My Wealth, (Y)Our Life Satisfaction? Sole and Joint Wealth Ownership and Life Satisfaction in Marriage

This study examines the money-subjective well-being nexus by studying the link between changes in jointly and solely (i.e. respondents’ own and their partner’s own) held gross wealth and changes in married individuals’ subjective well-being. Joint assets reflect norms of sharing responsibilities and resources. Solely held assets, in contrast, offer individual economic independence. Using wealth data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017), we estimate individual fixed effects regressions. Although coefficients for all three wealth measures are positive, our results highlight that only increases in jointly held wealth are associated with statistically significant increases in spouses’ life satisfaction in Germany. Despite expectations about a stronger relevance of joint wealth for men compared to women in line with men’s role as a financial provider for the family, we do not find substantial gender differences in the positive association between increases in joint wealth and life satisfaction. In light of the individualisation of marriages, our results highlight that the personal benefits associated with marital sharing of wealth seem to trump those of economic independence and financial autonomy

correction to unpacking configurational dynamics sequence analysis and qualitative comparative analysis as a mixed method design

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When working isn’t enough: family demographic processes and in-work poverty across the life course in the United States

Background: In-work poverty, a phenomenon that engenders social exclusion, is exceptionally high in the United States. The literature on in-work poverty focuses on occupational polarization, human capital, demographic characteristics, and welfare generosity. However, we have no knowledge on the effects of family demographic processes on in-work poverty across individuals' life courses.Objective: We estimate the risk of in-work poverty in the United States over the life course as a function of family demographic processes, namely leaving the parental home, union formation and dissolution, and the transition to parenthood.Methods: We use data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and fixed effects regression models with interactions between age and each family demographic process to estimate age-specific associations between these processes and the probability of in-work poverty.Results: In-work poverty is a common phenomenon across the life courses of our study cohort: 20% of individuals are at risk of in-work poverty at every age. However, the risk generally decreases for men and increases for women across the life course. Leaving the parental home, entering parenthood, and separation increase, while marriage decreases the risk of in-work poverty. While the associations between marital statuses and in-work poverty are stable over the life course, the associations between parental home leaving and fertility with in-work poverty vary by age.Contribution: Our findings demonstrate the importance of family demographic processes over and above traditional stratification factors for the risk of in-work poverty. Associations between family demographic processes and in-work poverty estimated for all age groups may be grossly underestimated.</br

Self-reported health among lone mothers in Switzerland : Do employment and education matter?

Lone mothers may have several difficulties taking up employment, especially if they live in a country where parents receive little support to reconcile work and family life. Under such circumstances, is it better to work in order to raise one’s income, even if life is more stressful, or to withdraw from the labour force? What is the association between employment and health? This is the question raised by Emanuela Struffolino, Laura Bernardi and Marieke Voorpostel in the particular context of Switzerland, where mothers of young children, whatever their conjugal status, are not encouraged by the government to work full-time. Using data from the Swiss Household Panel, the authors analyse the relationship between self-reported health and full-time or part-time working for lone mothers relative to mothers in couples, by the level of education. They highlight the higher risk of poor self-reported health for lone mothers compared with mothers in a couple, especially for those in small part-time jobs

Family demographic processes and in-work poverty: a systematic review

This article reviews ever published quantitative evidence on in-work poverty and family demographic processes in OECD and EU-28 countries. Despite the increasing attention to in-work poverty in Europe and beyond, a comprehensive and critical review on how family demographic processes shape in-work poverty risks is still missing. In this systematic review, we first provide a quantitative review of results from analyses that estimated the association between in-work poverty and parental home leaving, union formation, marriage, parenthood, and dissolution of non-marital and marital unions. This allows us to formulate tentative conclusions about whether and in which direction family demographic processes are associated with in-work poverty. Second, we discuss in detail conceptual and methodological advances in in-work poverty research, such as longitudinal analytical designs or attempts to make in-work poverty research more sensitive to policy context, gender, and the life course. Our review highlights theoretical and methodological challenges for future studies linking in-work poverty and family demography

Estimating the Relationship between Time-varying Covariates and Trajectories: The Sequence Analysis Multistate Model Procedure

The relationship between processes and time-varying covariates is of central theoretical interest in addressing many social science research questions. On the one hand, event history analysis (EHA) has been the chosen method to study these kinds of relationships when the outcomes can be meaningfully specified as simple instantaneous events or transitions. On the other hand, sequence analysis (SA) has made increasing inroads into the social sciences to analyze trajectories as holistic “process outcomes.” We propose an original combination of these two approaches called the sequence analysis multistate model (SAMM) procedure. The SAMM procedure allows the study of the relationship between time-varying covariates and trajectories of categorical states specified as process outcomes that unfold over time. The SAMM is a stepwise procedure: (1) SA-related methods are used to identify ideal-typical patterns of changes within trajectories obtained by considering the sequence of states over a predefined time span; (2) multistate event history models are estimated to study the probability of transitioning from a specific state to such ideal-typical patterns. The added value of the SAMM procedure is illustrated through an example from life-course sociology on how (1) time-varying family status is associated with women's employment trajectories in East and West Germany and (2) how German reunification affected these trajectories in the two subsocieties

Replication Files for "My Wealth, (Y)Our Life Satisfaction? Sole and Joint Wealth Ownership and Life Satisfaction in Marriage"

This study examines the money-subjective well-being nexus by studying the link between changes in jointly and solely (i.e. respondents’ own and their partner’s own) held gross wealth and changes in married individuals’ subjective well-being. Joint assets reflect norms of sharing responsibilities and resources. Solely held assets, in contrast, offer individual economic independence. Using wealth data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017), we estimate individual fixed effects regressions. Although coefficients for all three wealth measures are positive, our results highlight that only increases in jointly held wealth are associated with statistically significant increases in spouses’ life satisfaction in Germany. Despite expectations about a stronger relevance of joint wealth for men compared to women in line with men’s role as a financial provider for the family, we do not find substantial gender differences in the positive association between increases in joint wealth and life satisfaction. In light of the individualisation of marriages, our results highlight that the personal benefits associated with marital sharing of wealth seem to trump those of economic independence and financial autonomy

My wealth, (y)our life satisfaction? Sole and joint wealth ownership and life satisfaction in marriage

This study examines the money-subjective well-being nexus by studying the link between changes in jointly and solely (i.e. respondents’ own and their partner’s own) held gross wealth and changes in married individuals’ subjective well-being. Joint assets reflect norms of sharing responsibilities and resources. Solely held assets, in contrast, offer individual economic independence. Using wealth data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017), we estimate individual fixed effects regressions. Although coefficients for all three wealth measures are positive, our results highlight that only increases in jointly held wealth are associated with statistically significant increases in spouses’ life satisfaction in Germany. Despite expectations about a stronger relevance of joint wealth for men compared to women in line with men’s role as a financial provider for the family, we do not find substantial gender differences in the positive association between increases in joint wealth and life satisfaction. In light of the individualisation of marriages, our results highlight that the personal benefits associated with marital sharing of wealth seem to trump those of economic independence and financial autonomy