Laura Bernardi

Laura Bernardi
Independent Researcher

PhD Demography

About

164
Publications
55,863
Reads
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3,942
Citations
Additional affiliations
Position
  • Managing Director
August 2008 - January 2016
University of Lausanne
Position
  • Associate Professor /Deputy Director of the NCCR LIVES
August 2003 - August 2009
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Position
  • Head of Independent research group

Publications

Publications (164)
Article
Objective: The article examines how maternal gatekeeping practices evolve in the post-separation trajectory and identifies the main relational and contextual factors shaping these processes over time. Background: Studies of maternal gatekeeping have only recently begun to include post-separation families based on cross-sectional research designs. T...
Article
Full-text available
We aimed to map the evidence, based on population-based and migrant-specific datasets in Switzerland, on mental health and wellbeing of the population with migrant background. The research questions were: What is known from the existing quantitative evidence about the mental health of the population with migrant background living in Switzerland? Wh...
Chapter
Full-text available
While close relations include both intimate family members and close friends, the transmission of socioeconomic resource remains largely confined within families. Moreover, family-transmitted values and sociopsychological skills are incorporated during childhood, and emotional and instrumental support is still mainly assumed by family members. Thes...
Chapter
Full-text available
This first section shows that the concept of the interdependency of life domains is of utmost importance. Typically, such interdependency is detected when decisions, events and transitions in one life domain influence those in another, producing spillover effects. Spillovers across life domains take the form of resources generated or drained by one...
Chapter
Full-text available
There is a wealth of empirical studies linking the life events and transitions to variations in subjective wellbeing. These studies are often cross sectional or, when taking a dynamic approach, they address one life domain at the time. Within LIVES, the relationship between family transitions (like the transition to parenthood, couple separation, l...
Article
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Background Firstly, we aim to describe any differences in the mean levels of correlates and indicators of mental health and wellbeing between young (25-39 years) and middle-aged adults (40-55 years). Secondly, we aim to compare the network models depicting interrelations between correlates and indicators of mental health and wellbeing among these a...
Chapter
Full-text available
Mainstream life course studies often draw on a conventional understanding of time as a unidirectional clock-based entity, which proceeds in a uniform and linear manner. This chapter argues that, in order to understand the social, relational and psychological processes of change and continuity that characterize life course processes, we need to adop...
Article
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[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s10680-021-09583-3.].
Article
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Objective: This article shows the analytical value of an approach that integrates theoretical elaborations about the temporal orientations of different types of agency (pragmatic, identity, and life course) and uncertainty management, to analyse how families dealt with the challenges emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Background: The pandemic...
Article
Both public social assistance and private child and spousal support reduce the poverty risks of single parent households. However, research on system interactions has highlighted that social assistance eligibility is often denied for households that have a private support order. Such public‐private substitution reduces social expenditures but under...
Article
Full-text available
The number of individuals experiencing one or multiple union dissolutions in their lifetime is increasing. The literature has shown significant interactions with health disorders, in response to the crisis situation that affects the spouses. However, processes are still unclear, in particular regarding the timing of the affection. This study explor...
Chapter
Full-text available
This study contributes to the emerging literature on the diffusion of SPC across social strata, by comparing two national contexts, Sweden and Spain, with different prevalence rates of SPC and with diverging social and gender policies in the early XXI century. We draw on the 2006 and 2014 comparative cross-sectional data from the Spanish and Swedis...
Article
Full-text available
Informed by the life course perspective, this paper investigates whether and how employment and family trajectories are jointly associated with subjective, relational and financial wellbeing later in life. We draw on data from the Swiss Household Panel which combines biographical retrospective information on work, partnership and childbearing traje...
Chapter
Full-text available
Changing legal and parental practices across Europe led to a higher share of parents practicing shared physical custody (SPC) upon separation, who tended to be more affluent and less conflict-ridden. Since SPC became more prevalent, profiles of SPC parents pluralized. Far from these developments, no clearly defined legal pathways toward SPC existed...
Chapter
Full-text available
This introductory chapter provides the rationale for adopting an interdisciplinary approach to study the implications of shared physical custody arrangements for families and their members. The Chapter gives a rapid overview of the current state of the literature on shared physical custody in the legal, sociological and psychological literature and...
Article
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions have triggered simultaneous changes across multiple life domains within a very short timeframe. This major shock has seriously challenged the ability of families to adapt to unanticipated changes over which they had little control. Switzerland instigated a low-intensity lockdown in response to COVID-19...
Preprint
Critical events are occurrences that create turning points, disrupt individuals’ life courses and affect wellbeing. Here, we investigate how the co-occurrence of critical events and, in particular, the spacing in time of events across the life course influences life satisfaction in later life. We argue that life phases densely populated of critical...
Article
Full-text available
Economic instability, social changes, and new social policies place economic insecurity high on the scholarly and political agenda. We contribute to these debates by proposing a new multidimensional, intertemporal measure of economic insecurity that accounts for both its multiplicity and its dynamism. First, we develop three theory-driven, multidim...
Article
Full-text available
Research on the consequences of intermarriage is almost exclusively looking at immigrants’ labour market outcomes, with little attention given to non-economic indicators. Drawing from set-point theory and taking on a dynamic approach, the authors examine whether having a different- versus a same-origin partner is subject to a selection on life sati...
Book
Full-text available
This open access book provides an overview of the ever-growing phenomenon of children in shared physical custody thereby providing legal, psychological, family sociological and demographical insights. It describes how, despite the long evolution of broken families, only the last decade has seen a radical shift in custody arrangements for children i...
Article
Full-text available
The combination of qualitative approaches and longitudinal research designs is a powerful way to explore changes in individual life courses as they occur. While qualitative research is mostly associated with retrospective studies that analyse lives ‘backwards’ in time, prospective qualitative studies that track lives as they unfold have grown in po...
Article
Full-text available
This study examines the prevalence and socio-demographic profiles of post-separation parents practicing shared physical custody (SPC) in Switzerland, and its associations with parental health and well-being. We analyzed data from two samples of post-separation parents: one surveyed before and one shortly after family law changes facilitating parent...
Article
Full-text available
Mainstream life course studies often draw on a conventional understanding of time as a unidirectional clock-based entity, which proceeds in a uniform and linear manner. This paper argues that, in order to understand the social, relational and psychological processes of change and continuity that characterise life course processes, we need to adopt...
Article
The Covid-19 pandemic is shaking fundamental assumptions about the human life course in societies around the world. In this essay, we draw on our collective expertise to illustrate how a life course perspective can make critical contributions to understanding the pandemic’s effects on individuals, families, and populations. We explore the pandemic’...
Article
Full-text available
We examined the relationship between lone mothers’ repartnering and health in three welfare contexts: the dual-earner, market-oriented, and general family policy model. Drawing on the resources and crisis models, we applied mixture modelling for spell data of the Harmonized Histories data set. We uncovered six distinct repartnering trajectories tha...
Article
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The recent concentration of divorce and separation among the least advantaged, and the increase in shared physical custody of children raises the question of how such family developments affect social inequalities among children. Our paper contributes to this debate by examining the moderating role of parental socioeconomic background in the relati...
Article
L’augmentation récente du taux de divorce et de séparation chez les personnes les plus défavorisées ainsi que la hausse du nombre d’enfants qui vivent en garde partagée soulèvent la question de savoir de quelle façon ces évolutions affectent les inégalités sociales entre les enfants. Cet article contribue au débat en examinant le rôle modérateur du...
Article
Full-text available
This paper proposes a conceptualization of the life course as a set of behavioral processes characterized by interdependencies that cross time, life domains, and levels of analysis. We first discuss the need for a systematized approach to life course theory that integrates parallel and partially redundant concepts developed in a variety of discipli...
Article
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Background: Immigrants and their descendants often marry a co-ethnic partner despite the abundance of native-born marriage candidates. The prevalence of co-ethnic marriages and intermarriage among migrants is influenced by their integration level and cultural background as much as individual preferences and structural factors. Objective: This paper...
Chapter
Full-text available
The current evidence on immigrant health in Europe is mixed, with some studies indicating a healthy migrant effect, and others pointing out that immigrants experience worse health outcomes compared to natives. Very few studies however have investigated the potential existence of a migrant health paradox in Switzerland, a country with one of the hig...
Article
Full-text available
p>Background The Swiss context Trends across origin groups Marital union formation Marital dissolution Trends across birth cohort Marital union formation Marital dissolution 3 Data and methods 3.1 Data source 3.2 Measurement of variables 3.3 Analytical plan 4 4.1 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.1.1 4.2.1.2 4.2.2 4.2.2.1 4.2.2.2 4.3 Results Descriptive results Multiv...
Article
Full-text available
BACKGROUND The fertility of immigrants and their descendants is a crucial determinant of population dynamics, particularly where migrants are numerous and ethnically diverse, as in Switzerland. This paper analyses the transition to the first and second births of immigrants and their descendants and compares them with each other and with the native...
Chapter
Full-text available
The identification of lone-parent households is a challenging task in an era of new family forms and related changes in the legislation regulating parental care and financial responsibilities. Official statistics hardly reflect the composite reality of households between which children circulate and in which relationships with biological and non-bi...
Chapter
Full-text available
The purpose of this book is to approach lone parenthood from a life course perspective. Its chapters address the interdependence of multiple life domains across individuals and between individuals and institutions, as well as the relevance of individual agency and historical context. This introduction describes the phenomenon of lone parenthood acr...
Chapter
Full-text available
Compared to non-migrant mothers in couples, migrant lone mothers face a much higher risk of being out of the labour market, given that both lone motherhood and international migration have been shown to be strongly related to non-employment. In this chapter, we analyse the labour force participation of immigrant women and non-migrants living in Swi...
Book
Full-text available
Lone parenthood is an increasing reality in the 21st century, reinforced by the diffusion of divorce and separation. This volume provides a comprehensive portrait of lone parenthood at the beginning of the XXI century from a life course perspective. The contributions included in this volume examine the dynamics of lone parenthood in the life course...
Article
Full-text available
p>This study explores heterogeneity in employment trajectories occurring before, during, and after the transition to lone parenthood (LP) in a life-course perspective. Lone mothers are usually both primary caregivers and breadwinners: The transition into LP leads to an increase in economic and care needs that may compromise work-family balance and...
Article
p>En Suisse comme dans les autres pays européens, les formes des familles se sont diversifiées. La littérature suggère que le bien-être des individus dans différentes configurations familiales dépend étroitement du contexte institutionnel : plus les institutions sont adaptées à cette diversité, plus les déficits de bien-être rencontrés par des indi...
Article
p>The current evidence on immigrant health in Europe is mixed, with some studies indicating a healthy migrant effect, and others pointing out that immigrants experience worse health outcomes compared to natives. Very few studies however have investigated the potential existence of a migrant health paradox in Switzerland, a country with one of the h...
Book
Full-text available
This open access wide-ranging collation of papers examines a host of issues in studying second-generation immigrants, their life courses, and their relations with older generations. Tightly focused on methodological aspects, both quantitative and qualitative, the volume features the work of authors from numerous countries, from differing discipline...
Book
Full-text available
Lone parenthood is an increasing reality in the 21st century, reinforced by the diffusion of divorce and separation. This volume provides a comprehensive portrait of lone parenthood at the beginning of the XXI century from a life course perspective. The contributions included in this volume examine the dynamics of lone parenthood in the life course...
Article
Full-text available
According to status-caste exchange theory, intermarriages involve transactions in which higher educated immigrants trade status for the ethnic advantage of the less-educated native partners. Looking at 2 836 currently married Swiss immigrants, we find that the highly skilled “exchange” their status only when pairing with a medium-educated native. R...
Chapter
Full-text available
The main objective of this volume is to explore the methodological challenges and innovations in empirical research on second-generation residents—the children of migrants—including their transitions to adulthood and their integration into the societies in which they live. Although the number of studies on this topic has increased considerably in t...
Article
Full-text available
How do changes in employment uncertainty matter for fertility? Empirical studies on the impact of employment uncertainty on reproductive decision-making offer a variety of conclusions, ranging from gender and socio-economic differences in the effect of employment uncertainty on fertility intentions and behaviour, to the effect of employment on chan...
Working Paper
Full-text available
p>Economic instability, an array of social changes, and welfare state retrenchment place the question of economic insecurity high on the scholarly and political agenda. We contribute to these debates by drawing conceptual distinctions between inequality and insecurity. Fundamentally, inequality concerns the distribution of resources across individu...
Article
Full-text available
Whether having children improves our well-being is a long-standing topic of debate. Demographic and sociological research has investigated changes in individuals’ overall well-being and partnership satisfaction when they become parents. However, little is known about how becoming parent may produce vulnerability—observable as an enduring decrease i...
Article
Full-text available
This paper contributes to the understanding of vulnerability of lone mothers in Switzerland. Vulnerability is a dynamic process along which individuals may experience falls and losses of resources, but through which they might also rise and gain empowerment as a consequence of coping and adaptation mechanisms. Vulnerability that originates within o...
Chapter
Full-text available
At German unification, two states with fundamentally different economic and social systems became one. To help us gain a better understanding of the legacies of the past, this paper compares the attitudes of childless women who grew up in the former East and West Germany, but who reached early adulthood in unified Germany. How did these women plan...
Article
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Interest in the study of vulnerability has experienced impressive growth across various disciplines. To contribute to this major but scattered development in the study of vulnerability, this article argues for a multidisciplinary life-course framework. This framework promotes a systemic and dynamic perspective focused on three complementary researc...
Article
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This issue defines vulnerability as a key interdisciplinary concept for understanding life trajectories. Moreover, it develops a life course framework to study vulnerability along three structuring axes of research: multidimensionality, multilevel, and multidirectionality.
Article
p>The intergenerational transmission of fertility has direct consequences on population dynamics and is indirectly related to the reproduction of social inequality. Early studies focused on the positive correlation of parents and children fertility outcomes such as family size or childbearing timing. Explanations for the observed correlations have...
Article
Full-text available
p>Lone parenthood is an increasing reality in the XXI century, reinforced by the diffusion of divorce and separation. Despite the significance of this phenomenon, current studies and official statistics say relatively little about the process leading to lone parenthood, the nature of such living arrangement (whether it is transitory, stable, or rec...
Article
Der vorliegende Aufsatz soll zum Verständnis der Vulnerabilität alleinerziehender Mütter in der Schweiz beitragen. Vulnerabilität wird hier als dynamischer Prozess verstanden, in dem Individuen soziale Abstiege und den Verlust von Ressourcen erfahren, in dessen Verlauf sie aber auch aufsteigen und ein Mehr an Kontrolle über ihr Leben erlangen könne...
Article
Full-text available
This paper contributes to the understanding of vulnerability related to lone parenthood in Switzerland. Vulnerability is a dynamic process during which individuals experience falls and lose resources, but might also rise and gain empowerment as an outcome of different coping and adaptation processes. The population of lone parents is increasingly h...
Article
p>This open access wide-ranging collation of papers examines a host of issues in studying second-generation immigrants, their life courses, and their relations with older generations. Tightly focused on methodological aspects, both quantitative and qualitative, the volume features the work of authors from numerous countries, from differing discipli...
Chapter
The intergenerational transmission of fertility has direct consequences on population dynamics and is indirectly related to the reproduction of social inequality. Early studies focused on the positive correlation of parents and children fertility outcomes such as family size or childbearing timing. Explanations for the observed correlations have sp...
Article
Full-text available
Lone mothers are more likely to be unemployed and in poverty, which are both factors associated with a risk of poor health. In Switzerland, weak work-family reconciliation policies and taxation that favours married couples adopting the traditional male breadwinner model translate into low labour market participation rate for mothers. In the case of...
Article
Full-text available
Lone mothers are more likely to be unemployed and in poverty, which are both factors associated with a risk of poor health. In Switzerland, weak work-family reconciliation policies and taxation that favours married couples adopting the traditional male breadwinner model translate into low labour market participation rate for mothers. In the case of...
Article
Full-text available
The fertility behaviour of first and second generation migrants is a crucial determinant of population dynamics, particularly so in Switzerland, a country with a high proportion of migrants and a very diverse composition by ethnic group. We describe the differentials in the number of children and the timing of births between Swiss natives and diffe...
Article
Full-text available
One-parent households represent a growing phenomenon in many European countries. More importantly, the spread of separation and divorce rates across different social groups is fostering greater heterogeneity in the population of lone parents. While census data show that between 1970 and 2010 the share of lone parent households in Switzerland, i.e....
Article
Full-text available
Mixed marriages are defined as marriages between two individuals of different origins. The predominance of such marriages indicates the social and cultural distance between the native population, on the one hand, and different immigrant groups, on the other. In this report, we examine how common and how stable mixed marriages are in Switzerland by...
Article
Full-text available
Mixed marriages are defined as marriages between two individuals of different origins. The predominance of such marriages indicates the social and cultural distance between the native population, on the one hand, and different immigrant groups, on the other. In this report, we examine how common and how stable mixed marriages are in Switzerland by...
Chapter
Full-text available
The intergenerational transmission of fertility has direct consequences on population dynamics and is indirectly related to the reproduction of social inequality. Early studies focused on the positive correlation of parents and children fertility outcomes such as family size or childbearing timing. Explanations for the observed correlations have sp...
Data
Full-text available
Data
Full-text available
In this chapter we present a parallel mixed method research design applied in the field of fertility research. Our project aims at generating a comprehensive understanding of the network effects on fertility intentions and behavior. These effects have attracted the interest of researchers in demography and family sociology over the last 20 years (B...
Article
Full-text available
p>Where changes in fertility timing and sequencing do not suffice in explaining low fertility, scholars typically turn to socioeconomic determinants of fertility intentions like income, employment status, or work hours. Yet, few studies have focused on the importance of job quality and its relation to gender role attitudes. We examine in what way p...
Article
p>The Cross-Cutting Issue 1 (CCI1 Dynamics of stress and resources across life domains) hosted a one-day workshop that aimed to bring together researchers in the field of interdependent life domains and well-being to share ideas and experiences of work in this topic. The session specifically explored: - the changes that certain life course transiti...
Article
While widely recognized as important determinants of well-being, spillover effects across life domains after a critical event or transition are largely understudied in a truly longitudinal perspective. Specifically, little is known about how becoming a parent produces variations in subjective well-being in other life domains. By adopting a life-cou...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this paper, we examine the multiple dimensions of declared fertility intentions in order to provide a critical reading of currently used indicators of the childbearing decision-making process. Using a qualitative approach, we pay attention to the complexity of the process through which individuals make (or fail to make) plans regarding their rep...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Explanations of the increase in cohabitation often rely on the concept of ideational change and shifting social norms. While researchers have investigated cohabitation and the role of social norms from a quantitative perspective, few studies have examined how people discuss the normative context of cohabitation, especially in cross-nati...
Article
Full-text available
Changes in human lives are studied in psychology, sociology, and adjacent fields as outcomes of developmental processes, institutional regulations and policies, culturally and normatively structured life courses, or empirical accounts. However, such studies have used a wide range of complementary, but often divergent, concepts. This review has two...
Chapter
Full-text available
In this chapter, we examine the multiple dimensions of declarations of fertility intention in order to provide a critical reading of currently used indicators of the childbearing decision-making process. Using a qualitative approach, we pay attention to the complexity of the process through which individuals make (or fail to make) plans regarding t...
Article
Full-text available
Lone motherhood is often associated to factors that increase women’s risk of developing poor health, such as being unemployed or poor. Employment fosters better physical health by attenuating economic hardship and improving overall well-being. However, employment can also represent an additional stress factor for lone mothers who face the dual role...