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School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have severely affected the lives of young people globally. This paper presents evidence on the return of young women to school in six sub-Saharan African countries during the pandemic. The analysis of representative survey data on women aged 15-25 indicates that in countries where restrictions on schools have been short-lived, both school re-opening and return to school have occurred broadly, with little variation across age, while female school attendance remains strongly depressed below pre-pandemic levels in countries where restrictions were still in place. Both women whose schools have remained closed and women who have already returned to school are less likely to have given birth or supplied labor during the pandemic than women who had already left school prior to COVID- 19, while women who have not returned to school exhibit a significantly higher birth rate than the latter. Further, women who have not returned to school are less likely to perform independent and paid work than women who had already left school prior to COVID-19, while they are just as likely to supply low-quality labor, indicating labor market scarring effects among the non-returning women.

This paper examines the prevalence of gender ideology classes among younger generations in contemporary Germany and analyses whether chances of class membership differ by gender or region. Studies based on a multidimensional understanding of gender ideology for Germany are rare and rely on ten-year-old data. This study draws on data from 18,530 women and men aged 18-49, collected in 2021 as part of the representative Family-Demography Panel Study FReDA, and applies latent class analysis to eight gender role attitude items. Subsequent regression modelling allows the identification of important predictors of gender ideology class membership. The largest identified class are the egalitarians, which forms the one end of the gender ideology spectrum, while the smallest class, the traditionals, forms the other. In addition, there are two heterogeneous classes, the egalitarian essentialists and the intensive parenting endorsers. Both men and West German residents have significantly higher chances of belonging to a class other than the egalitarians. The findings show that egalitarians are widespread and traditionals are rare among the younger generations in Germany, but above all that a considerable proportion of respondents have heterogeneous belief patterns. This is in line with international research showing that attitudinal change is not necessarily stalled, but rather that there has been a diversification of gender ideologies.

This study investigates whether the agency of women in Egypt and Jordan influences their personal ideal number of children and their ability to have no more children than they desire. Moreover, a "couple's perspective" is adopted by examining whether the relationship between women's agency and unwanted births persists even when the husband desires more children than his wife. The study uses data from the 2015 Egypt Health Issues Survey (EHIS) and the 2017-2018 Jordan Population and Family Health Survey (JPFHS). Poisson regressions are used to estimate the association between agency and fertility desires, and linear probability models are used to estimate the association between agency and the ability to have no more children than desired. The results indicate negative associations between women's decision-making power and their personal ideal number of children in Egypt, but not in Jordan. In both countries, being involved in decisions about their own healthcare is positively associated with women's ability to have no more children than desired. However, this positive association is not evident when the husband wants more children than his wife. Among such couples, women's agency is negatively associated with avoiding unwanted births.

The current article aims to take stock of the main insights into intergenerational relationships in Germany gained from the German Family Panel (pairfam) since its start in 2008. We review about 30 studies based on pairfam and present findings from (a) longitudinal and multi-actor studies, (b) studies investigating the complexity, diversity, and cultural variability of intergenerational relationships, as well as (c) research linking pairfam with other data sources. Over the past decade, pairfam has accomplished its mission to obtain information on intergenerational relations simultaneously and complete, in a life-span perspective, from a panel and multi-actor design, and to account for cultural variability of intergenerational relationships and for institutional settings in cross-national comparisons. With pairfam's upcoming transition to the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA) an uncommon situation emerges, in which the termination of a successful project's initial funding brings about extraordinary new opportunities. We may therefore expect to see yet another boost in research on intergenerational relationships in Germany over the coming decade.

The COVID‐19 pandemic has triggered severe global restrictions on international travel with the intention of limiting the spread of SARS‐CoV‐2 across countries. This paper studies the effects of the partial relaxation of these travel restrictions in Europe during the summer months of 2020. It exploits the staggered start of the summer school breaks across German states as an ex‐ogenous shock to the travel opportunities of the population. While the school breaks also increased mobility within Germany, the event study regressions include disaggregated and time‐varying controls for domestic mobility and local COVID‐19‐related restrictions. The resulting intention‐to‐treat effects of the relaxed travel restrictions show a significant and sizable increase of the COVID‐19 incidence in German counties during the later weeks of the school breaks. The increase can be partly ascribed to a mandatory testing regime for travel returnees from risk areas.

Population ageing and increasing employment rates among women have been well known trends for many years in many countries. This latter development means that the share of couples nearing retirement where both partners are working has been increasing. Surprisingly, little attention has been devoted to studying retirement in a couple context in greater detail. This article addresses the question whether and how couples coordinate their transitions from working life into retirement and which factors to consider when examining (non-)joint retirement patterns. The aim of this article is to improve the understanding of the complex interactions taking place in couple retirement processes that touch on the work and family sphere and to promote areas of future research along these lines. It contributes to the scholarly debate by providing a comprehensive summary of research devoted to studying couple retirement patterns and its antecedents from a life course perspective. To this end, research literature from more than 25 years is taken into account and various conceptual, theoretical and empirical aspects of couple retirement processes are discussed. Readers are provided with an overview of the concept of joint retirement, an idea of how widespread joint retirement is, and which factors to consider when studying retirement timing from a couple perspective.

In the face of persistent health inequalities in later life, the objective of the study is to examine whether distinct forms of health lifestyles and individual or collective social capital predict the probability of health resilience among a cohort of men and women aged 65 and older from lower social classes. A longitudinal study design based on four waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel (2002 to 2008) was employed. The study cohort included 2,075 participants. Analyses were performed using hierarchical-linear models, cluster analyses and binary logistic regressions. The main outcome measures were health-related quality of life, based on a modified SF12, and a dichotomised measure for health resilience based on the SF12 scores. A social gradient was observed for the physical health of men and for the mental health of women, respectively, with participants from lower social classes reporting lesser scores of health-related quality of life compared to participants with higher socioeconomic status. Regarding the physical resilience of elderly men, a moderate health conscious lifestyle was the most pronounced predictor (OR=9.5, p<0.1%). Social capital did not elevate the probability of physical resilience among men. Mental resilience of women was strongly associated with a health conscious lifestyle as well as a moderate health risky lifestyle (OR=4.2, p<0.1% in each case). Quantitative aspects of social capital, like an above average number of friends and close relatives, were positively associated with mental resilience of elderly women (OR=1.9, p<0.1% and OR=1.3, p<5%, respectively). The data provides evidence that health conscious as well as moderate health risky lifestyles and quantitative aspects of individual social capital serve as protective factors for health resilience among older men and women with low socioeconomic status. The findings could be used as guidelines to promote health resilience among the elderly in lower social classes and thus to reduce health inequalities in later life.

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries faced short-term fertility declines in 2020 and 2021, a development which did not materialize in Scandinavian and German-speaking countries. However, more recent birth statistics show a steep fertility decline in the aftermath of the pandemic in 2022. We aim to provide data on the unexpected birth decline in 2022 in Germany and Sweden and relate these data to pandemic-related contextual developments which could have influenced the post-pandemic fertility development. We rely on monthly birth statistics and present seasonally adjusted monthly Total Fertility Rates (TFR) for Germany and Sweden. We relate the nine-months lagged fertility rates to contextual developments regarding COVID-19 mortality and morbidity, unemployment rates, and COVID-19 vaccinations. The seasonally adjusted monthly TFR of Germany dropped from 1.5-1.6 in 2021 to 1.3-1.4 in 2022, a decline of about 14%. In Sweden, the corresponding TFR dropped from about 1.7 in 2021 to 1.5-1.6 in 2022, a decline of almost 10%. There is no association of the fertility trends with changes in unemployment, infection rates, or COVID-19 deaths. However, there is a strong association between the onset of vaccination programmes and the fertility decline nine months after of this onset. The fertility decline in the first months of 2022 in Germany and Sweden is remarkable. Common explanations of fertility change during the pandemic do not apply in its aftermath. The association between the onset of mass vaccinations and subsequent fertility decline indicates that people adjusted their behaviour to get vaccinated before becoming pregnant, as societies were opening up with post-pandemic life conditions. Our study provides novel information on fertility declines in countries previously not affected by any COVID-19 baby bust. We provide a first appraisal of the COVID-19-fertility nexus in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic.

Objective: This paper investigates whether weekend work is associated with higher levels of work-family conflict (WFC) among parents, and whether resources like schedule control or presence of a partner mitigate this effect. Background: The 24/7 economy requires many workers to work on weekends. Nevertheless, research on the impact of weekend work on families, and on WFC in particular, is underdeveloped, with previous studies relying on cross-sectional data and small samples. Method: Associations between regular weekend work and a measure of WFC are examined using data from fourteen waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The sample is restricted to workers aged 18 to 64 years with parenting responsibilities for children aged 17or less (7,753 individuals, 40,216 observations). Both pooled ordinary least squares and fixed-effects regression models are estimated. Results: Among both genders, weekend workers have significantly higher levels of WFC than those who only work weekdays. WFC is particularly high for those who work weekends and simultaneously have little control over their schedule. And whereas WFC is generally higher for single parents, week-end work affects WFC similarly for couple and single parents. Conclusion: Weekend work generally has a detrimental effect on workers' ability to combine employment with parenting commitments. However, work-domain resources like schedule control can buffer the impact of weekend work.

Despite increasing research, the diversity of role transitions and the interplay between productive roles among older adults are still not adequately understood. This also applies to labor force participation and family care at the transition to retirement. In order to narrow this research gap, this article examines the diversity of transitions/continuities between employment and informal family care among older adults in Germany. Based on role theory and disengagement approach, a typology of transitions/continuities between employment and informal family care was created using data from three waves of the study "Transitions and Old Age Potential" (TOP) over a period of six years (2013-2019). Transitions/continuities between labor market participation and family roles can be described empirically in terms of four main types: role substitution, role expansion, role extension, and dis-/nonengagement. These can be broken down further into subtypes, which reveals the diversity of role transitions/continuities among older adults and suggests different causal relationships. Continuity and fluctuation are found to coexist, with strong evidence for either episodic or gradual/fluid patterns of role transitions. Time commitment in productive roles has a noticeable influence on transition/continuity types. However, the impact of sociodemographic, occupational and personal predictors suggests that labor market-related inequalities and subjective preferences are also influencing the transitions between employment and family care. The findings are innovative in terms of a theory-based typology of role transitions/continuities that offers new insights into the diversity of role transitions and their determinants among older adults not only in Germany, but also in other countries with aging populations.

In contemporary households, women often shoulder most organisation and caregiving responsibilities leading them to play a crucial role in family dynamics. While previous research has established that public early childcare affects child outcomes and maternal employment, less attention has been given to its effects on maternal health despite its relevance within the household. This study investigates the impact of public early childcare on maternal shortand long-term health. Based on administrative health records covering 90% of the German population over a decade, we leverage the exogenous variation in childcare coverage rates across counties and time induced by a major German early childcare expansion. Our results reveal an intra-household transmission of communicable diseases: mothers experience 4-8% more infections and 2-4% more respiratory diseases for a 10 percentage point rise in childcare coverage rates when their children are 1-2 years old. In contrast, mothers benefit from reductions in obesity and anaemia, and heterogeneity analyses show a lower prevalence of moodand stress-related disorders for multiparous and older mothers. The policy implications of our findings extend beyond the health impacts of early childcare on mothers and shed light on the broader dynamics within families.

Separations exert a detrimental impact on different areas of life in both adults and children. Having already experienced family instability, stepfamily members are at risk of experiencing even multiple family separations across the life course. To better understand stepfamily (in)stability in Europe, we study stability risks and facilitators between stepfamilies in Germany. We pursue Cherlin's perspective of stepfamilies' destabilizing lack of institutionalization. Specifically, we assess the impact of social control in terms of social and legislative conditions, (step)parents' social roles in terms of gender roles, and customs and conventions of family life in terms of union status. We apply event history analysis to a sample of 2,166 stepfamilies, 543 of which end up separated, from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). For example, we find that social and legislative liberalization might destabilize stepfamilies if it eases leaving unhappy relationships, and might stabilize stepfamilies if it alleviates stepfamilies' financial or caregiving burdens through de-familiarization. In contrast to stepfather families, stepmother families' stability appears to profit from stepmothers' and biological fathers' investment in stepfamily relationships to make up for noncomplying with gendered social roles. Overall, stepfamily stability appears to benefit from individual as well as societal pursuits of re-institutionalization.

This study investigates how the transition to parenthood relates to changes in personal attitudes and perceived public opinion towards external childcare for children under three. We use German panel data which capture cultural perceptions such as individual attitudes and perceived public opinions regarding day care for under threes. We analyze how both variables change during the family formation phase using panel regressions with linear between-within (hybrid) models. The findings suggest that cultural perceptions are strongly influenced by life course events. After their first child is born, parents are less skeptical of day care for under threes; however, we found no systematic changes in perceived public opinion. The results show an increasing gap between personal attitudes of parents and their perception of public opinion regarding childcare acceptance. These diverging views point to a conflict between the wish to use external childcare and societal expectations, which has strong implications for gender equality.

We analyze data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, including a pre-pandemic baseline and seven survey waves between May 2020 and September 2021. Fixed effects panel regression models are run over more than 11,000 individuals, distinguishing among women and men with young children (< 5 years), older children (5-15 years), or no children in the household. We hypothesize that declines in life satisfaction during the first lockdown are sharper among parents, whose domestic demands increase, than among the childless. We develop competing hypotheses that parents might be resilient and have higher life satisfaction during the later phases (Adaptation Hypothesis) or that the pandemic stressors accumulate, leading to even lower satisfaction during (Accumulation Hypothesis). The results only support the Accumulation Hypothesis among mothers. Whereas mothers fared comparatively well during the first lockdown, further pandemic stressors have seemingly exhausted their resilience, leading to stronger declines during the winter 2020/2021 lockdown. Among men with older children and without children, life satisfaction decreased during the first and subsequent lockdowns. Men with young children were the only group with almost unchanged life satisfaction throughout the pandemic.

Collecting retrospective data generally is accompanied by questions concerning the quality and reliability of such data. The aim of this article is to contribute to this body of research by analysing the fertility and partnership histories within the German Generations and Gender Survey (GGS). Although landmark events such as the birth of children or marriage are commonly regarded as reliable memories and therefore are assumed to be applicable retrospectively without much decrement in data quality, we find severe distortions in the retrospective data on fertility and relationship in the German GGS by comparison to the Microcensus. In fertility histories there is a major overestimation of childless women in older cohorts as well as an underestimation of this group in middleaged cohorts. Regarding partnership history we have too many women never married in the older cohorts and too many married in the younger cohorts. We find that these distortions are mainly attributed to problems caused by survey organisation. The random route sampling procedure of the German GGS has led to problems, as has the instrument, which lacked control mechanisms while simultaneously being very complex. We also find indications of problematic interviewers, but we cannot delete the deviations in the data to our satisfaction as they are bound to be multicausal. We therefore conclude that there are combined effects of the sampling procedure, the complexity, and the length of the instrument that all contribute to interviewer effects.