Is the Second Demographic Transition a useful concept for demography?

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Gender Equality, Parenthood Attitudes, and First Births in Sweden

We analyse Swedish survey data on attitudes about parenthood among young adults aged 22-30 in 1999, and examine who became parents over the next four years. Our results show that while both men and women perceive more benefits to parenthood than costs, men are more likely than women to perceive both negative and positive consequences of parenthood. Further, gender role attitudes shape parental attitudes differentially for men and women. More egalitarian men perceive fewer costs and more egalitarian women perceive fewer benefits than those with more traditional gender role attitudes. Our analyses of the transition to parenthood indicate that, even controlling assessments of the costs and benefits of children, men with more traditional attitudes were more likely to become fathers at an early age, while gender role attitudes had no effect on women’s transition to parenthood. In contrast, there were no gender differentials in the effects of costs and benefits, each of which strongly affected the transition to parenthood, but, of course, in opposite directions. We interpret these findings to indicate that even in a country as far into the Second Demographic Transition as Sweden, negotiating shared parenthood is still sufficiently difficult that it depresses fertility, but now because of its impact on men.

Sweden: Combining childbearing and gender equality

Sweden is the forerunner of the Second Demographic Transition. Fertility trends have fluctuated greatly since the 1960s, and the 1990s showed both European-highest and lowest-ever-in-Sweden levels, while the cohort pattern has been relatively stable. Period fluctuations have been accompanied by a postponement of entering committed partnerships and parenthood as well as an increasing instability of family relationships. The awareness and the availability of effective contraceptives have been extensive since the mid-1970s, the year the liberal abortion law was introduced. Post-modern values are dominant in this highly secularized society, but ideal family size is among the highest in the European Union, and childlessness has remained at a relatively low level. Ethnic diversification has increased over time, with about one-fifth of the population having a ‘foreign background’ in the early 2000s. The level of female labor-force participation is the highest in Europe (although mothers of pre-schoolers often work part-time), and young women are just as highly educated as men. Family policies, based on the principle of equality across social groups and gender, seem to play an important role in keeping fertility relatively high. In combination with other factors, family policies also play a role in the fluctuations of fertility rates, as eligibility to parental-leave and benefits as well as the availability of public childcare are linked to parents’ labor-force attachment.childbearing, Europe, fertility, gender equality, Sweden

Ambivalence about Children in the Family Building Process in Sweden

Sweden provides strong support for childbearing and parenthood, including generously subsidized medical, maternal, and child care, paid parental leave, and child allowances. In this context, attitudes towards parenthood are likely to have a particularly strong impact on the decision about whether and when to have children. We examine the links between first births and holding attitudes about children, not just of positive and negative attitudes, but also of ambivalence, namely those who both value children but also value the things that compete with parenthood for young adults’ time and other resources. Our analysis shows, measuring attitudes before the transition to parenthood, that ambivalence about childbearing delays the transition to parenthood, but not nearly as much as holding purely negative attitudes. Further, reporting an ambivalent experience from the first child had no significant effect on further childbearing, which testifies to the strong two-child norm in Sweden

It's Not Just the ATMs: Technology, Firm Strategies, Jobs, and Earnings in Retail Banking

The authors examine trends in job content and earnings in selected jobs in two American banks. Firm restructuring and technological changes resulted in higher earnings for college-educated workers. The banks followed different strategies in implementing these changes for lower-skill jobs, with different effects on bank tellers in particular. The authors conclude that technology enables workplace reform but does not determine its effect on jobs and earnings; these effects are contingent on managerial strategies. This focus on organizational processes and managerial strategy provides a complementary approach to accounts of growing inequality that center solely on the role of individual skills and technological change.

Integrating the second generation: gender and family attitudes in early adulthood in Sweden

'Dieser Artikel nimmt die Einstellungen zu drei im jungen Erwachsenenalter auftretenden familialen Herausforderungen bei im Lande geborenen Schweden unterschiedlicher Herkunft in den Blick. Wir untersuchten ihre Einstellungen hinsichtlich des Eingehens einer neuen Partnerschaft durch Zusammenwohnen versus Ehe und des Eingehens einer Partnerschaft innerhalb oder außerhalb der eigenen ethnischen Gruppe sowie hinsichtlich der Bevorzugung einer eher traditionellen oder eher egalitären Balance zwischen Arbeit und Familie, wenn die Kinder noch klein sind. Die Einstellungen auf diesen Dimensionen zeigen das Ausmaß auf, in dem die erwachsenen, in Schweden lebenden Kinder polnischer oder türkischer Abstammung entweder die schwedischen Familienform akzeptiert haben oder aber von sich selbst erwarten, dass sie einige familiale Besonderheiten beibehalten werden. Unsere Analyse basiert auf einem 1999 durchgeführten Survey junger Erwachsener in Schweden (Family and Working Life in the 21st Century). Dieses Survey bestand aus 2.326 Teilnehmern im Alter von 22 bis 26 Jahren, von denen 500 mindestens einen Elternteil hatten, der entweder in der Türkei oder in Polen geboren war. Wir konzentrierten uns auf die Faktoren, die die Akzeptanz schwedischer Familienformen erhöhen: Wir betrachteten die Effekte zwei Messinstrumente zur Einwirkung schwedischer Wertvorstellungen durch die Wohnumgebung (Bildungswesen, ethnische Segregation in der Nachbarschaft, eines Messinstrumentes zum Grad der Einwirkung schwedischer Wertvorstellungen während der Kindheit in der eigenen Familie (bikulturelle Ehe der eigenen Eltern) sowie einen Faktor, der von einer Abschwächung der Unterstützung für die familialen Herkunftskultur (Bruch mit der Familienstruktur der Elternfamilie) ausgeht. Wir fanden heraus, dass systematische Unterschiede in den Einstellungen zur Familie in der zweiten Generation aufgrund der jeweiligen ethnischen Herkunft bestehen. Es gibt große Unterschiede zwischen jungen Erwachsenen türkischer und schwedischer Herkunft, wohingegen Schweden polnischer Abstammung den Schweden sehr viel ähnlicher sind. Nicht desto trotz scheinen sich die Einstellungen junger Frauen und Männer sowohl polnischer als auch türkischer Herkunft denen ihrer Altersgenossen schwedischer Herkunft anzunähern, jedenfalls im Vergleich zu den in den ethnischen Gemeinschaften ihrer Eltern. Dies hängt jedoch vom Wohnumfeld und den Familienzusammenhängen, in denen sie in Schweden aufwuchsen, ab.' (Autorenreferat)'This paper focuses on attitudes towards three family challenges of early adulthood among native-born Swedes of differing origins. We examine attitudes towards forming new partnerships through cohabitation versus marriage, partnering within or outside one's national group, and preferring a more traditional versus a more egalitarian balance of work and family when children are young. Attitudes about these dimensions reveal the extent to which the adult children of Polish and Turkish origins living in Sweden have accepted Swedish family forms or expect to retain some forms of family distinctiveness. We base our analysis on a 1999 survey of young adults in Sweden (Family and Working Life in the 21st Century). The survey consisted of 2,326 respondents who were ages 22 and 26, of whom 500 had at least one parent who was born either in Turkey or Poland. We focus on the factors increasing acceptance of Swedish family forms. We consider the effects of two measures of exposure to Swedish values in the community (education, neighborhood ethnic segregation), a measure indicating the extent of exposure to Swedish values in the childhood family (parental intermarriage), and a factor suggesting the weakening of familial support for the culture of origin (disrupted childhood family structure). We find that there are systematic differences in family attitudes among the second generation that reflect their ethnic origins, with sharp differences between young adults of Turkish and Swedish origins. Swedes of Polish origin much more closely resemble those of Swedish origins. Nevertheless, the attitudes of young women and men of both Polish and Turkish origins appear to be approaching those of Swedish-origin young adults, relative to the family patterns in their parents' home communities. This, however, depends on the community and family contexts in which they grew up in Sweden.' (author's abstract

Efficacy and toxicity of bimodal radiotherapy in WHO grade 2 meningiomas following subtotal resection with carbon ion boost:Prospective phase 2 MARCIE trial

Background: Novel radiotherapeutic modalities using carbon ions provide an increased relative biological effectiveness (RBE) compared to photons, delivering a higher biological dose while reducing radiation exposure for adjacent organs. This prospective phase 2 trial investigated bimodal radiotherapy using photons with carbon-ion (C12)-boost in patients with WHO grade 2 meningiomas following subtotal resection (Simpson grade 4 or 5).Methods:A total of 33 patients were enrolled from July 2012 until July 2020. The study treatment comprised a C12-boost (18 Gy [RBE] in 6 fractions) applied to the macroscopic tumor in combination with photon radiotherapy (50 Gy in 25 fractions). The primary endpoint was the 3-year progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoints included overall survival, safety and treatment toxicities. Results:With a median follow-up of 42 months, the 3-year estimates of PFS, local PFS and overall survival were 80.3%, 86.7%, and 89.8%, respectively. Radiation-induced contrast enhancement (RICE) was encountered in 45%, particularly in patients with periventricularly located meningiomas. Patients exhibiting RICE were mostly either asymptomatic (40%) or presented immediate neurological and radiological improvement (47%) after the administration of corticosteroids or bevacizumab in case of radiation necrosis (3/33). Treatment-associated complications occurred in 1 patient with radiation necrosis who died due to postoperative complications after resection of radiation necrosis. The study was prematurely terminated after recruiting 33 of the planned 40 patients. Conclusions:Our study demonstrates a bimodal approach utilizing photons with C12-boost may achieve a superior local PFS to conventional photon RT, but must be balanced against the potential risks of toxicities.</p