Are Female-Breadwinner Couples Always Less Stable? Evidence from French Administrative Data.

The paper studies the association between partners' relative incomes and union dissolution among couples in France. With the increase in dual-earner couples and women's educational level, couples in which women earn more than their partners are structurally becoming more widespread. Because female breadwinning challenges long-lived social norms regarding traditional gender roles, scholars have theorized a higher risk of union dissolution among female-breadwinner couples compared to couples in other income arrangements. We estimate the risk of union dissolution using regression analyses on unique longitudinal data from French administrative sources containing an unconventionally high number of couples (4% of the population) and separation events (more than 100,000), as well as precise and reliable income measurement. Female-breadwinner couples face a higher risk of union dissolution compared to other couple types. This result is robust to various definitions of female breadwinning and controls for partners' employment status. Contrary to recent research on other countries, we find no sign of a fading effect among younger cohorts. However, among younger, cohabiting couples and couples in registered partnerships the risk of union dissolution is lowest when both partners are employed and provide a similar share of the total couple's income, suggesting the emergence of a new profile of stable couples. The female-breadwinner penalty in union dissolution is in place; also in France, it holds among married and cohabiting couples and registered partnerships, across all birth cohorts and levels of household income.

Leaving the parental home during the COVID-19 pandemic: the case of Southern Europe.

In 2020, COVID-19-related governmental restrictions forced individuals to radically change their habits, possibly impacting on their living arrangements. Whether COVID-19 affected young adults' propensity to leave the parental home is still unknown; Southern Europe is of particular interest, as youth experience the "latest-late" transition to adulthood, face uncertainty in the labor market, and receive low welfare support. Using EU-SILC longitudinal data from Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, this study examines how home-leaving rates evolved in the short-term and explores the relationship between governmental restrictions, economic characteristics of households and young adults, and leaving home behaviors. Descriptive analyses reveal that the share of young adults leaving the parental home in Southern Europe between 2019 and 2020 slightly increased compared to previous years. Discrete-time event history models show that the propensity to leave the parental home increases with the stringency of policy measures. Young adults with the highest likelihood to leave home are employed individuals whose households are in the lowest income quintile as well as students from the highest income quintile, suggesting that, in these countries, residential independence is associated with either the acquisition of economic resources in the labor market or the availability of family resources. We interpret this result in favor of an "independence effect" exerted by COVID-19-related restrictions on young adults; future research might establish whether this trend is temporary or persistent over time.

Uncertain steps into adulthood: Does economic precariousness hinder entry into the first co-residential partnership in the UK?

This study uses prospective data spanning 27 years (1991-2018) to explore the relationship between economic precariousness and transitions to first co-residential partnership among Britons aged 18-34 across three dimensions: age, historical time, and sex. Economic precariousness is measured using eight objective and subjective indicators, including income, employment, housing, and financial perceptions. Our results show that economic precariousness has a strong negative relationship with entering the first co-residential partnership among those aged 20-30, but the pattern is less clear among the youngest and oldest. Objective measures are easier to interpret than subjective measures. Historical analyses suggest that not being employed decreases the probability of union formation more in recessionary periods than in non-recessionary ones. Among working women, low labour income started to be a predictor of union formation in the most recent periods. Labour income is the only indicator presenting trends in line with our hypotheses across all dimensions.

Pooling of Wealth in Marriage: The Role of Premarital Cohabitation.

Previous studies documented the existence of a 'cohabitation-marriage gap' in resource pooling among opposite-sex partners, with cohabiters being more likely to separate income and wealth than married individuals. Surprisingly, despite many non-marital cohabitations transform into marriages, we know little about income and wealth pooling of 'spousal cohabiters', i.e. spouses who transition to marriage after experiencing a period of non-marital cohabitation. The comparison between 'spousal cohabiters' and directly married spouses is particularly interesting because it offers a litmus test of theories of marriage in relation to how and why economic resources are differently distributed within married vs. cohabiting couples. This paper compares directly married couples and 'spousal cohabiters' in Italy, focusing on one aspect of resource pooling: the marital property regime, i.e. the choice made at the time of marriage between joint or separate ownership of wealth accumulated during marriage. Competing hypotheses are developed on the basis of the arguments that marriage yields legal protection, that selection mechanisms drive both the choice of community vs. separation of property and direct marriage vs. premarital cohabitation, and that, by inertia, 'spousal cohabiters' continue to separate resources upon transition to marriage. Results based on the 2016 Italian 'Family and social subjects' survey show that 'spousal cohabiters' are significantly more likely to choose separation of property compared to directly married spouses. Such differences, however, are drastically reduced once relevant confounders are controlled for, hence suggesting that existing differences between directly married and previously cohabiting couples and, more generally, differences between married and cohabiting couples are driven, above all, by selection mechanisms. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-022-09627-2.

Wealth in Couples: Introduction to the Special Issue.

The assumption that economic resources are equally shared within households has been found to be untenable for income but is still often upheld for wealth. In this introduction to the special issue "Wealth in Couples", we argue that within-household inequality in wealth is a pertinent and under-researched area that is ripe for development. To this end, we outline the relevance of wealth for demographic research, making the distinction between individual and household wealth. Drawing on a life-course perspective, we discuss individual wealth accumulation within couples and its links to family-demographic processes, the institutional context, and norms on pooling and sharing. We conclude with a brief summary of the main findings from the special issue and highlight implications for demographic research and for future research in this field.

A Framework for Estimating Migrant Stocks Using Digital Traces and Survey Data: An Application in the United Kingdom.

An accurate estimation of international migration is hampered by a lack of timely and comprehensive data, and by the use of different definitions and measures of migration in different countries. In an effort to address this situation, we complement traditional data sources for the United Kingdom with social media data: our aim is to understand whether information from digital traces can help measure international migration. The Bayesian framework proposed is used to combine data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Facebook Advertising Platform to study the number of European migrants in the United Kingdom, with the aim of producing more accurate estimates of the numbers of European migrants. The overarching model is divided into a Theory-Based Model of migration and a Measurement Error Model. We review the quality of the LFS and Facebook data, paying particular attention to the biases of these sources. The results indicate visible yet uncertain differences between model estimates using the Bayesian framework and individual sources. Sensitivity analysis techniques are used to evaluate the quality of the model. The advantages and limitations of this approach, which can be applied in other contexts, are discussed. We cannot necessarily trust any individual source, but combining them through modeling offers valuable insights.

The Changing Association Between Homeownership and the Transition to Parenthood.

The literature suggests a positive link between homeownership and the transition to parenthood. However, in recent decades, couples' preference for becoming homeowners before having their first child has been undermined by rising housing unaffordability and housing uncertainty. An archetypal example is Britain, where homeownership rates among young adults have fallen substantially as a result of low wages, unemployment, reductions in the availability of mortgage credit, and rising house prices. This situation has produced a housing crisis. Using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2008) and the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (2009-2016), we apply multilevel, discrete-time event-history techniques to a sample of women aged 18-42. We investigate whether and how the link between homeownership and entering parenthood has changed in Britain in recent decades. Our findings reveal that in comparison with the 1990s, the likelihood of becoming a parent has declined among homeowners, whereas childbearing rates among private renters have remained stable. Thus, owner-occupiers and private renters have become more similar in terms of their likelihood of entering parenthood. Overall, our findings question the classical micro-level assumption of a positive link between homeownership and transition to parenthood, at least among Britain's "Generation Rent." These findings are subsequently interpreted in terms of increased housing uncertainty.

Diffusion of childbearing within cohabitation.

The article analyzes the diffusion of childbearing within cohabitation in Norway, using municipality data over a 24-year period (1988-2011). Research has found substantial spatial heterogeneity in this phenomenon but also substantial spatial correlation, and the prevalence of childbearing within cohabitation has increased significantly over time. We consider several theoretical perspectives and implement a spatial panel model that allows accounting for autocorrelation not only on the dependent variable but also on key explanatory variables, and hence identifies the key determinants of diffusion of childbearing within cohabitation across space and over time. We find only partial support for the second demographic transition as a theory able to explain the diffusion of childbearing within cohabitation. Our results show that at least in the first phase of the diffusion (1988-1997), economic difficulties as measured by increased unemployment among men contributed to the diffusion of childbearing within cohabitation. However, the most important driver for childbearing within cohabitation is expansion in education for women.