Jan Skopek

Retirement and Changes in Housework: A Panel Study of Dual Earner Couples.

Objectives To examine how transitions to retirement influenced the division of household labor in dual earner couples. We tested hypotheses about changes (a) between a couples preretirement and postretirement stage and (b) across the transitional phase during which both spouses retired. Method We estimated fixed-effects models for the effects of the husbands and the wifes retirement on changes in their hours and share of routine housework. The data came from 29 waves of the German Socio-economic Panel Study, comprising N = 31,040 annual observations of N = 3,288 dual earner couples aged 45 to 75 years. Results Spouses who retired first performed more housework, whereas their partners who continued working performed less. This occurred irrespective of the retirement sequence. Husbands who retired first doubled up on their share of housework, but never performed more than 40% of a couples total hours. None of the observed shifts were permanent. After both spouses had retired, couples reverted to their preretirement division of housework. Discussion Although the findings on changes after retirement support the time availability hypothesis, gender construction theories still take precedence in explaining the division of household labor over the life course.

Secondary school systems and inequality of educational opportunity in contemporary societies

In modern societies, education is often seen as a key factor for economic and technological development. The emphasis on individual achievement and the ideal of equal educational opportunities have dominated contemporary school reform debates and political agendas across the world (OECD 2004). Influenced by the results of the PISA studies, educational reformers are aiming to improve both the efficiency and the equity of their school systems (Hanushek and Woessmann 2010). Whereas the organization of primary education is almost uniform across modern societies, systems of secondary school are still very different (Boli et al. 1985; Benavot and Resnik 2006). To understand why there is such a variety of educational differentiation in secondary education across countries today, we must look at the historical roots and legacies in the formation of national school systems (Benavot and Resnik 2006). Secondary education resulted from a long-standing, uneven, and historically contingent process of systematization of schooling and educational forms that involved various logics, ideas, and adaptions until a globalized convergence gained momentum after the end of World War II. It is important to remember that the structure of secondary education served different needs in different nations and genuinely interacted with the dominant cultural, social, economic, and political settings in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For instance, compared to the class-based roots of European school systems, meritocratic and democratic ideals were introduced right from the start when developing the secondary school in the United States. This is best exemplified by the inclusive model of the American ‘high school’ (Benavot and Resnik 2006). In contrast, European models of education started out largely from much more elitist conceptions of

Gender Inequalities at Labour Market Entry: A Comparative View from the eduLIFE Project ☆

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the results from a cross-nationally comparative project analysing gender differences and inequalities at labour market entry. Women’s relative gains in educational attainment and the expansion of the service sector suggest that gender inequalities in occupational returns are diminishing or even reversing. In assessing gender differences at labour market entry, we look at a phase of the life course when women’s family roles are still of minor importance. Conceptually, we distinguish between horizontal segregation and inequalities in vertical outcomes. The project was based on 13 in-depth case studies contributed by a network of scholars analysing countries with different institutional, socio-economic and cultural settings. The findings demonstrate that occupational gender segregation is still relatively marked among recent cohorts, though it is slightly decreasing over time in several countries. In terms of vertical inequalities, the case studies consistently revealed that while women enter more prestigious jobs than men in most countries, there is a female disadvantage in economic returns among recent labour market entrants. In addition, we found mixed evidence on the variations of gender equality at labour market entry across countries with different institutional characteristics.

Gender Convergence in Housework Time: A Life Course and Cohort Perspective

Knowledge about gender convergence in housework time is confined to changes studied across repeated cross-sections of data. This study adds a dynamic view that links broader social shifts in men’s and women’s housework time to individual life-course profiles. Using panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (1985–2015), our analysis is the first to trace changes in housework time across the entire adult life course (ages 20–90) and across a large range of cohorts (1920–1990). The results revealed two types of gender convergence in housework time. First, the gender gap converged across the life course, narrowing by more than 50 percent from age 35 until age 70. Life-course profiles of housework time were strongly gendered, as womens housework time peaked in younger adulthood and declined thereafter, whereas men’s housework time remained stably low for decades and increased only in older age. Second, the gender gap converged across cohorts, narrowing by 40 percent from cohorts 1940 until 1960. Cohort profiles of housework time showed strong declines in women and moderate increases in men. Both cohort trends were linear and extended to the most recently born, supporting the notion of continued convergence in housework time.

Childcare, early education, and social inequality: Perspectives for a cross-national and multidisciplinary study

For a long time, sociological research has neglected social inequalities in the early educational experiences of children. Most sociological studies concentrated on the impact of socio-economic (and cultural) family conditions on children’s educational outcomes in primary (for example, Gustafsson et al. 2011) and secondary school (for example, Marks et al. 2006; Blossfeld et al. 2016). Some focused further on the impact of family background on educational transitions in the school, vocational training, and university systems (Shavit and Blossfeld 1993; Jackson 2013) or on the role of final educational attainment for entry into the labour market (Blossfeld et al. 2015). Yet a growing body of research shows that children already differ markedly in basic cognitive skills and non-cognitive competencies (such as motivation, social skills, or persistence) before they enter school (Esping-Andersen 2004; Meyers et al. 2004; Heckman 2006; Bradbury et al. 2015). The degree to which hereditary predispositions are expressed and small children can develop their cognitive, social, and motivational potentials seems to depend strongly on the initial environmental conditions (Carneiro and Heckman 2003; Röder and Rösler 2014; UNICEF 2016). Very first experiences are normally shaped by different socio-economic and cultural conditions in the family, by different parental interactions and language stimulation at home, and by variations in parental engagement as well as educational investments in their children. Today, for instance, children may enrol in educational programmes very early, as shown in the rising attendance of preschool institutions. These differences in the initial conditions set the foundation for an individual’s entire later

RemoteNEPS—An Innovative Research Environment

This chapter provides an introduction to conceptual, technical, and workflow issues of the National Educational Panel Study’s remote-data-access solution. We illustrate that RemoteNEPS is capable not only of providing safe and highly controlled access to sensitive individual-level data, but moreover of offering an innovative, user-oriented, and very powerful research facility for analyzing rich and complex NEPS data. We present crucial conceptual aspects in the design of the NEPS and reveal how we put these aspects into practice. As we show, using RemoteNEPS is very simple. Contracted researchers need nothing more than web access and a (properly configured) standard web browser. It must be noted that running a remote-access site in this dimension is costly; however, the NEPS provides this service at no charge to its users. Importantly, our discussion on RemoteNEPS is not merely a conceptual blueprint; rather, it documents a system that has been in productive use for almost four years and that serves more than 200 users. RemoteNEPS is undoubtedly blazing the trail to the effective employment of remote access in the German context of research-data dissemination. Still, there are manifold ways in which RemoteNEPS could be improved in the future. We discuss the most promising aspects in our conclusion.

Life-Course Data and the Longitudinal Classification of Education

In this chapter, we present a longitudinal approach to the classification of education as applied to data from Starting Cohort 6 of the NEPS. Arguing that educational achievement is a time-dependent process involving the timing and sequence of transitions in an educational state, we examine the following two questions: 1) How can inter- and intra-individual variations of educational achievement be analytically described and compared ? and 2) How can longitudinal data on educational careers be adequately measured and coded in analytically meaningful ways ? We present CASMIN and ISCED-97 as helpful coding frames to capture educational achievement. Referring to life-course data from NEPS Starting Cohort 6, we present a longitudinal assignment scheme of educational attainment that we implemented in a generated transition data file called Education, which accompanies the Scientific Use File. Education provides upward transitions in ISCED and CASMIN for respondents in an easy-to-manage event-time format. Using the file, researchers can easily reconstruct the educational level measured in standard classifications for each respondent at each point in the recorded lifetime. Finally, we demonstrate the power of Education through two simple exemplary analyses.

Eheschließungen und Scheidungstrends in der Bevölkerungssoziologie

Der Beitrag bietet einen Uberblick zu soziologisch-demographischen Zugangen zu Heirat und Scheidung als elementare familiale Prozesse. Der klassisch demographische Blickwinkel setzt dabei vornehmlich bei der Erfassung und Quantifizierung von entsprechenden Kenngrosen in der Bevolkerung an. Die Soziologie stellt vor allem auf die soziale Strukturiertheit von Heirat und Scheidung ab. Hier geht es zum Beispiel um die soziale Musterung der Partnerwahl, die vor dem Hintergrund der sozialer Schliesungs- und Offnungstendenzen analysiert wird. Diskutiert werden sowohl klassische Befunde als auch neuere Entwicklungen in der Partnerwahlforschung sowie die Dynamik der Ehescheidung und das ehedauerabhangige Scheidungsrisiko.

Data Dissemination, Documentation, and User Support

A major goal of the NEPS is to provide scientific use data to the international research community. For this purpose, the NEPS has set up a Research Data Center (RDC) that offers a comprehensive portfolio of services, allowing researchers to gain access to and work with NEPS data effectively. The RDC’s support concept combines well-known approaches with innovative means of data documentation, data dissemination, and user support. Important building blocks of our dissemination strategy include the provision of (a) user-friendly and edited scientific use data, (b) flexible data access to the scientific community, (c) sufficient, easy-to-obtain, and clearly arranged documentation of NEPS surveys and data, and (d) extensive user support fostering good scientific practices and high-quality educational research. To achieve the highest standards in publishing panel data, the RDC has established a powerful infrastructure for data management, data dissemination, data documentation, and user support. In this chapter, we discuss the core elements of our concept.