Michaela Kreyenfeld

Hertie School

Background Disparities in the development of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) are associated with various social determinants, including sex/gender, migration background, living arrangement, education, and household income. This study applied an intersectional perspective to map social disparities and investigate intersectional effects regarding the onset of...

Objectives In aging societies, more people become vulnerable to experiencing cognitive decline. Simultaneously, the role of grandparenthood is central for older adults and their families. Our study investigates inequalities in the level and trajectories of cognitive functioning among older adults, focusing on possible intersectional effects of soci...

Objectives With aging societies, more people become vulnerable to experiencing cognitive decline. While normal aging is associated with a deterioration in certain cognitive abilities, little is known about how social determinants intersect to create late-life cognitive functioning inequalities. Simultaneously, the role of grandparenthood is central...

Building on a thick strand of the literature on the determinants of higher-order births, this study uses a gender and class perspective to analyse second birth progression rates in Germany. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1990 to 2020, individuals are classified based on their occupation into: upper service, lower service, skil...

Divorce marks the legal endpoint of a marital union. While divorce is increasingly seen as a ‘clean break’, the past marital history of the couple may nevertheless shape their present conditions. In particular, there may be a legacy of a highly gendered division of labour during marriage that may affect the ex-spouses’ earning trajectories beyond t...

Drawing on the international discourse on the intensification of parenting and new data from Germany, this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the unique challenges that parents face in the 21st century. We used data from the survey “Parenthood Today”, which was conducted in 2019 to examine parents’ views on parenting in Germany....

Germany is one of the few countries in Europe that has implemented a system of ‘divorce splitting’. Under this system, the pension credits that spouses have accumulated during their marriage are combined and then split equally between them upon divorce. This study examines how divorce affects public pension entitlements in Germany, and how these pa...

This paper reviews empirical studies that have examined the causal determinants of fertility behaviour. In particular, we compare the approaches adopted in the different disciplines to improve our understanding of how birth dynamics are influenced by changes in female employment and changes in family policies. The wide array of panel data that have...

This article provides an overview on research on intimate relationships and the family in Germany since the turn of the millennium. It is argued that “German family sociology” has undergone major changes in various ways. In theoretical terms, micro-theoretical approaches have largely replaced former macro-sociological debates on de-institutionaliza...

Background: Some have hypothesized that the coronavirus crisis may result in a retraditionalization of behaviour. This paper examines this hypothesis by analyzing how the time fathers and mothers spent with their children changed during the first lockdown in the case of Germany. Methods: Data for this investigation come from the German Socio-Econom...

A large body of literature has examined how separation and divorce influence social and economic well-being. One consistent finding of the literature is that women and men are affected differently by divorce and separation. Women, and particularly mothers, are likely to suffer from a loss of income. Fathers frequently suffer from having reduced con...

This introductory chapter provides an overview of recent divorce trends and of attitudes towards divorce in European countries. Moreover, we summarise the existing literature on divorce and separation behaviour, particularly with respect to its consequences for fathers, mothers, and children. While the body of literature that deals with separation...

Since the 1970s, several European countries have experienced high union dissolution risk as well as high unemployment rates. The extent to which adverse economic conditions are associated with union instability is still unknown. This study explores the relationship between both individual and aggregate unemployment and union dissolution risk in fiv...

This chapter examines gender differences in “multipartner fertility” – i.e., having children with several partners – in Germany and Finland. The analyses focus on women and men born around 1970 who are followed until age 41. We show that multipartner fertility is more common in Finland than in Germany. However, there are large East-West differences...

This open access book assembles landmark studies on divorce and separation in European countries, and how this affects the life of parents and children. It focuses on four major areas of post-separation lives, namely (1) economic conditions, (2) parent-child relationships, (3) parent and child well-being, and (4) health. Through studies from severa...

In diesem Beitrag wird die Bedeutung der Unterhaltsreform 2008 vor dem Hintergrund des sich wandelnden Scheidungs-und Erwerbsverhaltens in Westdeutschland diskutiert. Die Gesetzesreform war von der Vorstellung geleitet, dass sich mit dem Ausbau der Kinderbetreuung sukzessive die Erwerbsverläufe von Männern und Frauen angleichen würden, sodass nach...

This article uses data from the German microcensuses of 2007 and 2012 to examine gender differences in welfare reliance among lone parents. Binary logistic regression was employed as the method of analysis. We show that the risk of welfare benefit receipt is lower among lone fathers than lone mothers. We also find that these gender differences can...

This paper uses rich administrative data from the Deutsche Rentenversicherung (German Pension Fund) to describe changes in the timing and the spacing of births that occurred in the period following German reunification. We examine differences in the birth dynamics of East Germans, West Germans, and women who migrated between the two parts of German...

This article introduces double additive models to describe the effect of continuous covariates in cure survival models, thereby relaxing the traditional linearity assumption in the two regression parts. This class of models extends the classical event history models when an unknown proportion of the population under study will never experience the...

Objective This article examines the determinants of father–child contact in Germany after divorce and separation, with a special emphasis on the role of legal child support. Background The contact separated fathers have with their children is a policy‐relevant issue that has been intensively addressed in previous research for the United States, th...

The introduction of the parental leave benefit scheme in 2007 is widely regarded as a landmark reform that has shifted the German welfare state towards a model that better supports work and family life compatibility. In this article, we investigate whether and how this reform has affected men’s use of parental leave based on data from the German mi...

Der in dieser Festschrift anlässlich seines 65. Geburtstages gewürdigte Gert G. Wagner ist als Sozial- und Wirtschaftsforscher über disziplinäre Grenzen gegangen. Als engagierter Politikberater und innovativer Wissenschaftsmanager hat er immer wieder sozial- und wissenschaftspolitische Debatten angestoßen und begleitet. Kollegen und Weggefährten li...

This paper examines the association of education and family forms based on data of the German microcensus 1996–2012. The investigation shows that highly educated women in western Germany had a higher probability of living in a nonmarital instead of a marital union. With an increase in the share of nonmarital births, the association has reversed. Li...

Objective: This paper studies postseparation fertility behavior. The aim is to investigate whether, and if so how, separation affects second birth spacing in Western European countries. Methods: This analysis makes use of rich survey data from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, as well as from Finnish register data. We...

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten im Geburtenverhalten von Aussiedlerinnen und türkischstämmigen Migrantinnen. Die Analysen, die auf Basis des Mikrozensus erstellt wurden, zeigen, dass das Fertilitätsprofil von Aussiedlerinnen kaum durch die Migration beeinflusst wird. Hingegen bekommen türkischstämmige Migrantinnen häu...

Im Jahr 2011 führte Deutschland nach mehr als zwanzigjähriger Pause wieder einen Zensus durch. Die Vorgaben der Vereinten Nationen, nach der Länder mindestens alle zehn Jahre eine Volkszählung veranlassen sollten, waren längst überschritten und von Seiten der Bevölkerungswissenschaft wurde schon länger eine neue Zählung gefordert, um die Berechnung...

In this article, we investigate the impact of job displacement on women’s first-birth rates as well as the variation in this effect over the business cycle. We use mass layoffs to estimate the causal effects of involuntary job loss on fertility in the short and medium term, up to five years after displacement. Our analysis is based on rich administ...

A child or a job? West- and East-German women’s dilemma In East Germany, before reunification, less than 10% women remained childless, whereas in West Germany, their percentage had increased regularly until it reached 20%. This article focuses on these divergent evolutions using the data of a micro-census. It studies social policies that had an imp...

This chapter provides an overview of the long-term trends in childlessness in East and West Germany. Based on vital statistics, census, and micro-census data we show that for the East German cohorts born in 1940–1964 the share who have remained childless has stalled at around 10 %. For the same cohorts in West Germany, we find that the share who ar...

Childlessness has been on the rise in many European societies. In Germany, the UK, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, childlessness has increased starting with the 1950s cohorts. In these countries, about 20 % of the women born around 1965 will remain childless. In southern Europe and the former state-socialist countries of Central and East...

This paper explores the stability of women’s and men’s fertility preferences across the life course. The data come from the first six waves of the German Family Panel (pairfam), which span the period from 2008/2009 until 2013/2014. In our analysis, fertility preferences are measured using the following question: “Under ideal circumstances, how many...

This book is published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This open access book provides an overview of childlessness throughout Europe. It offers a collection of papers written by leading demographers and sociologists that examine contexts, causes, and consequences of childlessness in countries throughout the region. The book features data fr...

In 2011, Germany carried out its first census after a 20-year break. In light of the United Nations’ recommendations that countries initiate a population census at least every 10 years, the census was long overdue. Moreover, demographers had for some time been demanding a new enumeration that would enable them to place the calculation of demographi...

Objective This paper uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to study the transition to second and third births. In particular, we seek to distinguish the factors that determine the timing of fertility from the factors that influence ultimate parity progression. Methods We employ cure survival models, a technique commonly used in epi...

In 2011, Germany carried out its fi rst census after a 20-year break. In light of the United Nations’ recommendations that countries initiate a population census at least every 10 years, the census was long overdue. Moreover, demographers had for some time been demanding a new enumeration that would enable them to place the calculation of demograph...

Demography, the official journal of the Population Association of America, has been given the highest rating among demographic journals by the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Our aim here is to investigate the development of research subfields and female authorship in Demography over the last 50 years. We find that female authorship in Demog...

Ähnlich wie in anderen europäischen Ländern wird die institutionelle Kinderbetreuung in Deutschland in erster Linie über ein öffentliches Angebot bereitgestellt. Private Kindertageseinrichtungen, wie es sie in markt-liberalen Ländern gibt, stellen weiterhin eine Ausnahmeerscheinung dar. Ein Spezifikum der deutschen Situation ist darüber hinaus die...

In diesem Beitrag stellen wir die Entwicklung der Bevölkerungssoziologie in Deutschland dar. Aufbauend auf den klassischen Arbeiten von Süßmilch wurde die Bevölkerungssoziologie in Deutschland bis zur Nachkriegszeit vor allem durch die Arbeiten von Nationalökonomen wie Brentano, Mombert und Mackenroth geprägt. Die zunehmende Verfügbarkeit von Mikro...

Dieser Beitrag skizziert konzeptuelle Grundlagen der Analyse von Lebens- und Familienformen in der Familien- und Bevölkerungssoziologie sowie in der amtlichen Statistik und zeichnet auf der Grundlage von amtlichen und Befragungsdaten Grundzüge der Struktur und des Wandels der familialen und nichtfamilialen Lebensformen in Deutschland nach. Während...

Obwohl es zahlreiche inhaltliche Schnittstellen zwischen Gegenstandsbereichen der Soziologie und der Demografie gibt, hat sich in Deutschland bislang keine Bevölkerungssoziologie, im Sinne einer in den USA schon früh institutionalisierten „Social Demography“, etablieren können. In diesem einleitenden Beitrag des vorliegenden Sonderhefts der Kölner...

Der Zusammenhang von ökonomischer Unsicherheit und Geburtenentwicklung ist ein Themenfeld, das gleichermaßen von soziologischer wie auch von demografischer Bedeutung ist. Obwohl theoretische Überlegungen zumeist der „bürgerlichen Überzeugung“ verhaftet geblieben sind, dass ökonomische Unsicherheiten sich negativ auf das Geburtenverhalten niederschl...

In diesem Band präsentieren die Herausgebenden das Forschungsgebiet der Bevölkerungssoziologie. Mit unterschiedlichen Fragestellungen der Bevölkerungssoziologie befasste Autoren und Autorinnen tragen durch ihre Beiträge dazu bei. Nach einem ausführlichen Überblick über die in der Bevölkerungssoziologie gängigen Themen, Theorien und Daten werden die...

Das Buch versammelt einschlägige Beiträge im Bereich „Social Demography“, der Schnittstelle von soziologischer und demographischer Forschung. In den Einzelbeiträgen wird die Bedeutung klassischer soziologischer Konzepte, wie des Lebenslaufs, des Generationenzusammenhangs und der sozialen Ungleichheit für demographische Prozesse, vor allem der Ferti...

Geo-coded survey data are a prerequisite for any analysis that examines the impact of contextual factors on individual-level outcomes. The local unit may be districts, municipalities, or blocks of houses. However, regional identifiers are sensitive information and including them in a scientific-use-file of a survey may violate data protection regul...

This paper examines the reliability of biographical information gathered retrospectively. It draws on data from the German Family Panel (pairfam), which collected information on the partnership status at first birth using two different strategies. The first strategy was to collect partnership and fertility histories separately in an event history c...

Der Beitrag beschreibt die Grundzüge des sozialstrukturellen Wandels der Lebensformen in Deutschland. Zunächst werden Konzepte und theoretische Ansätze zur Erklärung von Lebensformen und familialen Verhaltensweisen skizziert. Anschließend werden Strukturen und Wandel der Lebens- und Familienformen in Ost- und Westdeutschland nach 1990 auf der Grund...

Sociologists and demographers have long been interested in the role of economic uncertainty in family behavior. Despite the prevailing “bourgeois conviction” that economic uncertainty discourages people from having children, the empirical evidence on this issue is mixed. In this paper, I summarize the recent empirical evidence, and discuss the pote...

Zusammenfassung Obwohl es zahlreiche inhaltliche Schnittstellen zwischen Gegenstandsbereichen der Soziologie und der Demografie gibt, hat sich in Deutschland bislang keine Bevölkerungssoziologie, im Sinne einer in den USA schon früh institutionalisierten „Social Demography“, etablieren können. In diesem einleitenden Beitrag des vorliegenden Sonderh...

This essay provides a condensed summary of major findings in trends in maternal and paternal employment patterns. Key theoretical concepts (such as cultural approaches, welfare state approaches, preference theory, economic approaches, and life course theory) are briefly summarized. The increase in maternal employment rates in most European countrie...

The German Mikrozensus is a data set that is frequently used to study fertility behavior. With its large sample size, the dataset also offers the opportunity to investigate childbearing among population subgroups, such as particular migrant groups. Because birth histories are not surveyed in the Mikrozensus, scholars have frequently employed the Ow...

This study investigates the role of female labour-market attachment and earnings in childbearing progressions in two very different European contexts. By applying event-history techniques to German and Danish register data during 1981–2001, we demonstrate how female earnings relate to first, second and third birth propensities. Our study shows that...

Dieser Beitrag skizziert konzeptuelle Grundlagen der Analyse von Lebens- und Familienformen in der Familien- und Bevölkerungssoziologie sowie in der amtlichen Statistik und zeichnet auf der Grundlage von amtlichen und Befragungsdaten Grundzüge der Struktur und des Wandels der familialen und nichtfamilialen Lebensformen in Deutschland nach. Während...

This Technical Report describes a database that has been established for the research project “Gendered authorship and demographic research – An analysis of 50 years of Demography”. In this project, we have investigated whether gender determines field of publication. Our analysis was based on all papers published in “Demography” which is the flagsh...

In diesem Beitrag stellen wir die Entwicklung der Bevölkerungssoziologie in Deutschland dar. Aufbauend auf den klassischen Arbeiten von Süßmilch wurde die Bevölkerungssoziologie in Deutschland bis zur Nachkriegszeit vor allem durch die Arbeiten von Nationalökonomen wie Brentano, Mombert und Mackenroth geprägt. Die zunehmende Verfügbarkeit von Mikro...

Studies that have investigated the role of unemployment in childbearing decisions have often shown no or only barely significant results. We argue that many of these "non-findings" may be attributed to a neglect of group-specific differences in behavior. In this study, we examine how the association of unemployment and fertility varies by socio-dem...

Growing separation and divorce rates have shaped the image of the family in the new century. As a consequence of this development, parents are increasingly at risk of becoming single parents or of living separated from their children at some point in their life courses. Despite the fact that the share of lone fatherhood has increased in some countr...

http://www.ggp-i.org/images/stories/GGP/Posters/poster_realization_of_fertility_intentions_in_russia_epc_2014.pdf

The dynamics of family formation and disruption have changed in contemporary societies. Compared to previous decades, more people cohabit, have children outside marital unions, experience the dissolution of their unions, re-partner, enter stepfamilies, live separately from their children or remain childless. Family life courses have become increasi...

Trotz der offensichtlichen sozialpolitischen Relevanz und großen medialen Aufmerksamkeit des Phänomens Kinderlosigkeit sind das Ausmaß, die Ursachen und die Konsequenzen der Kinderlosigkeit in Deutschland bislang unzureichend untersucht worden, mit der Folge, dass in öffentlichen Debatten häufig unkritische und irreführende Diagnosen über Kinderlos...

Countries in Northwestern Europe, including Belgium, report cohort fertility levels of close to two children per woman; whereas Central European countries, such as Germany, have levels of around 1.6 children. In seeking to explain these differences, some scholars have stressed the role of the social policy context, while others have pointed to vari...

Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die Potentiale des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) und des Mikrozensus für kontextuelle Analysen im Bereich der Bildungsforschung. Wir betrachten die Möglichkeiten und auch Grenzen, welche mit diesen beiden Datensätzen verbunden sind. Sie heben sich dadurch hervor, dass eine Berücksichtigung des Familien- und...

Objective: This paper provides recent cross-national evidence of the impact of the great recession on fertility in Europe in the context of the recent decade. Methods: Using data from the Human Fertility Database (HFD), from Eurostat, and from the OECD database, we employ fixed-effects modeling to study how changes in unemployment rates have affect...

This paper validates the fertility histories of the German Generations and Gender Survey (GGS). Focusing on the cohorts 1930-69 of West German women, the total number of children, the parity distribution and the parity progression ratios are compared to external sources. One major result from this validation is that the German GGS understates the f...

In this paper data from the first wave of the German family panel (pairfam) is used to study the diversity of living arrangements in Germany. The analyses are restricted to the birth cohorts 1971-1973. These cohorts have entered adulthood after unification, but made significant transitions, like the birth of their first children, until interview in...

In this paper data from the first wave of the German family panel (pairfam) is used to study the diversity of living arrangements in Germany. The analyses are restricted to the birth cohorts 1971-1973. These cohorts have entered adulthood after unification, but made significant transitions, like the birth of their first children, until interview in...

Auf Basis der Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels liefert diese Studie einen Überblick über die sozialstrukturellen Determinanten der Nutzung externer Kinderbetreuung in Deutschland in den Jahren 1984 bis 2009. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass trotz des zunehmend breiten Zugangs zu Kinderbetreuung in Ost- und Westdeutschland sichtbare Unterschiede i...

This paper validates the fertility histories of the German Generations and Gender Survey (GGS). Focusing on the cohorts 1930-69 of West German women, the total number of children, the parity distribution and the parity progression ratios are compared to external sources. One major result from this validation is that the German GGS understates the f...

Familie ist ein » moving target «, d. h. ein Gegenstand, der sich mit dem sozialhistorischen und kulturellen Kontext wandelt. Die Leitbilder von Familie und Grenzziehungen zwischen Familie und Nichtfamilie waren und sind gesellschaftlich umstritten.

Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, die Fertilitätsbiografien im deutschen Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) zu validieren. Die Untersuchungspopulation bilden westdeutsche Frauen der Geburtsjahrgänge 1930-69, für die die durchschnittliche Kinderzahl, die Verteilung der Kinderzahl und die Progressionsraten zum nächsten Kind auf Basis des GGS berechnet un...

This special collection of Demographic Research is devoted to the issue of how economic and employment uncertainties relate to fertility and family dynamics in Europe. The collection is based on contributions to a workshop held in Berlin in July 2009, which in turn was stimulated by the onset of the economic recession in 2008. The collection compri...

Couples who have children are increasingly likely to have lived together without being married at some point in their relationship. Some couples begin their unions with cohabitation and marry before first conception, some marry during pregnancy or directly after the first birth, while others remain unmarried 3 years after the first birth. Using uni...

This paper provides an overview of fertility data for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Particular attention is given to the availability of order-specific fertility data. We discuss the quality of data provided by the Statistical Offices, both birth registration data and censuses or microcensuses. In addition, we explore how social science surveys...

This paper provides an overview of fertility data for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Particular attention is given to the availability of order-specific fertility data. We discuss the quality of data provided by the Statistical Offices, both birth registration data and censuses or microcensuses. In addition, we explore how social science surveys...

This paper provides an overview of fertility data for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Particular attention is given to the availability of order-specific fertility data. We discuss the quality of data provided by the Statistical Offices, both birth registration data and censuses or microcensuses. In addition, we explore how social science surveys...

This paper investigates the economic conditions of stepfamilies in Germany, the Russian Federation and France using data from the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS). The analysis shows that stepfamilies more often report economic hardship than nuclear families in France and Western Germany. Socio-demographic differences between f...

Some 20 years after reunification, the contrast between East and West Germany offers a natural experiment for studying the degree of persistence of Communist-era family patterns, the effects of economic change, and fertility postponement. After reunification, period fertility rates plummeted in the former East Germany to record low levels. Since th...

This document provides a documentation of the data set DemoDiff (Demographic Differences in Life Course Dynamics in Eastern and Western Germany). DemoDiff is a subsample of the German family panel pairfam 1. The German family panel is a representative, multidisciplinary, longitudinal study for researching partner and family dynamics in Germany. The...

Until 2008, Germany’s vital statistics did not include information on the biological order of each birth. This resulted in a dearth of important demographic indicators, such as the mean age at first birth and the level of childlessness. Researchers have tried to fill this gap by generating order-specific birth rates from survey data, and by combini...