Karsten Hank

Does the availability of child care influence the employment of mothers? Findings from western Germany.

There is a vast empirical literature investigating the effects of child care costson female employment. Day-care costs are usually treated as a reduction infemale wages and are supposed to reduce a womans propensity to participatein the labor market. In this paper we argue that an analysis of the effects ofchild care on the employment of mothers in Germany should focus on theavailability rather than the affordability of care, due to peculiarities of theGerman day-care regime. Our empirical findings cast doubt on the effectivenessof the current German day-care regime. Specifically, we question the extent towhich it enables mothers to participate in the labor market.

A new comprehensive and international view on ageing: introducing the 'Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe'

This paper introduces the ‘Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe’ (SHARE) to researchers on ageing. SHARE provides an infrastructure to help researchers better understand the individual and population ageing process: where we are, where we are heading to, and how we can influence the quality of life as we age, both as individuals and as societies. The baseline wave in 2004 provides data on the life circumstances of some 27,000 persons aged 50 and over in 11 European countries, ranging from Scandinavia across Western and Central Europe to the Mediterranean. SHARE has made great efforts to deliver truly comparable data, so we can reliably study how differences in cultures, living conditions and policy approaches shape the life of Europeans just before and after retirement. The paper first describes the SHARE data. In order to demonstrate its value, it then presents highlights from the three main research areas covered by SHARE, namely economics, sociology, and health.

Participation of Older Europeans in Volunteer Work

The contemporary discussion about the growing ‘burden of population ageing’ should not neglect the substantial productive potential of older people. Using micro-data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this paper examines the relationships between selected socio-demographic characteristics and the rates of participation in voluntary work in 10 European countries among those aged 50 or more years. The analysis reveals a clear spatial pattern, with relatively high participation rates in Northern Europe and relatively low participation rates in Mediterranean countries, and shows that age, education, health and involvement in other social activities strongly influence an individuals propensity to engage in volunteer work. A multivariate logistic regression provided no indication that the country differences can be explained by variations in population composition or attributes, such as the age structure or differences in health status. The findings have important implications for future cross-national research and for policies to promote the participation of older adults in voluntary work, and suggest that policies and programmes to encourage older citizens to make greater use of their productive capacities are feasible. It is concluded that further research needs to account for the influences of institutions and culture on participation in volunteering, the finding of this paper.

Gendering Family Composition: Sex Preferences for Children and Childbearing Behavior in the Nordic Countries

It has been argued that a society’s gender system may influence parents’ sex preferences for children. If this is true, one should expect to find no evidence of such preferences in countries with a high level of gender equality. In this article, we exploit data from population registers from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden to examine continuities and changes in parental sex preferences in the Nordic countries during the past three to four decades. First, we do not observe an effect of the sex of the firstborn child on second-birth risks. Second, we detect a distinct preference for at least one child of each sex among parents of two children. For third births, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish parents seem to develop a preference for having a daughter, while Finns exhibit a signifiant preference for having a son. These findings show that modernization and more equal opportunities for women and men do not necessarily lead to parental gender indifference. On the contrary, they may even result in new sex preferences.

Do child-care characteristics influence continued child bearing in Sweden? An investigation of the quantity, quality, and price dimension

We link population register data to information on regional child care characteristics in order to estimate the influence of the latter on second and third birth intensities of Swedish couples in 1997-98. Our analysis allows us to distinguish interactions and specific effects of different dimensions of the local day-care infrastructure, namely the provision rate, the child-to-staff-ratio, and the costs of care to parents. However, our results reveal no clear effects of these child care characteristics on Swedish couples’ continued childbearing. We interpret this absence of effects as a reflection of the generally very appropriate level of child care in Sweden, which is complemented by further supportive family policies. In such a context, moderate regional variations in the characteristics of day care may have no decisive impact on parents’ propensity to have another child.

The social connectedness of older Europeans: patterns, dynamics and contexts

Using longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), our article shows that the population aged 50 or older is socially connected in several ways. The various dimensions of social connectedness turn out to be complementary rather than substitutive, except for the relationship between informal social relations and family relations, which tends to be characterized by substitution. Our longitudinal analysis reveals that the dynamics of formal and informal social relations as well as family relations tend to be driven by individuals’ resources and needs. While the associations between elders’ social connectedness and individual characteristics are very similar across countries, we find significant regional variation regarding the levels and the dynamics of social connectedness.

Gender and the Division of Household Labor in Older Couples A European Perspective

Using microdata from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this study takes a cross-national perspective to investigate the division of household labor among older couples (aged 50 years or more). Across nine continental European countries, the authors find considerable variation in the overall distribution of housework between partners, with more egalitarian countries in northern Europe and more traditional countries in southern Europe. A multilevel analysis shows that about half of the between-country variance in the division of housework is due to differences in older couples’ characteristics, but that there are no country-specific effects of the main microlevel explanatory variables. Finally, the authors find a significant effect of macrolevel gender inequalities on couples’ division of housework, suggesting that older couples living in more gender-egalitarian countries are more likely to exhibit an equal sharing of household labor.

Childbearing history, later-life health, and mortality in Germany

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigated the role of childbearing history in later-life health and mortality, paying particular attention to possible differences by sex and region. Higher parity is associated with better self-rated health in West German mothers and fathers aged 50+, but its relationship with East German womens physical health and survival is negative. Early motherhood is paralleled by poorer physical health in West Germany, whereas late motherhood is associated with lower psychological well-being in Eastern Germany. Moreover, among West German women, having had a non-marital first birth is weakly correlated with poorer physical health. Our findings support the notion of biosocial pathways playing an important role in shaping the fertility–health nexus. Specifically, the West German ‘male-breadwinner’ model of specialization appears to have buffered the stresses associated with childrearing, whereas fertility off the ‘normative’ life-course track appears to have had adverse effects on womens health in West Germany.

PARENTAL GENDER PREFERENCES AND REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR: A REVIEW OF THE RECENT LITERATURE

This paper reviews various theoretical approaches towards an explanation of parental gender preferences and empirical findings from developing as well as from industrialized countries, focusing on the role of gender preferences in reproductive decisions. Although various attempts have been made to shed light on the mechanisms underlying the observed patterns of sex preferences for children, a fully satisfying theoretical explanation is still not at hand. Empirically, a distinct and stable preference for at least one child of each sex can be observed as a common pattern of parental sex preferences across many different social, economic and cultural contexts. Further - and ideally multidisciplinary - research that helps to improve our understanding of this phenomenon is highly desirable.

The Individual and the Welfare State

Our health, our income and our social networks at older ages are the consequence of what has happened to us over the course of our lives. The situation at age 50+ reflects our own decisions as well as many environmental factors, especially interventions by the welfare state. This book explores the richness of 28,000 life histories in thirteen European countries, collected as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Combining these data with a comprehensive account of European welfare state interventions provides a unique opportunity to answer the important public policy questions of our time – how the welfare state affects people’s incomes, housing, families, retirement, volunteering and health. The overarching theme of the welfare state creates a book of genuinely interdisciplinary analyses, a valuable resource for economists, gerontologists, historians, political scientists, public health analysts, and sociologists alike.