Paul M. de Graaf

Trends in the Occupational Returns to Educational Credentials in the Dutch Labor Market: Changes in Structures and in the Association?:

In this article, we determine changes in the relationship between education and the labor market in The Netherlands since 1960, for which both developments in the distribution of the labor force according to educational attainment and level of occupation (structural changes) and shifts in the mechanism to allocate educated individuals to occupational positions (which modify the net association between education and occupation) are used. To observe both developments, we make use of data from the 1960 Census and four Labor Force Surveys held in 1973, 1977, 1985, and 1991. Loglinear analysis shows that the association between education and occupation has altered. We conclude that changes in the relationship between education and occupation are not only the result of structural changes, but also the outcome of changes in the way educated individuals are allocated to jobs. These shifts in the allocation mechanism are largely connected with the state of the business cycle: in times of high unemployment, employers increasingly select employees on the basis of their education. We also find some support for modernization theory, but as soon as the state of the business cycle is accounted for, the impact of modernization becomes non-significant.

Divorce Motives in a Period of Rising Divorce: Evidence From a Dutch Life-History Survey

Using survey data on 1,718 ever-divorced men and women in the Netherlands, the authors describe the motives people give for their divorce. The authors distinguish motives regarding three types of issues: relational issues, behavioral problems, and problems about work and the division of labor. They observe three important trends: the normalization of divorce, the psychologization of relationships, and the emancipation of women. First, severe divorce motives (e.g., violence and infidelity) have become less important. The authors interpret this finding in terms of a threshold hypothesis: When the threshold for divorce is higher, marriages that end in divorce will be more problematic. Second, there has been a trend toward more relational and psychological motives, particularly among women. Third, problems in the realm of work and household labor have become more important motives for a divorce. This is consistent with the increase in emancipatory attitudes in the past decades.

Trends in the Intergenerational Transmission of Cultural and Economic Status

Research on intergenerational occupational mobility in The Netherlands has shown that the association between the occupational positions of parents and their offspring has decreased over time. This article elaborates on the idea that the occupational stratification includes both a cultural and an economic hierarchy and that the process of intergenerational mobility follows different patterns in these two dimensions. The main hypothesis is that the intergenerational transmission of cultural status is related more strongly to the indirect channel, via educational attainment, than the transmission of economic status, and that the equalization of educational opportunities has especially affected the cultural transmission of social status. Data from The Netherlands’ Mobility File are used, and the occupational mobility of 5,921 men and 3,457 women between 35 and 65 years of age is analyzed for cohorts who entered the labor market between 1923 and 1984. The findings are that the direct transmission of both cultural and economic status has virtually disappeared by the end of the observation period, for both men and women. For men, the indirect channel via education has decreased in the cultural dimension but not in the economic dimension. For women, the trends in the total effects of fathers’ cultural and economic status are much weaker than those for men, which is caused by an increase of the indirect channel via education in both dimensions.

Vocational Training and Career Employment Precariousness in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden

The skills, qualifications and credentials generated by educational systems are strongly related to labour market attainment. The centrality of the educational system for the structuring of individuals life chances has generated a long-lived and intense debate around the proper design of educational systems. The purpose of this article is to examine whether vocational training provided within the educational system protects graduates against employment precariousness over the life course. The extent and character of vocational training are related here to the transition from school to work, the risk of unemployment once established on the labour market, and the likelihood of finding new employment if unemployed. The data used consist of life history data from Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden. The results suggest that the impact of vocational training on labour market precariousness changes over peoples work career. Vocational training reduces precariousness during the transition from school to work, whereas there is no difference in the impact of general and vocational education on unemployment risk once established on the labour market. Instead, among those who do become unemployed there are indications that general education may be more beneficial.

Friendly and Antagonistic Contact Between Former Spouses After Divorce: Patterns and Determinants

This study presents descriptive and explanatory analyses of contact between former spouses, using data on 1,791 previously married men andwomen in the Netherlands. The authors employ a typology of relationships between former spouses, differentiating between friendly contact, antagonistic contact, and no contact. Ten years after divorce, still almost half of the respondents report contact with their former spouse. Especially the number of former couples with antagonistic contact decreases strongly over time. In multivariate models, we examine six hypotheses concerning (a) duration, (b) prior attachments, (c) prior conflicts, (d) life-course events after divorce, (e) liberal family values, and (f) personality. Important predictors of postdivorce contact are duration since divorce, prior economic ties, the presence of joint children, marital duration, marital conflicts, a newrelationship, and liberal values. Couples with joint children have both more friendly contact and more antagonistic contact than other couples. This difference is largest for antagonistic contact.

Testing the modernization hypothesis and the socialist ideology hypothesis: a comparative sibling analysis of educational attainment and occupational status.

In this study, we present a comparative sibling analysis. This enables us to test two major social mobility hypotheses, i.e. the modernization hypothesis and the socialist ideology hypothesis. We employ survey data on brothers in England, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, and the USA, covering a historical period from 1916 till 1990. Results show that the effects of parental social class on educational attainment are smaller in technologically advanced societies, and that the effects of parental social class on occupational status are smaller in social-democratic and communist societies. In addition, the total family impact on occupational status declines with modernization. But overall, we observe that the family of origin has not lost its importance for its sons educational attainment and occupational status yet.