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  • Publication
    The role of social institutions in inter-generational mobility
    The primary goal of inter-generational mobility (IGM) research has always been to explain how and why social origins influence peoples’ life chances. This has naturally placed family attributes at centre stage. But the role of social institutions, most notably education systems, as a mediating factor has also been central to IGM theory. Indeed, generations of stratification research were premised on the core assumption that equalizing access to education would weaken the impact of social origins. In theory, policies, institutions, as well as macro-economic and historical context, have been identified as crucial in shaping patterns of social mobility (D’Addio, 2007). But apart from education, empirical research has contributed little concrete evidence on how this occurs.
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  • Publication
    Is Fertility Influenced by Couple Instability?
    As we saw in Chapter 1, research on family behavioral change has been dominated by two theoretical frameworks, namely Gary Becker’s neoclassical economic approach and the 2nd Demographic Transition thesis. For very different reasons, both envisage that gender convergence in terms of employment and life-long careers will promote greater couple instability, weaker commitments to partnerships, and a drop in fertility. The evidence has appeared to support these arguments quite well, but only up to a certain point. A number of countries have, over the past decades, experienced a radical u-turn in terms of marital stability and fertility. And most interestingly, these are the very same countries that boast the greatest degree of gender convergence in terms of earnings and employment. This turn-about suggests that we need to re-theorize longer run trends.
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