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 language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-12 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | ADVANCES IN LIFE COURSE RESEARCH |
Volume | 36 |
Early online date | 1 Mar 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 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.
Funders | Funder number |
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National Centre of Competence in Research Robotics | |
European Research Council | |
Seventh Framework Programme | 324178 |
Seventh Framework Programme | FP/2007-2013 |
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung | 51NF40-160590 |
Keywords
- Event history analysis
- Family formation
- Secularization
- Sequence analysis
- Youth unemployment