Faculty of Social Sciences
THE SECOND
CONFERENCE OF THE
EUROPEAN RESEARCH NETWORK ON DIVORCE
Organized by
Jaap
Dronkers & Michael
November 13 & 14, 2003
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
1.
Conference Program 2
2. Abstracts 5
3.
Practical info 13
4.
The network 15
5.
Participants 17
6. Contact 20
1.
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER
20.30-21.30 Welcome drinks (Bar of Hotel De
Druiventros)
THURSDAY
13 NOVEMBER
9.00-9.15 Coffee (Building E, Campus)
9.15-9.20 Opening of the conference (
9.20-11.00 Causes of divorce 1 (Room 8, Building E,
Campus)
Chair:
Thomas Klein (
Felix Elwert (
Yvonne Aberg (
11.00-11.30
Coffee
11.30-12.40
Causes of divorce 2
Chair: Jaap Dronkers
Hartmut Esser (
12.40-14.00 Lunch (The Tilbury, Building H, Campus)
14.00-15.45
Causes of divorce 3
Chair: Jaap Dronkers
Dorien Manting, A. Loeve & A. de Graaf (
Ewa Fraczak (
Anne-Rigt Poortman (
15.45-16.15 Tea
16.15-18.00 Consequences of divorce for divorcees
Chair:
Hans-Jürgen Andreß (
Patrick Festy & Lidia Prokofieva
(France/Russia): The economic consequences of divorce on men and women in
Dimitri Mortelmans & Sarah van Ourti (
19.00-22.00
Conference Dinner (Restaurant
Sprakeloos,
FRIDAY
14 NOVEMBER
9.00-9.15 Coffee (Building E, Campus)
9.15-11.00 Consequences of divorce for children 1
(Room 8, Building E, Campus)
Chair: Henriette
Chiara Saraceno
(Italy): Recent trends in the social-demographic characteristics of marriage
instability in Italy and their impact on fathers-children relations.
Tineke Fokkema
&
Marco Albertini & Jaap Dronkers (Italy):
Intergenerational effects of divorce in a Mediterranean and Catholic society:
evidence from Italy.
11.00-11.30 Coffee
11.30-12.40 Comparative studies 1
Chair: Henriette
Michael
12.40-14.00 Lunch (The Tilbury, Building H, Campus)
14.00-15.45 Consequences of divorce for children 2
Chair: Michael
Erzsébet Bukodi & Jaap Dronkers (Hungary):
Family structure and educational attainment in Hungary
Tim Vanhove & Koen Matthijs (Belgium):
Unrealistic optimism in assessing divorce risks: The effect of parental divorce
on students' divorce risk perception.
15.45-16.00 Tea
16.00-17.10 Comparative studies 2
Chair: Michael
Hans-Peter
Geetha Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia & Jaap
Dronkers (Italy): Different effects of single motherhood on educational
outcomes in the different OECD-countries with different family policies?
17.15-17.45
Closing discussion about the research network
(Jaap Dronkers)
2. ABSTRACTS (IN
ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
Social contexts and the risk of divorce
Yvonne Aberg
Nuffield
College, Oxford University, United Kingdom
In
this paper it is argued that the social context of spouses, particularly the
marital status of friends and acquaintances, is crucial to explaining marital
stability. Several mechanisms linking the social context to the risk of marital
disruption are discussed. A unique Swedish database that consists of annual
data on all employees at about 1500 randomly selected workplaces is used for
the analyses. Cox proportional hazards models with time varying covariates are
used to analyze how the sex, age, and marital status of a person¿s coworkers
affect his or her risk of divorce, when controlling for known individual-level
risk factors. The results show that the demographic characteristics of
coworkers considerably influence the risk of divorce. The core finding is that
divorce is contagious, but that the patterns of influence differ significantly
between men and women.
Intergenerational
effects of divorce in a Mediterranean and Catholic society: evidence from
Italy.
Marco Albertini & Jaap Dronkers
European
University Institute, Italy
Previous
research has found negative effects of parental divorce on children’s
educational attainment; in addition, it has been noted that effects of divorce
are not equal in all western societies. However, research on catholic and
southern European countries is quite poor. The aim of the paper is to add to the
research on intergenerational effects of divorce in a catholic and southern
European society: Italy. Italian society differs form other western societies
with respect to many characteristics of its family structure, its cultural and
religious systems, its social welfare system, and also with respect to the
legislation, frequency and characteristics of divorce. Based on data of the
Bank of Italy Survey of Households’ Income and Wealth, this study demonstrates
that the educational level of the children with divorced parents is lower than
the educational level of children of married parents. Next, contrary to what
has been found in other European societies, it emerges from this research that
widowhood has a significant negative effect on children’s educational
attainment. The weakness of the Italian welfare system and the importance of
the extended family network for survival in Italian society might explain this
unexpected result. The study also demonstrates that this negative effect of
divorce cannot be explained by the negative impact of the cultural climate of
the area of residency. Furthermore, the study also shows that economic
deprivation is one but not the most important cause of negative effect of
divorce on children and it highlights the relevance of socialization process,
and particularly parental conflict for the explanation of these negative
effects. Finally, the analyses indicate that children of the lowest educated
mothers have the largest educational backlog compared with comparable children
with married similar low educated mothers. Thus, it can be argued that parents
with already lower social and cultural resources find it more difficult to cope
with the negative aspects of divorce and due to this low level of resources
cannot obtain enough support from the weak and familialistic Italian welfare
system.
Who
is taking the initiative to separate? Marital disruption and subjective
well-being.
Hans-Jürgen Andreß
Universität
zu Köln, Germany
The paper analyzes the economic consequences of marital disruption in Germany and their possible effects on subjective well- being with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Based on partnership dissolutions observed in the years 1984-1999 the paper addresses the following questions: 1. How does the living situation change in terms of housing, child care, employment and income? 2. How large are the economic changes for men and women in terms of different income concepts? 3. Finally, do the predominantly negative economic consequences result in correspondingly negative accounts of satisfaction with life and income? Compared to other life events (death of a partner) or income changes within stable marriages, marital dissolution, on average, has many more negative effects in terms of income, poverty status and subjective well-being. Among the separating men and women we find clear gender inequalities. As a result of the changes in household composition, support payments, employment and residential mobility, women, on average, end up with much lower disposable household incomes than during marriage, especially if one takes into account the number of persons living from these incomes. Analyses of various satisfaction measures indicate, however, that subjective well-being develops just the other way round: men are less satisfied, while women seem to cope much better with their new living situation. The paper speculates about some of the possible reasons.
Assortative
partner choice, couples’ division of work and union disruption in modern
societies
Hans-Peter Blossfeld
Bamberg
University, Germany
This paper discusses rival
theories about the effects of assortative partner choice and couples’ division
of work on the risk of union separation. Then it classifies nine countries
under study into welfare regimes and developes arguments of how different types
of welfare regimes affect union separation. Finally, the paper summarizes the
results of nine country-specific studies on divorce and separation and draws
some general conclusions.
Family structure and educational attainment in
Hungary
Erzsébet Bukodi & Jaap
Dronkers
Hungarian
Central Statistical Office, Hungary
In
this paper we investigate the effect of parental divorce on educational
achievement of children in Hungary. We use data of the Hungarian Youth survey
from 2000, which is a sample of 8000 respondents born between 1971 and 1985.
The dependent variable is the educational level of the respondents at the age
of 17, 20 and 25, while the parental divorce variable is constructed on the
combination of information on the family form until the age of 14 and the
causes of not living with biological parents. We also control for parental
occupation and education, number of siblings, extracurricular activities and
religious socialisation. We find clear negative effects of parental divorce on
educational outcomes at the age of 17 and 20, both for respondents living in a
single parent family and for respondents living in a divorced family with a new
(step-)parent. We don’t find significant negative effects of living in a single
parent family, if death is the cause of single-parenthood. Negative effects of
divorce have become insignificant for the educational attainment at the age of
25, while the negative effects of living in a single parent family, caused by
death, are now significant. These results suggest that the effects of parental
divorce in Hungary, a former communist society, hardly deviate from those of
other European societies.
Cohabitation, divorce, and the causal effect(s) of
screening
Felix Elwert
Harvard
University, United States
Theory
and empirical evidence famously disagree about the causal effect of premarital
cohabitation on marital dissolution. In
particular, previous research consistently rejects the trial marriage screening
hypothesis (TMSH) which posits that the information gathering and screening
function of cohabitation reduces the risk of divorce among previously
cohabiting married couples (e.g. Lillard et al 1995; but see Bruederl and
Kalter 2001). The present paper, by
contrast, argues that TMSH holds but that its causal implications have been
misunderstood. Theory: This paper draws
on the potential outcomes framework of causality to clarify the notions of
direct and total causal effects of cohabitation. Contrary to standard
theoretical accounts, I argue that the TMSH holds no clear implications about
direct causal effects, but does hold implications about total causal effects.
To that end, I employ some stylized assumptions from the literature to present
a simple model in which a divorce-lowering (total causal) effect of
cohabitation is present even though the direct causal effect is zero. The model
implies that previous research on the TMSH, which attempts to identify direct
effects only, is biased toward rejection on account of a mismatch between
theory and estimation strategy.
Empirical results: I present first estimates for the total causal effect
of cohabitation on divorce from a Cox model with pairwise matching on the
propensity score using data from the fifth wave of the U.S. National Survey of
Family Growth. Results confirm a strong divorce-reducing effect of
cohabitation. In line with my theory I reproduce the Null finding for a direct
effect of cohabitation on divorce (cf. Lillard et al 1995). Both empirical
results provide support for my revised interpretation of the TMSH. (However, I also submit a novel argument for
why the specific nature of observational marriage data on principle does not
allow for a causal interpretation of the direct effect estimate.)
Social
embeddedness and marital (in-)stability.
Hartmut Esser
University
of Mannheim, Germany
In this contribution a special aspect of the stabilization of marriages is addressed: the impact of the pair’s social embeddedness, especially in a network of friendship relations. The background builds the assumption that the social ‘definition’ of the relationship as a ‘pair’, which unbreakably belongs together, is nearly completely done by overlapping friendships. Such friendships then belong to the so-called marital-specific capital that would loose its value if the marriage broke up. This also keeps a marriage together, if e.g. there is a crisis. It is empirically shown (with data of the Mannheim Divorce Study) that this kind of social embeddedness indeed has a superior influence on the stability of the marriage and that such socially embedded marriages are nearly inseparable also in view of the generally increasing instability of (marital) relationships.
The economic consequences of divorce on men and
women in Russia
Felix Festy & Lidia Prokofieva
INED,
France
We
use two parallel surveys conducted with 868 divorced women (1993) and 1249 men
(1998) in urban European Russia. Sampling, people interviewed and
questionnaires are broadly similar. We measure the impact of divorce on poverty
by comparing individual situations before and after divorce and/or persons
remarried with those who are not. We confront different dimensions of poverty
based on monetary income, autonomy in housing and a subjective appraisal. Non
remarried women face a deep deterioration of their income, not men, not
remarried women. Non remarried men face a deterioration in their housing
conditions (in particular those with low incomes), not women, not remarried
men. Non remarried men put less negative a judement on their low income
(whatever their housing situation) than men and remarried women do. Poverty in
divorce is multi-dimensional. It affects men and women differently.
Explaining
divorce effects on children’s educational attainment and their age and route of
leaving home; A test of the loss of resources theory for the Netherlands.
NIDI,
The Netherlands
In this Chapter we test the loss
of resources theory for the Netherlands. Direct measures of a loss of cultural
and a loss of economic resources after divorce are used. For both we tested to
what extend they explain the effect of divorce on children's educational
attainment and the age and route of leaving home. Next we studied effects of
unstable and stable stepfamilies and of stepparents with a high level of
resources and of stepparents with a low level of resources on the child
outcomes. We used data from a large-scale survey among divorced and first
married persons in the Netherlands (Divorce in the Netherlands, 1998). We found
that economic losses explain a part of the negative divorce effect on
children's educational attainment but not for the effect on the age of leaving
home. The loss of cultural resources did not explain the divorce effect on any
of the outcomes. Moreover, we concluded that stable stepfamilies generally give
no compensation for negative effects of divorce and that unstable stepfamilies
have an additional negative effect. Finally, effects of divorce on leaving for
autonomy are only present for home leaving between age 17 and 21, the divorce
effect on leaving for cohabitation stays positive at higher ages.
The contacts of divorced men and
women with their adult children
Tineke Fokkema & Paul
de Graaf
NIDI,
Nijmegen University, The Netherlands
This
paper sets out to answer descriptive and explanatory research questions on the
contact frequency between divorced parents and their adult children. The survey
Divorce in the Netherlands 1998 (SIN98) has data on 1017 respondents (of whom
803 were divorced and 214 are in their first marriage) who have reported on the
contact frequency with 2122 non-resident children older than 18 years. The
outcomes show that especially divorced fathers have much less contact with
their adult children than fathers who did not divorce. For mothers the
differences are much smaller and hardly significant. Several possible
explanations are offered for the lower contact frequency of fathers: (a) low
involvement in parenting during the marriage, (b) the low percentage of fathers
who are custodial parent after divorce, (c) remarriage, (d) absence of alimony
payments, (e) divorce motives. The regression models show that especially the
foster status explains the low level of contacts between fathers and their
adult children. However, more than half of the difference between divorced and
not-divorced fathers is not explained for in our analysis, which suggests that
fathers in general need their wives to maintain contact with their adult
children.
Union
disruption in Poland.
Ewa
Fraczak
Institute
of Statistics and Demography, Poland
There is a wealth of information on determinants of
family/union disruption process in Western European Countries. Our knowledge on
the determinants of family/union dissolution in former Communist countries of
Eastern Europe is very limited in comparison, judging by the small number of
articles on this subject published in the international literature. Therefore
the first aim of paper is to gain deeper insight into determinants of
union/family disruption in Poland, as an example of former communist country.
The structure of the paper is as follows: introductory information; potential
sources of data for divorce studies; general information on process
union/marriage and dissolution; what can we learn about a first union duration
from Polish Retrospective Survey 2001?; analytical framework, theories and
hypotheses on union disruption; basic scheme of the transition for the union
disruption; data , variables, model based on the Polish Retrospective Survey
1991; results of model estimation and conclusion.
Are the effects of various family-forms on educational performance of children related to the demographic and social-policy characteristics of modern societies?
Greetha
Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia & Jaap Dronkers
European
university institute, Italy
We
investigate the gap in math and reading achievement of 15 year old pupils who
live with a single-mother, with a mother and a male guardian, or with father,
mother and grandparents versus those pupils who live with two parents in 19
OECD countries across Europe, North-America and the Pacific-Rim. Just like in
an earlier more restricted study (Pong, Dronkers & Hampden-Thompson, 2003)
we find significant differences in these gaps in math and reading achievement
between these groups in these countries, also after controlling for a broad
range of characteristics of parents and pupils. Following a multilevel analysis
in which we include country-characteristics on family policy and on demography,
we find single parenthood to be less detrimental where family policy
(especially maternity-leave) decreases the achievement gap between pupils from
single-mother and two-parent families. However in addition, this single-mother
and two-parent achievement gap is greater in countries where the percentage of
single-parent families is lar
His
and her divorce: A study of divorce determinants using information on who
instigated the divorce
Tilburg University, The
Netherlands
The
past few decades have seen a tremendous growth in the number of statistical
studies examining the social and economic determinants of divorce. All these
studies treat divorce analytically as a couple decision. They analyze the
occurrence and timing of the divorce, without considering who initiated the
divorce, the husband, the wife, or both. This paper reanalyzes the determinants
of divorce while using additional information about the divorce process. We
asked questions about who initiated the divorce and we incorporate these
measures into a multinomial event-history analysis. This novel approach to
divorce may provide several new insights into the validity of prevailing
theories about the social causes of divorce. Some theoretical arguments apply
primarily to the wife (e.g. economic
independence),
other arguments apply primarily to the husband (e.g., marital alternatives),
while yet others focus on the couple (e.g., heterogamy effects). We make a
distinction between ‘his’, ‘her’, and ‘their’ divorce and we reanalyze basic
determinants of divorce. Our results confirm some of the existing theoretical
interpretations but they refute others. In general, we obtain a more nuanced
and more decisive account of the social causes of divorce than earlier studies
have been able to present.
Social
consequences of divorce in crossnational perspective: A new test of the
stigmatization hypothesis
Matthijs
Kalmijn & Wilfred Uunk
Tilburg
University, The Netherlands
Many studies have examined
the social consequences of divorce. Divorce can change the size and composition
of a person's social network, it can change the quantity and quality of
contacts with friends and family members, and it may also have an impact on
various sorts of social participation. It is often found that divorce has
negative social consequences and that it may also result in some degree of
social isolation, particularly for men. These effects have often been explained
in terms of the social investments that people have made in their social
capital during marriage. Another and less often studied interpretation focuses
on the social context of the divorced person rather than on the divorced person
itself. Some decades ago, divorce was a form of behavior that was unaccepted by
the large majority of the population and although acceptance of divorce has
increased, there are still many contexts in which divorce is met with
rejection. It is plausible that such responses to divorce will make social
adjustment after divorce more difficult. We call this the stigmatization
hypothesis. In this paper, we study the social consequences of divorce from a
comparative perspective. We use panel data to examine the consequences of
divorce or separation for (a) contacts with neighbors, (b) membership in
organizations, and (c) social contacts with friends and family members. We
examine these effects in 11 different western European countries (and possibly
the United States as well). These countries differ in the degree to which
divorce is a common and accepted form of behavior and thereby yield a unique
opportunity to test the stigmatization hypothesis. More specifically, we
examine whether the social consequences of divorce are more severe when divorce
is less accepted. We examine these effects for men and women separately.
Marriage market and marriage stability
Thomas Klein
University
of Heidelberg, Germany
Match
quality and marital stability are essential concepts in explaining marital
instability.
Both depend on opportunities and restrictions of the marriage market. Lacking
direct information on marriage market constraints, empirical studies usually
concentrate on individual characteristics, esp. age of marriage, as an
indicator for the marriage market. The problem of this approach, however, is
that the individual characteristics simultaneously are related to individual
mechanisms determining marital stability. Against with this background, the paper analyses the effect of age, age
at marriage and other variables on marital stability and tries to evaluate to
what extent the individual characteristics count for an impact of the marriage
market. The analysis is based on the Familiensurvey 2000, which is a
representative sample for Germany, conducted in the year 2000, and comprising
retrospective information on individual history of marriages and partnership.
The results provide support for marital stability depending heavily on marriage
market parameters.
Economic independence and union dissolution
Dorien Manting, A. Loeve &
A. de Graaf
Statistics
Netherlands, The Netherlands
This
paper investigates the role of economic determinants of the process of breaking
up. The basic notion behind the analyses presented is that women's economic
independence is a major force in the rise of union instability. Additional,
differentials between men and women with regard to the economic determinants and
the role of breaking up is studied. Multivariate analyses are based on the
Income Panel data of Statistics Netherlands. This sample follows about 70
thousand men and women (all ages) from 1989 up to 2000.
A
new relationship, a new start? Longitudinal research on the formation of
relationships as a post-separation coping strategy
Dimitri Mortelmans & Sarah van Ourti
University
of Antwerp, Belgium
The
aftermath of divorce is seldom uncomplicated. Especially the financial
consequences bear heavily on the ex-partners and potentially include social and
psychological repercussions. In particular for women, a disruption encompasses
a significant decline in household income, mainly due to the fact that they
predominantly get custody. To bounce back from this setback, remarriage is
generally considered to be more efficient than employment. For the analyses,
longitudinal data will be used, collected through the Panel Study of Belgian
Households. Using structural equation models,
we will look in this paper whether a new cohabiting relationship is in fact the
road to economic recovery. Economic well-being is broadly defined, to allow for
the living situation, possession of goods, as well as subjective well-being to
be included. In this way, we intend to get a thorough insight into the
evolution of women¿s economic well-being after the break-up, as well as into an
eventual recovery.
The
divorce process and adjustment to divorce. The influence of characteristics of
the divorce process on post-divorce depression
Anne-Rigt Poortman
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
A
divorce is usually associated with a broad array of negative consequences,as
shown by both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies on divorce. In this
paper, we focus on differences in post-divorce depression within the group of
divorcees and highlight the so far little studied role of the process of
divorce. The divorce process refers to the time period from the decision to
split up to the settlement in the first year after divorce. Characteristics
considered refer to: (a) decision to split up, (b) attitudes towards divorce at
the time of the divorce decision, (c) conflicts surrounding settlement of
divorce, (d) outcome of divorce settlement with respect to alimony and
children, and (e) fairness of the outcome of the divorce settlement. The
following research questions are addressed: (1) To what extent do
characteristics of the divorce process have an influence on divorcees'
post-divorce depression? (2) To what extent can this influence be explained by
divorcees' current situation with respect to finances, contacts with ex-spouse
and contacts with children?, and (3) To what extent does the influence of the
divorce process and the current situation differ between remarried and single
divorcees? Findings show that especially attitudes from the broader social
environment affect divorcees' post-divorce depression, just as some indicators
for the settlement and fairness of the settlement with respect to alimony and
children. The current situation influences divorcees' post-divorce depression,
but it's mediating role is small. Finally, the effects do not differ much
between remarried and single divorcees.
Recent
trends in the social-demographic characteristics of marriage instability in
Italy and their impact on fathers-children relations.
Chiara Saraceno
University
of Turin, Italy
Until
recently in Italy marriage instability involved disproportionately the educated
middle class, dual worker couples living in the center-North. Moreover, the
presence of children had a negative effect on the propensity to separate. Thus
children where to some degree more protected than elsewhere from financial
hardships and from a weakening of fathers-children ties due to their parents'
separation. In the better educated couples, in fact, fathers tend to be more
involved in child care during marriage, and this has a beneficial effect on
their continuing involvement after separation. In recent years the
democratization of marital instability, involving a lar
Unrealistic
optimism in assessing divorce risks: The effect of parental divorce on
students' divorce risk perception.
Tim Vanhove & Koen Matthijs
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Based
on the recent results of an Internet survey of 1.000 first year students at the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, this paper addresses the relationship between
individual and general divorce risk perception and parental civil status.
Focusing on the determining factors, it is clear that the individual divorce
risk assessment is influenced by a tendency of unrealistic optimism. One
estimates ones own divorce risk lower than perceived general risk, even if one
is (considered to be) part of a high-risk group.
Divorce risks in Europe: An overview
Michael
Forschungsinstitut
für Soziologie, Germany
This
paper presents very preliminary results of a project that examines divorce
risks in Europe. Empirical basis are longitudinal studies from more than 20
European countries. Meta-analytical techniques are applied to identify overall
effect sizes and to investigate the heterogeneity of divorce risks across
European countries. We concentrate on the effects of variables that are related
to the information level about the partner before marriage, search costs,
marital-specific capital and dissolution costs.
3. PRACTICAL
INFORMATION
Program dates and times
Thursday, November 13, from
9 AM until 6 PM
Friday, November 14, from 9
AM until 6 PM
Location: Tilburg University
Campus, Building E, room 8.
Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB
Tilburg
From airport to Tilburg
From Schiphol Airport to
Tilburg you can take the train.
For example:
2.16 PM Schiphol (platform
5) to Rotterdam Central Station
Change trains in Rotterdam
Central Station (arrival 3.01 PM)
3.15 PM Rotterdam Central
Station (platform 7) to Tilburg (arrival 4.02 PM)
Costs: a second-class ticket
euro 14,70 and first-class euro 23,50.
When you arrive at the Tilburg
Central station on 12 November you can take a taxi to the Postelse Hoeve. We
will reimburse your taxi costs. If you are by car, please contact Inge
Akerboom, or look at the web page of the hotel.
Hotel
We have made hotel
reservations for the international participants for 12, 13 and 14 November and
for the Dutch participants for 13 and 14 November.
International participants
are expected to arrive on Wednesday 12 November.
Hotel "De
Druiventros"
Bosscheweg 11
5056 PP Berkel-Enschot
(+31)(0)13 5339115
http://www.druiventros.nl/
The hotel is located 15
minutes driving from Tilburg.
Transportation
We have a shuttle, which
brings everyone from the hotel(s) to the university (at 8.30 AM) and back (at 6
PM). The shuttle will also bring us back and forth to the site of the
conference dinner.
In case you need one, there
are also regular buses: From the hotel to Tilburg Railway Station (regional bus
140). From the Railway Station to Campus (bus 48).
Drinks and dinner
On Wednesday night, we will
have welcome drinks for the international participants at the bar of the hotel
De Druiventros from 8.30 PM – 9.30 PM.
On Thursday evening, we will
have a conference dinner at the following address:
Restaurant Sprakeloos
St. Josephstraat 138
Tilburg
tel. 013-5800811
The shuttle will take us to
the restaurant and will leave at 7 PM. It will bring us back at around 10-11
PM.
4. DIVORCE IN CROSS-NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
A EUROPEAN
RESEARCH NETWORK
The
last decades have shown a rise in the rate of divorce in Europe. In all
European countries, the probability of divorce among married or cohabiting
couples has increased, although in some countries more quickly and more
radically than in others. The rise in divorce in (continental) Europe deviates
from developments in the United States. The main difference is that in the US,
causes and consequences of divorce are strongly connected with "old"
forms of social inequality like class, education, income and ethnic group.
There are some indications that this connection between old forms of social
inequality and divorce is looser in (continental) Europe; for instance, the
negative effect of divorce on the well being of children involved tends to be
smaller in Europe than in the US. The topic of this program is "the relationships of divorce with economic
and cultural inequality and with the different social security and family
policies within Europe".
Background
Some
demographers consider divorce to be a result of growing individualisation and
secularisation in society. These two processes put pressure on the traditional
values of marriage and raising children, leading to an increased divorce rate.
If this is true, European societies with less secularisation and
individualisation should have lower divorce rates. If a higher educational
level of couples produces a higher level of individualisation, there should be
a positive relation between educational level of both spouses and their divorce
risk.
An economic tradition attributes the rise
in divorce rates to changes in the balance between the cost and benefits of
marriage for both husband and wife. If this is true there should be a higher
divorce rate among women with high-income jobs, because a high income lowers
the cost of divorce for them. In that case, divorce rates in European societies
with more full-time working mothers in higher positions should be higher. But
the negative effect of parental divorce on children is often explained by the
poverty of mother-headed single families. In that case, negative effects of
parental divorce should be smaller in European societies with more full-time
working mothers in higher positions than in other societies. Social security
systems might reduce the degree of poverty in mother-headed single families,
which might lead to differences in negative effects of parental divorce between
European societies.
Liberal divorce laws might also lead to
higher levels of divorce, as some politicians maintain. If this is true,
differences between and changes in divorce rates of European societies depend
on the differences in their divorce laws. But the most accepted explanation of
the negative effect of parental divorce on children is the conflict between
parents before and after the break-up. If this is true, liberal divorce laws
might dampen the negative effects for children because they prevent long
lawsuits and thus the intensity and length of the parental conflict.
Another assumption about the consequences
of divorce for inequality is that they result from stigmatisation of the
divorcees and their children by the surrounding society. If this assumption is
true, the consequences of divorce for inequality should become smaller when the
divorce rates increase, because the higher these divorce rates are the more
normal divorce becomes and thus the lower the level of stigmatisation. In that
case, policy makers do not need to worry about the divorce rates but only need
to combat the stigmatisation of divorce in order to counter the relation
between inequality and divorce. Therefore, it makes sense to test this
assumption of stigmatisation by comparing these negative consequences in
different European societies with different divorces rates.
Themes
It
is useful to make a distinction between the causes and the consequences of
divorce on the one hand, and between cultural and economic dimensions on the
other hand. The resulting fourfold scheme provides a nice framework for
studying aspects of divorce which we think are relevant from a sociological and
demographic point of view. The scheme also provides a practical guide for the
more general comparative aims of the research network:
Economic Cultural
Causes
of divorce A B
Consequences
for divorced persons C D
Consequences
for children of divorced persons E F
Each
cell in this scheme represents certain types of questions about the relation
between divorce and inequality. We will give some examples for each cell.
A. Does the stron
B. Does the stron
C. What are the effects of divorce on the
economic position of both men and women, not only shortly after their divorce
but especially in the long run? By economic position, we mean their occupation,
income, housing conditions, unemployment and dependency on social welfare.
D. What are the effects of divorce on the
cultural position of both men and women, not only shortly after their divorce
but especially in the long run? By cultural position we mean the opportunities
to find a new partner, contacts with their (adult) children, parents (in-law)
and friends, social participation, etc.
E. What are the effects of divorce on the
economic position of their children, not only shortly after the parental
divorce but also in the long run?
F. What are the effects of divorce on the
cultural position of their children, not only shortly after the parental
divorce but especially in the long run? By cultural position we mean their
educational attainment, their chances to marry, cohabit and to divorce, etc.
Aims
The
aim is to bring together scholars who work empirically on this topic and to
form a European network for empirical and
comparative research on the sociological aspects of divorce. Given the
increasing divorce rates in Europe, the slowly starting research on divorce in
Europe, the many possibilities to compare between European states and the
growing interest of policy makers and the broader public for the sociological
aspects of divorce, such a network would be very beneficial for the quality of
the research. This network should meet twice a year to discuss current research
of the members, to promote comparative research and to stimulate publications
on this topic. A long-term aim of this network is the possible production on a
book on the sociological aspects of divorce in Europe, for which we are willing
to act as editor. The start of the network is planned for 2002 and it should
run at least for four years to bear fruit.
5. PARTICIPANTS