Cross-National Variation in the Link Between Parental Socio-Economic Status and Union Formation and Dissolution Processes

The main objective of this chapter is to understand the link between parental socio-economic status (SES) and union formation and dissolution processes from a cross-national comparative perspective. According to the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) theory, it can be expected that the impact of parental background on these union dynamics differs across societal contexts. Integrated results from prior studies using meta-analytical tools indicate that in many European countries, young adults from advantaged backgrounds delay their first co-residential union and have a higher risk to dissolve their union compared to young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds. The strength of this link between parental SES and union dynamics varies across countries. There is suggestive evidence that the link between parental SES and union dynamics is weakest in North-Western European countries that are most advanced in the SDT. However, next to these SDT-related indicators that focus more on cultural change, institutional country-level indicators, like the extent of educational expansion, and economic country-level indicators, such as the level of economic uncertainty, might also play a role.

Cereal Market before and after the Integration of Poland into the European Union. Dynamics of Supply and Demand Correlations / Rynek zbóż przed i po integracji Polski z Unią Europejską. Dynamika relacji popytowo-podażowych

The purpose of this publication is to show some changes in supply and demand correlations on the cereal market after Poland’s accession into the European Union. To meet the above objective there were compared some data concerning the volume of domestic cereal production and its cereal species structure, foreign trade balance, domestic consumption and purchase price levels. The formation of the above mentioned items was analyzed for two periods. The first one covered the years 1995-2003 whereas the second one was from 2004 to 2012. This allowed us to make some interesting comparisons through the prism of Poland’s accession to the EU. Additionally, long time series increased their reliability. To study supply and demand correlations, there were applied various statistical methods including dynamic indexes, trend models, analyses of correlation and various regression. A comprehensive analysis of the gathered research material allowed us to answer the question about some quantitative and qualitative changes which took place on the cereal market after Poland’s accession to the EU.