The original essays in this book have been written by a number of leading international experts in the field of labour market studies to honour the intellectual contribution and lifetime achievement of Günther Schmid.

The age at which women become mothers has increased to an all time high in most European countries in the past decennia. This increase of age at first birth is the main explanatory variable for the rapid decrease in fertility in European countries which has occurred at different points of time...

This paper analyses two questions. First, how do otherwise similar people across four countries end up in four different employment states: 1) full-time with a regular contract, 2) part-time with a regular contract, 3) fixed term contract full-time or part-time and 4) self-employed? Second, how...

This paper analyses two questions. First, how do otherwise similar people across four countries end up in fourdifferent employment states: 1) full-time with a regular contract, 2) part-time with a regular contract, 3) fixedterm contract full-time or part-time and 4) self-employed? Second, how do...

This paper studies the effects of local marriage markets on South African women’s marital decisions. The analysis is motivated by the low proportion of married among African mothers since 48% are never married. This means that the children of all these never married mothers have no access to...

Teenage motherhood is very high in South Africa. In 2001, 55 per thousand African South African women and 82 per thousand Coloured South African women were teenage mothers as compared to 8 among Indian South Africans and 3 among White South African women. In this paper we use the South African...