Koenraad Matthijs

The effect of personalization on response rates and data quality in web surveys

Personalizing correspondence has often shown to significantly increase survey response rates in mail surveys. This study experimentally tests whether personalization of email invitations acts correspondingly to web survey response rates. Also, it is investigated whether personalization influences data quality. The results of the study, using a large student sample, show that personalization significantly increases the web survey response rate by 8.6 percentage points. The data quality does not appear to be affected in any major way by personalizing the email invitations. However, the analyses do show that respondents of the personalization condition tend to respond with more social desirability bias to sensitive questions. Therefore, it is concluded that personalization has positive effects on the survey response rate, but one should carefully consider whether or not to personalize when a survey on sensitive topics is conducted.

Commuting between two parental households: The association between joint physical custody and adolescent wellbeing following divorce

Abstract This study examines the association between joint physical custody and adolescent wellbeing and whether this relationship is conditioned by the degree of parental conflict, the quality of the parent–child relationship and the complexity of the family configuration of mother and father. We use data from the LAGO-project, containing information on 1,570 children with divorced parents. Overall the wellbeing of children in joint physical custody is similar to that of children in other custody arrangements. However, under certain circumstances joint physical custody can become negatively related to child wellbeing. We find support for the moderating effects of parental conflict, quality of the relationship with mother and father, and the presence of a new partner in the parental households.

A social component in the negative effect of sons on maternal longevity in pre-industrial humans

Due to their effect on maternal testosterone levels, sons are said to have reduced maternal longevity in pre-industrial humans. This analysis, using information from a Flemish agricultural village in the 18th-20th centuries, confirms the presence of a negative effect of sons on maternal longevity. However, the effect is mainly observed for mothers belonging to the least privileged social group and for sons surviving their fifth birthday. Both findings make the above-mentioned biological explanation relative. However, a plausible alternative, social interpretation is male-dominated intra-household resource competition. It is reasonable to assume that only sons above a certain age are able to claim a serious amount of resources and that competition is strongest within the least privileged social group.

Mimetic Appetite for Marriage in Nineteenth-Century Flanders: Gender Disadvantage As an Incentive for Social Change

The development of age at first marriage in three regions of Flanders (roughly the northern part of Belgium) during 1800 to 1913 is examined by gender and social status. The study areas are Leuven, Aalst, and Bierbeek—three municipalities with different socioeconomic structures and cultural climates. All the data from these municipalities were coded and taken from almost 17,000 marriage certificates. The demographic marriage parameters point to the same thing: from the midnineteenth century, a passionate zest for marriage became obvious in Flanders. The proportion of those remaining unmarried fell sharply, and age at first marriage declined rapidly. This process occurred among all social groups. It is hypothesized that this process can be explained by the changed social position and gender identity of women, together with the new economic possibilities for men.

Demographic and Sociological Indicators of Privatisation of Marriage in the 19th Century in Flanders

Relying on the assumption that privatisation of family life intensified in the19th century and that women were the pioneers in this process, we formulate nine hypotheses concerning indicators on family and marriage. The hypotheses are tested using data for three municipalities in Flanders (roughly the northern part of Belgium) covering the period 1800–1913, taken from about 17,000marriage certificates. Special emphasis is on gender and social status distinctions. Most of the hypotheses, particularly those relating to first marriage, are confirmed. The various developments point to an underlying process which we refer to here as the privatisation of marriage, which can be explained by the changed social position and gender identity of women. The hypothesis put forward is that19th-century economic and political marginalisation encouraged women to develop their dyadic power in primary relationships. Marrying young and creating an identity around expressive family and motherhood tasks was, for many women, a reaction to and a remedy for their public exclusion and economic subordination.

Measuring Postdivorce Living Arrangements Theoretical and Empirical Validation of the Residential Calendar

In this article, we present a new method for measuring residential arrangements of children following parental divorce. We discuss the limitations of conventional methods for measuring postdivorce residential situations of children, but our principal objective is to present a promising alternative, the residential calendar. We evaluate its utility with data coming from the Leuven Adolescents and Families project, collected from a sample of 878 Flemish adolescents, who have experienced a parental breakup. Several substantive and methodological arguments and supporting analyses illustrate the potential value of the residential calendar for collecting policy-relevant data on the consequences of divorce.

The Antwerp COR*-database: A unique Flemish source for historical-demographic research

This note describes the origin, the history, structure and characteristics of a recently constructed Flemish (the Northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) historical-demographic database. The so-called Antwerp COR*-database offers a unique combination of features: it spans nearly seven decades (1846 to 1920) and consists of information drawn from the population registers and the vital registration records (birth, marriage, and death) of the whole district of Antwerp. Every person whose family name starts with the letter combination COR* is selected in the database. The database covers three linked generations and contains micro-data on the individual level (life courses), intermediary data on family patterns, and macro-data on ecological characteristics.

Joint physical custody and adolescents’ subjective well-being: A personality × environment interaction.

Shared residence after divorce is rising in most Western countries and legally recommended by law in Belgium since 2006. Living with both parents after divorce is assumed to increase childrens well-being, through a better parent-child relationship, but may also be stressful, as children live in 2 different family settings. In this study, we investigate whether the association between the residential arrangement of adolescents and 3 measures of subjective well-being (depressive feelings, life satisfaction, and self-esteem) is moderated by the Big Five personality factors. The sample is selected from the national representative Divorce in Flanders study and contains information about 506 children from divorced parents between 14- and 21-years-old. Our findings indicated a consistent pattern of interactions between conscientiousness and joint physical custody for 2 of the 3 subjective well-being indicators. The specific demands of this residential arrangement (making frequent transitions, living at 2 places, adjustment to 2 different lifestyles, etc.) may interfere with the nature of conscientious adolescents: being organized, ordered, and planful. Our results showed support for a Person × Environment interaction, and demonstrate the need for considering the individual characteristics of the child when settling postdivorce residential arrangements.

Marrying in the city in times of rapid urbanization.

Economic, social, political, and demographic processes changed Western European cities strongly during the nineteenth century. Especially during this time, the northern part of Belgium (Flanders) became highly urbanized. Investigating the long-term development of the marriage pattern in the cities of Antwerp, Aalst, and Ghent gives a detailed picture of the evolution of the urban marriage pattern. In this article, specific emphasis is on gender, social, and migration distinctions. The results confirm that there is a male—female difference and variation among various social and migrant groups in the age at first marriage during the period 1800—1906. Moreover, regional differences are also visible. In the port city of Antwerp, massive immigration caused a unique evolution in the age at first marriage during the last decades of the nineteenth century, which did not appear in the textile cities of Aalst and Ghent during this time.

The Inheritance of Longevity in a Flemish Village (18th-20th Century)

The transmission of longevityor post-reproductive survival from parents tooffspring is investigated using data ondemographic and socio-economic characteristicsof the inhabitants of a small Flemish village(Moerzeke) over a period of three hundredyears. This research confirms the possibleexistence of biological mechanisms intransmitting longevity from parent tooffspring. However, this finding can only beobserved for men and women belonging tospecific birth cohorts (mainly those men bornbetween 1821 and 1860 and those women bornbetween 1791 and 1830). Furthermore, thesex-specificity of the transmission, which waspresent in other studies, is not found in thisresearch. Both factors indicate that theimportance of ones biological potential forlongevity can only be realized in specificsocietal conditions.