of infant mortality and explore the role of the family - paternal factors (presence, age, and social...
Children’s post-divorce living arrangements have become increasingly heterogeneous the past decades, because of the rise in shared residence and stepfamily formation. This study investigates how post-divorce living arrangements (i.e. the combination between residential arrangement and stepparent presence) are related to children’s school engagement...
Given the current polemic political and societal climate surrounding migration and refugees in particular, our study investigates the population’s perception concerning these issues in three different cultural and media contexts: Flanders (Dutch speaking part of Belgium), Wallonia (French speaking part of Belgium) and Sweden. An online survey among...
The purpose of this research is to empirically test the salmon bias hypothesis, which states that the “healthy migrant” effect—referring to a situation in which migrants enjoy lower mortality risks than natives—is caused by selective return-migration of the weak, sick, and elderly. Using a unique longitudinal micro-level database—the Historical Sam...
In recent decades there have been two significant legislative amendments to shared parenting in Belgium. In 1995, joint exercise of parental responsibilities was introduced as the default legal position. In 2006, the legislation required that in all cases of joint parenthood in which parents could not agree on children's living arrangements, equall...
Differences in adult mortality were studied between natives and domestic and international migrants in
three Northwestern European cities during different stages of the epidemiological transition. Event
history analysis was conducted for mortality risk at ages 30+ using life course data retrieved from three
large historical demographic micro-level...
This volume aims to provide inspiration for the future of historical demography. Prominent scholars were invited to ect critically on where the discipline of historical demography stands now, to reproach us for what we have missed, to indicate key trends in research we must engage with, and to stimulate us to link our future work to other disciplin...
Personality is known to be a key predictor for several aspects of close relationship functioning. Most likely, the influence of this psychological factor is even growing in contemporary societies, where the individual life biography is increasingly the result of personal preferences and less influenced by normative expectations and cultural institu...
Declines in the age at last childbearing in the first demographic transition reflected conscious changes in fertility behaviour during that period, in particular efforts to limit the total number of children. Such fertility limitation behaviour was the net result of ‘cultural causal factors’ on the one hand and ‘structural and economic causal facto...
Deze bundel presenteert de resultaten van nieuw historisch onderzoek naar de invloed van familie op de levenskansen van individuen. Centraal staat de interactie tussen historische actoren en de demografische en socio-economische kenmerken van de families en huishoudens waarvan zij deel uitmaakten. De auteurs schenken
hierbij telkens voldoende aanda...
This article examines the relation between well-being and fertility intentions in Europe and addresses three main research questions: Does overall well-being infl uence fertility intentions? What kind of well-being factors are more important in the determination of fertility intentions (individual-level subjective ones vs. individual-level objectiv...
We use a stepfamily formation perspective to study two dimensions of the family life course following the dissolution of a first marriage. First, we examine how the presence of children from a prior union and the custody arrangements of those children influence the process of repartnering. In doing so, we extend the traditional explanations of unio...
Partner choice and marriage are used as indicators of paths of acculturation and social inclusion among migrants who moved as singles to Antwerp. Whereas scholars previously studied either the timing and intensity of marriage among migrants or the degree to which migrants married natives, we utilise a model which combines both approaches, linking f...
Paper presented at the sixth meeting of the European Network for the Sociological and Demographic study of Divorce. Oslo (Norway), 18-19 September 2008.
Historical Life Course Studies, a journal in population studies, aims to stimulate and facilitate the implementation of IDS (Intermediate Data Structure, a standard data format for large historical databases), and to publish the results from (comparative) research with the help of large historical databases. The journal publishes not only empirical...
Background The existence of cohabitation is a historical feature of nuptiality in Latin America. Traditionally, cohabitation was common in less developed regions, among the lower social classes. But today its occurrence is increasing and in social groups and regions in which it was not common. The features of this latter type of cohabitation remain...
Background: Most studies investigating family life after a separation or divorce focus on single or competing events or transitions. Despite the growing popularity of the life-course perspective, few studies have given an overview of the sequence and timing of various post-divorce partner and parenthood trajectories. Objective: In this study we app...
The increase in shared residential arrangements is driven by the belief that it is in the best interest of the child. The maintenance of contact between child and parents can mitigate negative consequences of separation. However, selection mechanisms may account for a positive relationship between shared residential arrangements and child outcomes....
Processes of social inclusion and exclusion among internal migrants in Antwerp, Rotterdam and Stockholm in the period 1850-1930 are studied with the help of data on partner choice and marriage of migrants who moved to these cities as singles. In practice, four outcomes related to meeting and mating are linked in our conceptual model to four accultu...
The growing acknowledgment of children’s agency has increased the use of child reports in family research. This study investigates three challenges that are related to the inclusion of children in surveys: 1) selection bias in the sample through parent and child refusal; 2) measurement equivalence of parent and child reports; and 3) the effect of p...
Family composition and household dynamics, both in early and in later life, influence individual health and longevity. Both positive and negative effects can be expected in terms of sibling size and composition. On one hand, siblings compete with each other, which may lead to resource dilution and increased adult mortality risks. On the other hand,...