Understanding trends in family formation trajectories: An application of Competing Trajectories Analysis (CTA)

Matthias Studer*, Aart C. Liefbroer, Jarl E. Mooyaart

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Over the past 50 years, family formation trajectories have undergone major changes in the events that occur as well as in the timing and order of these events. Whereas previous studies showed when and how these shifts occur, not much research has been conducted to test why these changes have taken place. This paper tests two possible explanations, namely cultural (secularization) and economic (youth unemployment) change using the Fertility and Family survey of the Netherlands conducted in 2008. We also employed a new method, Competing Trajectories Analysis (CTA), which combines features of sequence analysis and event history analysis, to examine the relationship between secularization and youth unemployment and pathways into adulthood. Our results show that the start of family formation is postponed in times of high secularization and youth unemployment, when pathways including early marriage and parenthood become less popular, and cohabiting without having children becomes more popular.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-12
Number of pages12
JournalADVANCES IN LIFE COURSE RESEARCH
Volume36
Early online date1 Mar 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2018

Funding

This publication benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES—Overcoming vulnerability: life course perspectives, which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number: 51NF40-160590) and from support of the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement n. 324178 (Project: Contexts of Opportunity. PI: Aart C. Liefbroer). The authors are grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Research Council for their financial assistance.

FundersFunder number
National Centre of Competence in Research Robotics
European Research Council
Seventh Framework Programme324178
Seventh Framework ProgrammeFP/2007-2013
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung51NF40-160590

    Keywords

    • Event history analysis
    • Family formation
    • Secularization
    • Sequence analysis
    • Youth unemployment

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Understanding trends in family formation trajectories: An application of Competing Trajectories Analysis (CTA)'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this