Demographic behaviour is shaped not only by characteristics at the individual level, but also by the context in which individuals are embedded. The Contextual Database of the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) supports research on these micro-macro links by providing cross-country...

Family policies aim to influence fertility and labor force participation, and support families. However, often only fertility and labor supply are considered in policy evaluations. For example, the 2007 extension of parental leave benefits in Germany is generally considered unsuccessful because...

Childbearing within cohabitation has gained considerable ground in recent decades, but existing explanations for this development are not coherent. Proponents of the Second Demographic Transition framework interpret it rather as a pattern of progress driven by processes such as emancipation from...

The economic stress hypothesis (ESH) suggests that economic decline leads to a decrease in the proportion of males born in a population. A multitude of additional influences on sex ratios that often cannot be accounted for empirically make assessing the validity of the ESH difficult. Thus, as a...

Several countries in Northern and Western Europe report cohort fertility rates of close to two children per woman, including Belgium, France, and Denmark. By contrast, most Central and Southern European countries have cohort fertility levels of only around 1.5-1.6 children. Germany is part of...

The challenges women face in reconciling their work and family responsibilities are at the heart of current explanations concerning the low fertility levels in developed countries. This study examines the role of the outsourcing of household labor and of childcare responsibilities in reducing...

This paper uses recently available data from linked pension and employment registers for Germany, which contain complete fertility histories of women as well as longitudinal information of firm-specific characteristics where these women have been employed. It is examined how occupational sex...

The historical population of the Krummhörn region [1720-1850] in the northwest of Germany can be characterized as a non-industrialized, pre-capitalist agricultural society. Around 70 percent of the families had either no land or owned farms too small to ensure subsistence, and therefore worked...

The ratio (RMR) is the standard measure of sex differentials in mortality. It is commonly known that the RMR was historically small and increased throughout the 20th century. However, numerical properties might account for the trend in the RMR rather than sex differences in risk factors. In this...

Background: After the reunification of Germany, mortality among older eastern Germans converged quickly with western German levels. Simultaneously, the pension benefits of eastern Germans rose tenfold. Objective: We make use of German reunification as a natural experiment to show that, first,...