scholarly journals Is Early Partnership Formation Instrumental for Fertility in Germany?

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Okka Zimmermann

Using panel data from childless respondents of the German Family Panel (pairfam, n=3,802 respondents), this paper investigates whether fertility orientations (biographical orientations with respect to fertility) influence the risk of different partnership transitions among German men and women over the age of 18 (for n=14,572 observation periods between two panel waves). Significant influences are found for both gender and partnership transition types, and are generally stronger among men than women and for the transition to a coresidential as opposed to a romantic partnership. Uncertainty about anticipated fertility has a stronger negative impact on transition risks among men than among women. Results strongly suggest that the early stages of the partnership formation process are instrumental in terms of future fertility in Germany, at least to some degree. This indicates that a more comprehensive conceptualisation and analysis of fertility within the life course paradigm (as suggested by Huinink/Kohli 2014) should consider the impacts of fertility orientations on life course events in other dimensions, especially among men. Viewed more broadly, the results also underline two factors: the role of agency in coordinating life course dimensions in time and space in order to maximise individual welfare; and the importance of considering the impacts that anticipation of future life course events will have, as suggested by different theoretical approaches.

Author(s):  
Lila Kazemian ◽  
David P. Farrington ◽  
Alex R. Piquero

This chapter provides a brief overview of developmental and life-course criminology. These approaches are concerned with the study of the development of offending over the course of one's life, from onset to persistence and, eventually, desistance. Although these two theoretical approaches share many common features, they have distinctive focal concerns. Stemming from the field of sociology, the life-course perspective focuses attention on social structure and life events. The developmental approach, on the other hand, stems from the field of psychology and generally emphasizes the role of individual and psychological factors in the explanation of developmental processes. Moreover, the developmental approach investigates the onset of offending as well as the role of early risk and protective factors in the explanation of future offending. Meanwhile, the life-course framework examines the influence of turning points in offending trajectories and in the process of desistance from crime.


Incarceration ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 263266632198901
Author(s):  
Marguerite Schinkel ◽  

This article takes a life-course perspective to the meaning of persistent short-term imprisonment and introduces the significance of ‘penal careers’. Examining a total of 62 interviews with men and women in Scotland with long careers of (progression through) criminal punishment, it uses to the concept of belonging as a lens to interpret their experiences. While some participants already felt early on in their career that they belonged in prison because of their shared characteristics with other prisoners, the repetition of imprisonment meant that they increasingly felt displaced from life outside and saw life in prison as ‘easier’ and ‘safer’. Nevertheless, looking back on their many sentences, they felt their cumulative meaning was ‘a waste of life’. The article concludes by considering steps towards tackling the conditions that create this sense of belonging in a place of punishment.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Hockey ◽  
Rachel Dilley ◽  
Victoria Robinson ◽  
Alexandra Sherlock

This article raises questions about the role of footwear within contemporary processes of identity formation and presents ongoing research into perceptions, experiences and memories of shoes among men and women in the North of England. In a series of linked theoretical discussions it argues that a focus on women, fashion and shoe consumption as a feature of a modern, western ‘project of the self’ obscures a more revealing line of inquiry where footwear can be used to explore the way men and women live out their identities as fluid, embodied processes. In a bid to deepen theoretical understanding of such processes, it takes account of historical and contemporary representations of shoes as a symbolically efficacious vehicle for personal transformation, asking how the idea and experience of transformation informs everyday and life course experiences of transition, as individuals put on and take off particular pairs of shoes. In so doing, the article addresses the methodological and analytic challenges of accessing experience that is both fluid and embodied.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Borra ◽  
Rebecca Hardy

Abstract Background: Epidemiological literature has revealed differences in chronic pain (CP) prevalence in men and women. Women have been found to be more likely to develop CP compared to men at different points of the life-course, such as childhood and old age. Less is known about differences in prevalence by sex during mid-life. While CP is most prevalent later in life, biological and physical changes in mid-life may predispose to an earlier differentiation in CP distribution – for example due to the menopause. The aim of this study is to describe the prevalence of CP at midlife in men and women, and to identify how these differences relate to results pertaining to other periods in the life-course. Methods: This systematic review follows PRISMA guidelines. An electronic search will identify appropriate studies in the following databases: MEDLINE, to be accessed through Web of Science; and EMBASE, AMED and PSYCHinfo to be accessed through OVID. Two reviewers will independently screen each title and abstract and subsequently each full text following the inclusion criteria outlined in this protocol. The reference lists of eligible papers will also be screened to identify any further eligible studies. Any inconsistencies between reviewer decisions will be resolved through discussion. Studies eligible for data extraction will report estimates of CP prevalence, of prevalence for each sex, and difference in prevalence between sexes. Two reviewers will conduct data extraction using a standardised data extraction form. Quality assessment will be conducted using a risk of bias assessment tool for prevalence studies. The findings will be reported in a narrative synthesis and will comment on expected heterogeneity, following the Social Research Council Methods Programme guidelines. A random effects meta-analysis will be conducted where the reviewers can justify combining results.Discussion: This review will summarise the prevalence of CP in men and women at mid-life, based on existing evidence. It is expected that the results will identify gaps in knowledge and areas for further research.Systematic review registration: PROSPERO: CRD42021295895


Author(s):  
Christopher R. Holroyd ◽  
Nicholas C. Harvey ◽  
Mark H. Edwards ◽  
Cyrus Cooper

Musculoskeletal disease covers a broad spectrum of conditions whose aetiology comprises variable genetic and environmental contributions. More recently it has become clear that, particularly early in life, the interaction of gene and environment is critical to the development of later disease. Additionally, only a small proportion of the variation in adult traits such as bone mineral density has been explained by specific genes in genome-wide association studies, suggesting that gene-environment interaction may explain a much larger part of the inheritance of disease risk than previously thought. It is therefore critically important to evaluate the environmental factors which may predispose to diseases such as osteorthritis, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis both at the individual and at the population level. In this chapter we describe the environmental contributors, across the whole life course, to osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis, as exemplar conditions. We consider factors such as age, gender, nutrition (including the role of vitamin D), geography, occupation, and the clues that secular changes of disease pattern may yield. We describe the accumulating evidence that conditions such as osteoporosis may be partly determined by the early interplay of environment and genotype, through aetiological mechanisms such as DNA methylation and other epigenetic phenomena. Such studies, and those examining the role of environmental influences across other stages of the life course, suggest that these issues should be addressed at all ages, starting from before conception, in order to optimally reduce the burden of musculoskeletal disorders in future generations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 237802311984574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meir Yaish ◽  
Limor Gabay-Egozi

This study demonstrates that studying ethnic/racial inequality on the basis of cross-sectional data conceals how such inequality might unfold over the life course. Moving beyond a snapshot perspective, we ask, Do Israel’s Jewish ethnic groups differ in their long-term earnings trajectories? Analyzing nearly 20 years of registered earnings data, the authors find that for the same cohort (25- to 32-year-old Jews in 1995), the ethnic earnings gap has widened over these years. This trend, we demonstrate, is explained largely by increasing wage premiums for college degree, even when these premiums are ethnicity blind. That is, ethnic inequality in educational attainment is translated to increasing ethnic earnings inequality over the life course. This pattern cannot be detected in previous research in Israel, which relied on the snapshot perspective on the basis of cross-sectional data. The consequences of these findings for changes in inequality in divided societies are discussed.


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