Fertility Ideals of Women and Men Across the Life Course

This paper explores the stability of women’s and men’s fertility preferences across the life course. The data come from the first six waves of the German Family Panel (pairfam), which span the period from 2008/2009 until 2013/2014. In our analysis, fertility preferences are measured using the following question: “Under ideal circumstances, how many children would you like to have?” The average number cited by both women and men is 2.2. With rising age, this number declines modestly. Relying on fixed-effects modelling, we find that neither partnership status nor economic circumstances have any causal effect on fertility preferences. However, as the number of children a respondent has increases, his or her ideal number of children is also likely to grow. Thus, fertility ideals appear to undergo changes over time, and are adjusted in line with the size of the respondent’s own family

The Portuguese version of the Psychological Adjustment to Separation Test-Part A (PAST-A): a study with recently and non-recently divorced adults

Past research has demonstrated that divorced adults show more health problems and psychological distress than married adults. Considering the high prevalence rates of divorce among Western countries, new and robust measures should be developed to measure psychological distress after this specific transition in adulthood. The aim of this study was to adapt and validate a Portuguese version of the Psychological Adjustment to Separation Test-Part A (PAST-A; Sweeper and Halford in J Family Psychol 20(4):632–640, 2006). PAST-A is a self-report measure that assesses two key dimensions of separation adjustment problems: lonely-negativity and former partner attachment. Psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of PAST-A were assessed in terms of factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent and divergent validity, in an online convenience sample with divorced adults (N = 460). The PAST-A two-factor structure was confirmed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, with each factor demonstrating very satisfactory internal consistency and good convergence. In terms of discriminant validity, the Portuguese PAST-A reveals a distinct factor from psychological growth after divorce. The results provided support for the use of the Portuguese PAST-A with divorced adults and also suggested that the explicative factors of the psychological adjustment to divorce may be cross-cultural stable. The non-existence of validated divorce-related well-being measures and its implications for divorce research are also discussed

Marital dissolution and personal wealth: examining gendered trends across the dissolution process

This study examined men’s and women’s personal wealth changes over the marital dissolution process starting up to three years prior to separation and continuing up to 15 years post divorce. Incipient literature showed steep wealth declines for men and women associated with marital dissolution, but most research treated marital dissolution as a single point-in-time event. This may be limiting as legal regulations and divorce-stress-adjustment research conceptualize marital dissolution as a process that potentially lasts several years. Using fixed-effects regression models, we analyzed personal net wealth changes as well as changes in personal housing wealth and financial wealth of individuals whose marriages dissolved between 2002 and 2017. Analyses used comprehensive wealth data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel study. With 85 and 78 percent reductions in personal wealth of men and women, respectively, separation was the most critical point for wealth depletion, whereas the divorce proceeding did not pose additional wealth penalties. This separation penalty was mainly driven by declines in housing wealth whereas marginal, but lasting, financial wealth losses were found prior to actual separation. Wealth levels did not improve in the years after divorce for either men or women. Overall, gender differences in relative wealth changes over the entire dissolution process were negligible. Results illustrate important variations in personal wealth measures over the marital dissolution process leading to potentially lasting economic disadvantages. Relative personal wealth declines were thereby damaging for both men and women, although men held more absolute wealth than women

Separation : consequences for wealth in later life

Headlines: Separation as an increasingly important issue In the long term The Importance of Institutions Data and Variables Results Conclusion