DIAL

In the third Episode of our podcast looking at research emerging from the Equal Lives project, we talk to Zafer Büyükkeçeci from Humboldt University in Berlin and Professor Vered Kraus from the University of Haifa about their research, Work and family life courses among Jewish and Israeli-Palestinian Women in Israel. They use newly-available linked Census and administrative data to look at who leads a more advantaged or disadvantaged work-family life. They discuss how they created the life course groups, what they found and the implications of the research.

In Episode 6 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Sirus Dehdari from the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University and a member of DIAL's Populism, Inequality and Institutions (PII) project, talks about his research looking at whether support for anti-immigration political parties increases or decreases when native-born voters work alongside migrants.

Workplace Contact and Support for Anti-Immigration Parties is a DIAL Working Paper by Henrik Andersson and Sirus H. Dehdari

Transcript

Christine Garrington 0:00

Welcome to DIAL, a podcast where we tune into evidence on inequality over the life course. In this series we discus emerging findings from DIAL research. My guest today is Sirus Dehdari from the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University, who was part of the DIAL's Populism, Inequality and Institutions project, has been looking at whether support for anti-immigration, political parties, increases or decreases when native born voters work alongside migrants. I started by asking him about the social and political backdrop to the research.

Sirus Dehdari 0:31

I'm sure both you and your listeners know that we've seen a rather large increase in immigration to most European countries in the last couple of decades. In some EU countries the share of foreign born is around the close to 10% and is in a few cases is approaching 50%. At the same time, we've seen that several countries, several of these countries, are also seeing how anti-immigration parties are increasing their support. So, one might be tempted to conclude that the former is actually causing the latter, meaning that increasing immigration is causing opposition to immigration. And there are several, several studies in political science, sociology and some in economics that consider within countries, regional variation in immigration and voting for these types of policies, and they find a positive correlation or in some cases, a positive causal relationship between these two phenomena. But there are also studies that find either no correlation, or even in some cases, a negative relationship between the presence of immigrants or the visibility of immigrants and support for anti-immigration policies. It seems that there are some local and perhaps regional conditions that influences how immigration is affecting opposition to immigration. For instance, the skill level of the newly arrived immigrants compared to the skill level of the natives, or the socio-economic status of the natives in the neighbourhoods where immigrants are placed, if they are placed, or where they choose to settle. And another important factor that been seen in the literature is the type of contact that occurs when navies and immigrants interact, which is simplified a bit by separating these types of contact into two categories: basic superficial and meaningful contact, where the former is basically just seeing immigrants at the local supermarket or on your daily commute to work without really interacting with them or getting to know them, while meaningful contact would involve getting to know each other or cooperating towards a common goal. Superficial contact might actually increase opposition to immigration, but we believe that meaningful and cooperative interactions or meaningful and cooperative integral contact between native and immigrants, we believe that they're expected to reduce opposition. So this is basically the political and social setting that got us to start thinking about our project.

Christine Garrington 3:12

Yeah, that's great. And so what then specifically was it that you wanted to look at and why?

Sirus Dehdari 3:17

What we set out to do is to look and investigate how contact between natives and immigrants in the workplace influences opposition to immigration. And why is this important? Well, first of all the workplace is a very important social setting for most working adults, where we spend a large amount of our time. And many workplaces are characterised by teamwork, where we would expect this type of meaningful and cooperative contact that I mentioned earlier. And second, immigrant co-workers might actually signal to natives that immigrants are indeed here to lower their wages to take away their high wages. So, we have two potential effects going in opposite directions. And this is why we have found that this particular setting, the workplace, to be very interesting, interesting in terms of its effect on the opposition to immigration.

Christine Garrington 4:10

So what do you actually do with this particular piece of research and where did you get your information from?

Sirus Dehdari 4:16

So we use Swedish registered data, where we are able to connect almost all of working adults to a specific workplace, so we know which firm they work at, but we also know which actual workplace that work at, so their physical address. For each native worker, we compute the share of non-European co-workers and this is basically a measure of the type of, or the amount of meaningful and cooperative contact that each native has. The government that people voted for, but we are able to aggregate these individual level shares, workplace contact shares, to the smallest political geographical unit, which is the election precinct. So, we aggregate this to the precincts and we create a share of non-European co-workers among the average native born worker living in that precinct. At the precinct level, we also have election results, we know the share of votes for Social Democrats or the Green Party and so on. And which means that we also know the share of votes for the Sweden Democrats, which is the Swedish version of an anti-immigration and xenophobic type of party. A typical party that exists in many other European countries. We match this to the precinct level and then we conduct the analysis on this geographical unit.

Christine Garrington 5:37

I see, and what did what did you find when you did that matching when you match those things together?

Sirus Dehdari 5:41

We find that an increase in the share of non-European co-workers decreases support for the Sweden Democrats. What does this mean? Well, it means that non-European co-workers might signal or might highlight the threat of increased labour market competition amongst the natives working at that particular workplace. This is offset by the potential benefits stemming from, from meaningful and cooperative workplace contact. So at the end, the net effect of additional immigrant co-worker is lower support for anti-immigration parties.

Christine Garrington 6:15

So Sirus, you went on and dug a little deeper into the level of skills of the non-natives. Can you tell us a bit about why you did that, and what you found there?

Sirus Dehdari 6:25

If you consider the two types of contact that I mentioned earlier, and also to consider what I mentioned about the immigrants in the workplace highlighting the threat of labour market competition and natives' access to employment and high wages, we expect immigrants of the same skill to highlight this treat even more. So consider a native working in a workplace and then his or her new manager is a foreign-born immigrant or non-European. If the native is for instance a carpenter or a plumber, she might not feel threatened, in the same extent, as if the new co-worker was actually a plumber, or a carpenter or performing a skill, performing tasks that is similar to a task the native is performing. For this reason, we might actually expect that the threat of labour market competition only highlighted or id more highlighted when immigrants of the same skill appear in the workplace. But at the same time, we will also expect natives and immigrants of the same skill to be involved in even more cooperative tasks. So, we might not expect the plumber and the manager to share tasks, even if they share the same goal, that would be the profit of the company, we might not expect them to work towards that goal in the same manner. So even in this case of the same skill contact, we might expect the threat to be highlighted even more, but also the contact to be even more meaningful and more cooperative. The net effect is still ambiguous. So what we do is that we separate between having co-workers of the same skill and having co-workers of the opposite skill and then we estimate the effect of these, these average shares, again on support for the Sweden Democrats and what we find is that the results, the negative results that we saw in the main results, or the baseline results are solely driven within skill contact. So the estimate is still negative for within skill contact but for opposite skill contact, we find basically nothing. And what does this mean? Well, it means that even in this case of the presence of within-skilled non-Europeans, where we expect labour market competition to be more highlighted, the benefits of meaningful workplace contact is still offsetting this potential negative impact of opposition to immigration. And at the same time, we don't find anything for our cross-skilled contact, which means that we shouldn't expect, for instance, low educated workers and high educated workers to actually interact, regardless of the type of interaction is superficial or if it's meaningful. And at the same time, we shouldn't expect natives of a particular skill to feel threatened when immigrants of the opposite skill are present at the workplace.

Christine Garrington 9:24

Yeah, that's really interesting. So I wonder if I can ask you whether it mattered if the job was say under threat from something like computerization or artificial intelligence or something where you know those sorts of developments might be taking place within a company setting?

Sirus Dehdari 9:41

So what I've said so far is basically that labour market threat is highlighted when immigrants become visible in the workplace. However, and as I just mentioned, comparing within skill and across skill, we said that we might not expect natives of a particular skill to be threatened when immigrants of the opposite skill appear in the workplace because they don't compete. Another way to think about this is that natives that do not feel that their employment is actually under threat, they will not feel even more threatened when immigrants become visible in the workplace. So basically, what we wanted to do is that we wanted to separate occupations into secure and non-secure, or vulnerable and non-vulnerable occupations. And to do so we use a routine task index score, which determines the probability or the threat of a particular occupations tasks to be replaced by computers. More or less in occupations with a high routine task index score the workers there are under the threat of being replaced and what we do is similar to what we do within the cross-skilled contact which is to separate, again we separate occupations into vulnerable and non-vulnerable occupations and then we re-estimate the model again. And what we find is that the negative effect that we found from the contact between natives and immigrants in the workplace only appears when natives are occupied in non-vulnerable occupations. So when they are basically less threatened by automation and computerization. On the other hand, if we consider natives employed in vulnerable sectors, we actually find a positive relationship, so when immigrants are visible in in these workplaces, natives are actually more likely to oppose immigration.

Christine Garrington 11:35

So Sirus, just finally then I wonder what you feel we learn from all of this? There's quite a lot of important insights I think that are coming out of this work. But what would you say are the key takeaways?

Sirus Dehdari 11:47

The main takeaway is that similar to other studies that have found that cooperative and meaningful contact, integral contact between members of different groups, for instance ethnic groups or religious groups, is that the contact really matters, the type of contact matters. If we are interested in reducing opposition to immigration for instance, we have to facilitate these types of contact, for instance through the workplace but also through the different social settings, for instance different sporting events. So the results I believe are not specific to the workplace but can also be extended to other important social settings.

Christine Garrington 12:25

Workplace Contact and Support for Anti-Immigration Parties is a DIAL Working Paper by Henrik Andersson and Sirus Dehdari. You can find the paper and more about the wider DIAL research programme at www.dynamicsofinequality.org. and don't forget to subscribe to the DIAL podcast, to access earlier and forthcoming episodes.

In Episode 5 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Ana Cristina Santos from the CILIA project talks about her research looking at the life experiences of LGBTQI+ people in Portugal. Ana Cristina from the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra has has been speaking with older people about what it was like for them growing up and living in times when gender and sexual diversity was prohibited.

From outcast to citizen: the time travels of LGBTQI+ elders

In Episode 5 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Ana Cristina Santos from the CILIA project talks about her research looking at the life experiences of LGBTQI+ people in Portugal. Ana Cristina from the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra has has been speaking with older people about what it was like for them growing up and living in times when gender and sexual diversity was prohibited.

Christine Garrington 0:00

Welcome to DIAL, a podcast where we tune into evidence on inequality over the life course. In this series we discus emerging findings from DIAL research. My guest today is Ana Cristina Santos from the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimb. She's a member of the DIAL CILIA project which is investigating and comparing intersectional life inequalities, amongst LGBTQI plus citizens in England, Scotland, Portugal, and Germany. Ana Christina has led the work in Portugal. I started by asking her about the social and political backdrop to the research.

Ana Cristina Santos 0:34

First of all, Portugal had the longest dictatorship in southern Europe. This was 48 years, longer than Spain, longer than Italy. And during that time, our homosexuality was a crime punished with up to two years in prison. Of course, then came democracy in 1974, but it took eight long years already in democracy, before the legal ban on homosexuality was revoked. And another 19 years for the first LGBT right to be approved in Parliament. That referred to same sex unions already in 2001. So, this overwhelming reluctance in making legal changes during almost two decades, illustrates the power of heteronormativity and cisgender normativity as well. These tacit norms, carry on informing social practices and cultural values today, even when Portugal is currently perceived to be at the forefront of LGBTQI rights recognition on a global scale. We've got same sex parenting rights fully protected. We've got a gender identity law based on self-determination, and also the ban of binary surgeries on intersex new-borns. So, this is the context in which we have conducted our research.

Christine Garrington 1:53

So wonder if you can tell us a bit now then about what you actually did? Specifically who you spoke to for this research and why?

Ana Cristina Santos 2:00

The work we did in Portugal was developed by a team of two research fellows and myself, and together we spoke to almost 60 participants from a range of generations from 18 year olds onwards, and we were focusing on on transitions into adulthood, and the challenges of midlife career. The so called rush hour of life. In my case I was interested in the intersections of ageing and sexuality. More specifically, I wanted to explore the impacts today on later life, of having been raised as a child, and as a young person in a time when sexual and gender diversity was prohibited. In order to do that I spoke to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, gays in Portugal, who were between 60 and 75 year old at the time of the interview. Many of them have never given an interview before which made it absolutely fascinating for me as a researcher, and the questions, aimed at covering three transition points in life. School to work transitions, employment progression into midlife and the transition into retirement and indications for end of life.

Christine Garrington 3:14

So how did the people you spoke with describe their early lives as school children or students?

Ana Cristina Santos 3:19

Most were in the most absolute closet at least until they left the parental home and got their first jobs. You see, the legal ban on homosexuality until 1982 was endorsed by the dominant socio-cultural context. Which offered a double mechanism of vigilance against sexual and gender diversity, even if the fear of being arrested was not part of the daily concerns, the power of social control could not be ignored. Many felt isolated and thought there was nobody else in the world who felt the way they did and experienced the same type of emotions and desires. They knew it had to remain a secret well kept. During that time, most people I spoke to were students. They were engaging for the first time in practices and behaviours, that often contrasted with their peers. Blurring the rigid boundaries of gender roles and gender-based expectations. Some of them received verbal and physical abuse from parents, from older siblings, based on being perceived as different, but not necessarily at school where they seem to have found space for discovery and same sex, intimacy, especially in a highly gendered setting.

Christine Garrington 4:34

Now you were particularly struck by their strategies for earning the respect of peers, tell us a bit about that.

Ana Cristina Santos 4:39

Yes, a striking finding was what I'm calling an "outdoing strategy", or a narrative of excellency. To which interviewees proactively invested in performing better than average at school or the workplace later on. So, one of my interviewees, Adolfo, a cisgender gay man, between 70 and 74 years old, he said, "I had always this thing of making an effort studying, being an intellectual, the best student. It comes from there, from the fact that I was an outsider. I had to be the best" end of quote. So, this is just one example amongst many of the super queer narratives, a self-imposed pressure to excel in school and in their jobs is a form of protection against potential backlash, including discrimination and violence. This idea that I had to be the best of the having itself as a student worker, I earned my spot under the sun, they could not attack me. I earned their respects through intelligence, hard work, bravery, or by becoming the boss, this is the general line of of arguing. Throughout the interviews, there were plenty of descriptions of such out student's strategies.

Christine Garrington 5:59

So what did you learn then about your participants working lives, you know, set against the backdrop of the 1974 Revolution, a new constitution deemed at the time to be one of the most gender equal in Europe.

Ana Cristina Santos 6:11

First of all, during the late 80s, during the 90s, early 2000s Most participants had a full-time job, And were engaged in securing their posts and investing in their career development. Most remained in the closet in relation to their co-workers or line managers. Some reported that they were outed or suffered indirect discrimination, by being perceived as lesbian, bisexual or gay. This is also a time when the world was struggling with the AIDS crisis and stigma and backlash, but also a time when many of us witnessed profound changes in the law and policy regarding equality indifference towards a rights-based approach. Note for instance that in the 2000s, banning homophobic laws including different ages of consent, became a fundamental criteria for joining the EU. And this added pressure to already member states to comply with the equality policies. It was during this period that Portugal became the first European country. And the fourth worldwide, to include sexual orientation in its constitution in the non-discrimination clause. However, that's time despite this, striking legal progress, the social context, remain hostile to diversity, encouraged the closets, particularly with sphere of employment. In some of the stories we gathered there was this ongoing normalising threat, what I'm currently exploring as an undoing strategy in sharp contrast with the outdoing strategy found in other trajectories, especially in relation to school years. So, this undoing strategy consists of keeping your head down, avoiding attentions becoming sort of invisible. This idea that I was never discriminated against because I wouldn't talk about it in the workplace. I was always very discreet, it was my personal life. I wouldn't want to mix things. So one of the participants, Manuel, as cisgender, gay men in his 60s, he says, "I always tried to be respected at the workplace and do my job and get along with colleagues, participate in everything. I was never very extravagant or scandalous, and people in a way, even liked to me, because I still have colleagues who, even today, like me" end of quote. So, the idea of being respected because one is well behaved, was part of the, of the stories I gathered.

Christine Garrington 8:53

Now it was in 2010 that numerous LGBT rights were enshrined in law, which of course will have benefited the younger generations and society more broadly, but what about your participants who by that time were either retired or approaching retirement?

Ana Cristina Santos 9:07

Well, legal change came about in Portugal, in the early 21st century, and you're right set to mention 2010 because it was the year when, same sex marriage was finally approved. And in the years immediately after that, rights regarding same sex parenthood, self-determining gender recognition, and the ban of surgeries on intersex new-borns were enacted. The amounts and speeds of fundamental changes, offer a sharp contrast with the lives, LGBTQ elders lead. And I'll give you two quotes from two different interviewees. The first is from Annabella, a cisgender lesbian in her 60s, and she says, "I wish I could move in a community, so to speak with like-minded people, because as you get older, what are you left with? Friendship, tenderness, cuddles, to find a like-minded partner would be like winning the lottery", and another interview, Manuel, cisgender gay man also in his 60s. He says, "the future, the future I mean, what can you expect right, it will get worse and worse each day. People look at you and think. Look at those filthy men, look at them, they're old and haven't figured out the cure for themselves. When you're young, you're forgiven, but when your old". And he doesn't even finish the sentence. So, these are the stories of those who within the span of 50 years have been fast forward from the past of criminalisation, to the future of same sex marriage and parenthood. So in other words, they were growing up, when being queer was a crime, and they're getting older, when marriage is here for all. The idea that it is already too late to come out. Why would you? I don't need it anymore? Is very present. When formal a recognition of LGBTQI rights seems to have arrived too late to trigger significant impacts on the daily management of life of these people.

Christine Garrington 11:18

What would you say then Ana Christina are the key things to emerge from your research so far? What do we learn?

Ana Cristina Santos 11:23

Okay, first of all, from, from the interviews, it was possible to really see the gendered impact of the process in later life. The impact of having been invisible for such a long time. So you see that men, self-identify as gay, whereas most women have been previously married to a man. And hence, self-identify as bisexual, even when that relationship was long time ago was their only relationship to a man, and all of their significant relationships throughout life have been with women. You see also that half of the sample was partnered, but the only woman who was amongst the partnered group was a transgender woman who transitioned recently and remained married to her long-life partner. In addition most partnered male elders are married, lesbian and bisexual women over 60 remain very vulnerable in old age. Since these are aspects associated with the gender impact of deposits in later life, but you could also see from the research the importance and fragility of informal networks of care, as many are either dependent on their younger partner, when there is one or relying on themselves only hoping for the best but expecting the worse. There are no end-of-life plans for the majority of people I spoke with. On a more positive note from the research also emerged the idea that now I am much freer to do whatever no expectations to meet. I'm untouchable because at the end of the day I cannot be fired – so a certain freedom from stress, anxiety or peer pressure, from or to out-do, had happened to them in the past. Having remained in a closet that was too large to be undone, and being deprived from socio-cultural conditions to build an autonomous network of kinship and care beyond the family of origin. This research informs the urgency of adequate legal and policy measures to counter the vulnerability that is already present.

Christine Garrington 13:40

I was interested to know that you followed up your participants in light of what's been happening with the COVID 19 pandemic what's emerged there?

Ana Cristina Santos 13:46

We know that discrimination and inequalities are commulative. And that is why LGBTQI elders are twice as vulnerable compared to their straight or cisgender peers. We've also learned that vulnerability is aggravated in times of crisis, especially in terms of isolation, loneliness, the lack of extended networks of care. But you see the daily management of life before the pandemic was not so different after all from their current experience of confinement. Many LGBTQI elders were locked down, way before lockdown became a fashionable hashtag. That said, from the follow up, I did with about 1/3 of the interviewees, I noticed that many made an immediate link to what they had lived in the 80s with the AIDS crisis. And so this feeling of experiencing a pandemic for the second time when the first had devastating, personal and political consequences, has an impact on mental health and emotional well-being, bringing to the surface memories associated with fear and loss since the 80s. Digital illiteracy and poor health conditions also contributes to the difficulties in overcoming the current situation.

Christine Garrington 15:10

Finally, although we've talked mainly about Portugal today, the research is part of a wider project looking at other countries can you tell us something about that and where the project is going from here?

Ana Cristina Santos 15:20

Sure. So, the CILIA LGBTQI plus project investigates potential inequalities experienced by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex people in four European countries, England, Germany, Portugal, and Scotland. Our aim is to provide original cross cultural evidence concerning life personal inequalities experienced by LGBTQI plus people with a particular focus on issues of employment and retirement. And in order to do so, we did an extended literature and survey review. We mapped and analysed social and political changes in all four contexts, and we conducted two hundred in depth qualitative interviews that amounts to almost 20,000 minutes of audio recording centred on the life course of self-identified LGBTQI plus people. And what we found is that despite progressive laws and social policies discrimination based on homo, bi, transphobia persists, especially in school and employments were being sexually and or gender diverse is perceived as potentially harmful for personal well being and for career development. Discrimination may no longer be found in books, but it is certainly to be found in action to change from direct to more subtle or tacit forms of prejudice, feeds this idea that discrimination and violence are ongoing. As a presence, regardless of legal protection, which can trigger disbelief and a sense of worthlessness. At the workplace, we found that coming out remains a challenge, and it is mostly done in relation to co-workers and not line managers as participants do not feel that their posts are secured, especially regarding the possibility of enjoying the pregnancy and parental leave. Across all age groups, there were consistent narratives of precariousness, absence of a sense of belonging to a political community and mental health issues.

Christine Garrington 17:34

Ana Cristina Santos from DIAL's CILIA LGBTQI plus project was talking to me, Chris Garrington for this episode of the DIAL podcast. You can find out more about the DIAL research programme at www.dynamicsofinequality.org. And don't forget to subscribe to the DIAL podcast, to access earlier and forthcoming episodes.

In Episode 4 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Ayten Bilgin and Marina Mendonça from DIAL's PremLife project discuss their research looking at the romantic and sexual relationships of adults who were born pre-term or with a low birth weight and the potential knock on effects of that on their physical and mental wellbeing.

Association of Preterm Birth and Low Birth Weight With Romantic Partnership, Sexual Intercourse, and Parenthood in Adulthood: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis is research by Marina Mendonça, Ayten Bilgin and Dieter Wolke and is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA Open)

Transcript

Christine Garrington 0:00

Welcome to DIAL, a podcast where we tune into evidence on inequality over the life course. In this series we are discussing emerging findings from DIAL research. Our guests today are Ayten Bilgin and Marina Mendonça from the PremLife project. They've been investigating the romantic and sexual relationships of adults who were born preterm or with a low birth weight, and the potential knock on effects of that on their physical and mental wellbeing.

Ayten Bilgin 0:27

So preterm birth is being born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, and low birth weight is being born weighing less than 2500 grammes. And research shows that these individuals are at a higher risk of having emotional problems in adulthood, such as depression and anxiety. They are more likely to be introverts, they are more likely to be shy and socially withdrawn, and they are less prone to risky behaviour, such as drug use from our own previous study, we also know that adults born preterm, tend to have lower educational qualifications, they are less likely to be employed, and they are more likely to receive social benefits in comparison to those born at term. In other words, being born preterm seems to contribute to having economic disadvantages to adulthood.what aspects of preterm or low weight baby's life

Christine Garrington 1:25

What aspects of a preterm or low weight baby's life did you specifically want to look at? And why? And who was the focus of your research?

Ayten Bilgin 1:34

So in general, we were interested in how being born preterm or low birth weight influences their transition into adulthood, regarding their economic independence and social relationships, and in a previous study these child, these child I just briefly described, we showed that adults born preterm are more likely to have economy problems. But we were not sure if they were also likely to have more problems in their social relationships as well. So, this is important because having a close and intimate relationships, having found to increase wellbeing as well as good physical and mental health, and from previous research we know that preterm children struggle more to establish relationships with their peers. They're more likely to be shy and more likely to be victims of bullying, but it wasn't clear whether adults born preterm also face difficulties in establishing social relationships that are normative of adulthood. Such as initiating their sexual life, finding a partner and having children.

Christine Garrington 2:45

And where did you get all your information from?

Ayten Bilgin 2:49

So what we did in the study is was a meta-analysis which is bringing together data from previous studies. We first started doing an expansive research looking into previous studies, which reported on adult and social relationships, after being born preterm or low birth rates. We found 21 studies from 12 different countries, and we then combined the results of these different studies.

Christine Garrington 3:20

And can you talk us through a little more exactly what you what you did with that information?

Ayten Bilgin 3:24

Yeah, so to assess the level of social relationships we looked at having a romantic partner, having sexual intercourse, and becoming a parent and we were also interested in assessing the quality of the relationship with romantic partners and friends. And overall their information for up to 4.4 million participants in the study, and we overall compared the scores of adults born preterm on these outcomes to those born at term.

Christine Garrington 3:58

And Marina now I wonder if you can just talk us through them some of your, your principal findings.

Marina Mendonça 4:02

So previous research on the social lives of adults born preterm was quite inconsistent. And as Ayten mentioned in the study we brought together data from these previous studies, which allowed us to have a greater understanding about the effect of preterm birth on social relationships later in adulthood. And what we found was that those who are born preterm were less likely to form romantic partnerships, have initiated their sexual life, and to experience parenthood than those born full term. The point of these associations was in general small for romantic partnership and for parenthood. For example, those born preterm, were about 20%, less likely to form romantic partnerships and 22% less likely to become parents when compared with full time terms. However, the association was stronger for sexual intercourse, because we found that adults one preterms were about 2.3 times - which is more or less 57% less likely to ever had had sexual intercourse. We also found that these associations became stronger the more premature one was born. So this means that those who were born extremely preterm so this is less than 28 weeks of gestation, were at the highest risk of not finding a romantic partner, having sexual relations and having children.

Christine Garrington 5:43

And was the picture different for men and women? And I wonder also whether age mattered at all?

Marina Mendonça 5:48

Well, these associations were similar for both men and women so this means that both men and women born preterm are less likely to experience these social milestones, and one of our most surprising findings was that this pattern of associations also did not differ between the younger age group of those between 18 and 25 years, and the older age group of those with more than 25 years. So previous studies have suggested that people born preterm would take longer to make these social transitions, but then catch up. However, our findings suggest that rather than a delay. There was a persistent difficulty in making these social transitions, which could be associated with negative outcomes later in life, such as being more socially isolated, and also having poor physical and mental health, which Ayten also already mentioned that these social relationships are very important for your wellbeing.

Christine Garrington 6:56

Absolutely, that's really interesting. Now Marina you also looked at the quality of the relationships that people were in, was there anything that was interesting that emerged there?

Marina Mendonça 7:06

Yes, so we found that despite having fewer close relationships. What we found in this meta-analysis was that when preterm adults have friends, or had a romantic partner, the quality of these relationships, was at least as good in preterms, compared to those born full term. So this is a very positive message, and it also highlights the importance of further research on this area as we still know very little about the characteristics of these social relationship.

Christine Garrington 7:42

Ayten, what would you say are the implications of all this? Are there any lessons for how we can better and best support these, these groups as they become adults?

Ayten Bilgin 7:53

Yes, our findings suggest that preterm born individuals could struggle more later on in their lives, regarding their social relationships, they may be more lonely - socially isolated while also facing economical difficulties, and could be a challenge for them later on as adults. When preterm get older their parents may not be around anymore to give them support, and overall, the most important lesson is to intervene and start promoting their social skills, as soon as possible. As specifically when they go in school because these social relationship problems tend to develop early, and those caring for preterm children. This includes parents., health professionals and teachers, they should be more aware of the important role of social development and social integration for preterm children and supporting them to make new friends, that will help them later in life, and help them to enhance their wellbeing.

Christine Garrington 9:02

Some really clear messages there, now how will this work, feed into the wider Premlife project which is obviously seeking to ensure that preterm and low weight babies do go on and thrive and do have those fulfilling lives.

Ayten Bilgin 9:16

This study is about inequalities in social relationships caused by preterm birth and our previous study from the same project was about economic inequalities, caused by preterm births, both of which are in line with the focus of PremLife. PremLife project investigates which factors provides protection, and increased resilience for preterm children's life course outcomes to help them achieve better outcomes. Findings of this study feeds into PremLife project by highlighting the importance of focusing on the social relationships in childhood so it also does, and investigation of the factors which could explain the difference in social skills in preterm individuals.

Christine Garrington 10:06

Ayten Bilgin and Marina Mendonça from the PremLife project, were talking to Chris Garrington, for this episode of the DIAL podcast. Association of Preterm Birth and Low Birth Weight With Romantic Partnership, Sexual Intercourse, and Parenthood in Adulthood: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis is research published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. You can find out more about the DIAL research programme at dynamicsofinequality.org. And don't forget to subscribe to the DIAL podcast, to access earlier and forthcoming episodes.

In Episode 3 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Katharina Heisig and Larissa Zierow from DIAL's IMCHILD project discuss their research looking at the impacts of parental leave reform in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). They discuss the happiness outcomes of adults who, as children, as the result of the policy reforms, spent 12 months at home with their mother rather than in State run childcare.

The baby year parental leave reform in the GDR and its impact on children's long-term life satisfaction is a DIAL Working Paper by Katharina Heisig and Larissa Zierow from DIAL's IMCHILD project.

Transcript

In Episode 3 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Katharina Heisig and Larissa Zierow from DIAL's IMCHILD project discuss their research looking at the impacts of parental leave reform in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). They discuss the happiness outcomes of adults who, as children, as the result of the policy reforms, spent 12 months at home with their mother rather than in State run childcare.

The baby year parental leave reform in the GDR and its impact on children's long-term life satisfaction is a DIAL Working Paper by Katharina Heisig and Larissa Zierow from DIAL's IMCHILD project.

Christine Garrington 0:00

Welcome to DIAL, a podcast where we tune into evidence on inequality over the lifecourse. In this series we are discussing emerging findings from DIAL research. Our guests today are Larissa Zierow and Katharina Heisig from the IMCHILD project which is looking at the impact of childhood circumstances, on how children get on in life. They've been investigating the effects of parental leave policy reforms to see whether children who get to spend the first 12 months at home with their mother, are happier, later on in life. I started by asking Larissa, why they chose the former German Democratic Republic, as the setting for their research?

Larissa Zierow 0:36

You wonder why we choose a reform of a country that is not existing anymore but we thought it's straightforward to look at the GDR's reform, using this context we did not face two problems, which other research on parental leave, reform, usually face. The first thing is that in other countries, which other studies are using for evaluating the reforms, they usually not all women go to the labour market and not all women go to work. If you want to measure causal effects of parental leave reform this is not so good because it's just a selective group of women who will be targeted by the reform, and in the GDR. It was the case that every woman was kind of in the same boat, because they all went to work. Mothers also, and also mothers mostly work full time. And this just leaves us with a better setting to measure causal effects of the parental leave reform.

Katharina Heisig 1:41

Actually there is a second technical problem. Other studies have, which is, in our opinion even more severe, children from very different families are systematically cared for in different types of childcare you know? This means that worse off children are typically cared for in low quality care for example and better off children are rather cared for in high quality care. There are also severe differences between public and private forms of childcare, as well as that there are a lot of difference between formal and informal types of childcare. The effect, the authors of previous studies measured, these effects depend traditionally on the fact, which kind of child goes to, which kind of childcare, and that's also a big problem, you know, if you want to measure a causal effect. In the GDR there was just one type of childcare, actually, that was standardised, it was state provided, childcare centres that were supervised by the health ministry, and basically all childcare centres were almost the same. Be it the curriculum and levels of teacher education or the group sizes for example, right.

Christine Garrington 2:50

And what about the parental leave policy reform itself, can you just explain that to us.

Katharina Heisig 2:55

This law, we use as a setting, it became effective with the first of May in 1986. Before this reform, mothers with just one child, they received five months of paid maternal leave only. Only mothers with at least two children warranted 12 months of paid parental leave. And this was the case since 1976, with the first of May 1986 all mothers receive between 60 and 80% of their wage, while they were on leave. Yeah, with the help of the setting we look actually at the question whether there is an effect of extending parental leave from five to 12 months.

Christine Garrington 3:32

So what specifically was it that you wanted to look at when it came to this policy reform and its potential benefits.

Katharina Heisig 3:38

So, in general, we were interested in the benefits of parental leave on a child's development. Of course, there are already plenty of other research papers on the topic, but all the papers have these problems going on we already mentioned, We decided to look at overall life satisfaction, which, in a sense comprises all the outcomes other papers use such as education, health, and individual behaviour, for example.

Christine Garrington 4:06

And Larissa where did you get your information from and why was it such a good resource for looking at this particular group of people in this particular way on this particular topic?

Larissa Zierow 4:16

Yeah we used the German Social Economic Panel as a data source it's a representative sample of all people living in Germany. We discovered that it would be perfect for our study, because of many reasons. First of all we have to know whether individuals actually were born in the GDR, and so we got this information on about 1,100 individuals. We also needed of course the information on whether they had siblings because the reform was different for firstborn or later born children of families, and this information was also included in the panel data. We also wanted to have life satisfaction, as a outcome variable, this is also included in this data set, we also use some other data sources to check whether mothers, actually use the parental leave, that was granted them by the reform and we found out that 95% of all mothers, actually use that. So that was also important additional information.

Christine Garrington 5:25

So when you looked at the happiness of those children who did get to spend those first 12 months at home with mom, those first 12 months. What did you find?

Larissa Zierow 5:33

Yeah, we find that children who are now adults, they show an increase in their life satisfaction, as a consequence of the reform. And we thought that this is very interesting, since if you think about it only individuals who are satisfied with their life are usually more positive, they're successful regarding all different things. This is something which is a good thing for every country, and increasing the well-being of individuals, it's mainly one of the most important goals of a welfare state also.

Christine Garrington 6:12

Indeed, and how did that compare then with the people who had spent just five months with their mom or in childcare?

Larissa Zierow 5:33

The increase is eight percent higher score in life satisfaction compared to individuals who just spent the first five months with their mom. Yeah, this is pretty high. If you compare to other studies on life satisfaction. This 8% increase.

Christine Garrington 6:36

And now you delved a little deeper to see whether some of the some of that greater happiness was actually down to developing personalities or people changing as they as they get older, what did you find there Katharina?

Katharina Heisig 6:48

Yeah, we were really interested in that question actually, whether the increase in life satisfaction was driven by, you know, for example, more open, or more positive people. There is this so called attachment theory of Bowlby, John Bowlby who suggests that spending the first year of life with your primary caregivers of mother and/or father is very important for developing trust in detachment, for example, which then affects the personality. There are these personality traits, called the Big Five. This is agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness to new things, and which we analysed in this follow ups. And yeah, when we start to suggest that, especially children from worse off families, but also boys actually benefit in the long run from this parental leave reform. In terms of those big five personality development.

Christine Garrington 7:47

Okay, so we might also assume I guess that better off children might have better health, as they grow up and I wonder if that was a factor?

Katharina Heisig 7:56

Yeah, correct. This was actually a factor. This is, yeah exactly what we find. And what we found in terms of overall health of the observed persons from better off families. And we do not find such positive health effects for children from worse off families. Yeah we explain this difference by the good healthcare situation in the East, GDR's childcare facilities, which we thought might have been better for the children from worse off families. But the situation was not as good as to compensate for the good situation better off children had at home with their families. And yeah what we also find is that boys do more in terms of health to this parental leave perform.

Christine Garrington 8:45

So, taking everything into account. What would you say are the key points to emerge Larissa?

Larissa Zierow 8:51

Yeah, I think the most important point would be that we can say with our study that granting paid parental leave in the whole first year of the child has really long-lasting positive effects and all children would benefit from that. And we find this, especially for the outcome of life satisfaction when we look at different subgroups of children we can also say that boys benefit in terms of their health and personality development from this whole year of parental leave. It could be that it's more important for boys to be close with their moms in the first year than it is for girls, it could also well be that families, treat girls and boys differently, but we don't know this from our study, this is just speculation. We also see that children from better off families benefit in terms of their health and children from worse off families benefit in terms of their personality development. So we see that there are different effects of the reform by subgroup but in general, our finding is that it's beneficial for for all, all families and for all children.

Christine Garrington 10:04

Yeah, that's really interesting and you, as you've said looked at this in a very clear, very clear policy context. So are there lessons for policy makers in Germany and beyond, would you say Katharina?

Katharina Heisig 10:15

Yeah, definitely. We think so. Well in Germany we actually already have more than one year of paid parental leave so far, like for Germany. We think it would be definitely of big interest to grant also father's paid parental leave for the first months after their child is born. Yeah and how this affects the children right. For example, the thirty months came out in Sweden was introduced, for example, it would be interesting to see results of this kind of thirty months, but with a longer period. Where in many other countries, there is either no paid or just unpaid leave at all or just few weeks or months of paid parental leave, or a maternity leave. We think that our results show that offering 12 months of paid leave, so one year, definitely has benefits for children growing up. And we're, you know, With this for your society as well. But we also know that these policies are very cost intensive governments for sure as to decide to have to decide on their own if they want to invest money in paid leave. But since we also really see positive effects for the children which are visible in the long run, we think it's very good use of money.

Christine Garrington 11:32

There is a very clear message there. Now this research is part of a wider project looking at the impact of childhood circumstances on individual outcomes over people's life course what more can we expect from the project.

Larissa Zierow 11:44

Yeah so one project linked to this reform would be to look at the effect of the paid parental leave on mothers in the overall approach that we actually are interested in outcomes over the life course so I am working on two other projects. One is on all the primary school students, and we got investigator reform which introduced all the schools in Germany. And we compare the effects of attending an all-day primary school instead of our half-day primary school children. We find small positive effects of all the all day schools but they, the effects actually differ a lot by subgroup of students and for some subgroups, attending an all day school is not always positive. And then other project, there we look at the role of interim degrees in secondary school, so getting a degree, already after nine or 10 years of school before getting to the to the highest degree of the academic track, and we find that interim degrees, somehow serve as a fallback option, and the milestone and especially students, at the risk of dropping out of school, profit from from such interim degrees and are more motivated by them.

Christine Garrington 13:13

Katharina Heisig and Larissa Zierow from the IMCHILD project we're talking to Chris Garrington for this episode of the DIAL podcast. The baby year parental leave reform in the GDR and its impact on children's long-term life satisfaction is a DIAL Working Paper available on the website at dynamicsofinequality.org. Don't forget to subscribe to the DIAL podcast, to access earlier and forthcoming episodes. Thanks for listening.

In the second Episode of Series 2 of our podcast looking at research emerging from the Equal Lives project, we talk to Jani Erola and Hannu Lehti from the University of Türku in Finland about their research, The heterogeneous effects of parental unemployment on siblings' educational outcomes. They use high quality Finnish data and robust methods to see how having an unemployed parent affects how teenage children get on at school. They discuss their findings and what they might mean for those seeking to support the families of people out of work and to reduce inequalities over the life course.

In Episode 2 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Jesper Fels Birkelund from the Lifetrack project talks about his research looking at the educational aspirations and achievements of the children of immigrants in Denmark. He shares findings from the research and outlines their implications for policy in Denmark and more widely in Europe.

Aiming high and missing the mark? Educational Choice, Dropout Risk, and Achievement in Upper Secondary Education among Children of Immigrants in Denmark is research by Jesper Fels Birkelund, and is published in the European Sociological Review.

Transcript

In Episode 2 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Jesper Fels Birkelund from the Lifetrack project talks about his research looking at the educational aspirations and achievements of the children of immigrants in Denmark. He shares findings from the research and outlines their implications for policy in Denmark and more widely in Europe.

Aiming high and missing the mark? Educational Choice, Dropout Risk, and Achievement in Upper Secondary Education among Children of Immigrants in Denmark is research by Jesper Fels Birkelund, and is published in the European Sociological Review.

Christine Garrington 0:00

Welcome to DIAL, a podcast where we tune into evidence on inequality over the lifecourse. In this series we are discussing emerging findings from some of the projects in our programme. Our guest today is Jesper Fels Birkelund from the Lifetrack project. As part of the project he has been looking at the educational aspirations and achievements of the children of immigrants in Denmark but he starts by outlining what the wider project is all about.

Jesper Fels Birkelund 0:26

Lifetrack is a country comparative investigation of how educational institutions influence the formation of social inequality. So the first research aim of the project is to examine the unequal access to secondary education based on socio-economic and ethnic origin, and then we examine how inequalities and access, potentially differ across institutional contexts. So I work as part of the Danish research team, and we collaborate with teams across Europe. So we have teams in Germany, in England, Finland, France and Italy. So we cover six European countries in total. Our second research aim is then to examine how consequential, the choice of secondary education is for later life outcomes, both in the short run, in terms of educational attainment, and in the longer run in terms of labour market outcomes. So this way you can say we attempt to capture the entire process of how socio-economic advantages are passed down through generations, and then we assess the role of educational choice, and educational institutions in this process.

Christine Garrington 1:28

As you were saying there you're part of the Danish team you've been investigating the situation, in, in Denmark, what can you tell us about what was already known about the educational ambitions and the choices of, of the children of immigrants who, who have come to Denmark?

Jesper Fels Birkelund 1:46

Yes, well I take my starting point in a quite well-established finding international research, known as immigrant optimism, or the immigrant paradox, and the paradox being that, although children of immigrants performed relatively poorly in school, they have quite high educational aspirations for the future. So what researchers have found in different settings, is that in given levels of school performance, children of immigrants, choose more academically challenging paths than children of native born parents do. So for example, when looking at the transition to secondary education as we do children of immigrants choose academic tracks over general and vocational tracks, and they do so with even relatively low levels of performance. So, over the past 10 or 15 years. This pattern of immigrant optimism has been recorded in in different settings as I said, so we've seen in France and Germany in the UK and in Sweden, and I also show it for Denmark. Unfortunately, this line of research does not really say much about the reasons behind children of immigrants, high aspirations but I just wanted to add that essential explanation in the literature is that immigrants are a positively self-selected subgroup of their home country's population. So you can say that those who chose to leave their home countries, often with the goal of settling in a new country, to achieve some degree of upward socio-economic mobility, and if not for themselves, then for their children, and then they sort of speak past those high aspirations onto to their children.

Christine Garrington 3:09

Yeah, understood, let's talk about specifically what you did Jesper.

Jesper Fels Birkelund 3:13

Yes, to estimate how ethnicity influences educational choice, it is important to compare children of different ethnic origins, that are otherwise similar in terms of the socio-economic background on the one hand, and the school performance on the other. So what I do is to control the these two groups of factors to provide an estimate of just how much more likely children of immigrants are to enrol in academic tracks, compared to children of Danish origin, at given levels of socio economic background and performance.

Christine Garrington 3:42

And where did your information come from? Was there a data set that you used for this?

Jesper Fels Birkelund 3:46

Yes. So I used the Danish administrative registers which are a very nice data source, so they hold very detailed demographic and educational information on pretty much all the citizens born from 1960 and onwards, and for this specific project, I study a younger cohort of children born in 1994, and 95, and I follow them until they're 21 years old, and that includes about 120,000 individuals.

Christine Garrington 4:12

That's a substantial number of people to be able to look at. So when you looked at the data, which children were most likely to enrol in upper secondary school, and, and take that more challenging path?

Jesper Fels Birkelund 4:24

When we look at the raw data, we see that actually equally many children of immigrant and Danish origin enrolled in the academic track so just more than 70% of both groups. The rest of them choosing either vocational education, or they can choose to leave the school system. However, as I said, educational choice must be seen in relation to differences in socio-economic background, and academic performance, so when controlling for these disadvantages among children of immigrants, I find that these children are actually about 12 percentage points more likely to choose academic education, compared to children of Danish origin. And what is more I see the children of immigrants are more likely to choose a more challenging curriculum, even within the academic track. So for example, I find that children of immigrants are more likely to choose Advanced Math and Science subjects, and they choose extra advanced subjects that are optional choices, which is of course a further underscoring of their high aspirations.

Christine Garrington 5:19

That's really interesting so substantially more children of immigrants. Following these paths as you've outlined, and how did this translate though because this is the big question, isn't it, how did this translate into actual academic achievements further down the line?

Jesper Fels Birkelund 5:34

Yes, so this is where I like to say that my study really contributes with a new perspective. So I argue that it's somewhat limiting, are we looking at educational enrollment, we should also consider the patterns of dropout and completion and final achievement. If we are to see the full picture here. So the actual consequences of high aspirations, both positive and potentially negative, and what I record is that high aspirations do come with a certain price in terms of a high risk of dropout, and lower achievement for children of immigrants. I find that it's because children of immigrants are being very ambitious, and particularly in the lower part of the performance distribution. So if we look specifically at the bottom fifth of the GPA distribution, I see that almost twice as many children of immigrants, than of Danish origin, choose academic education, and it is among these lowest performing students that the risk of dropout and low achievement is particularly high, so when we observe the children of immigrants, at a higher risk of dropout than children of Danish origin, and we do, it is very much because academically weaker students of students of immigrant origin, choose the academic track while children of Danish origin are more wary of doing so. In other words, if children of immigrants, didn't choose as ambitiously, then their average struggle would be lower, and their average achievement higher. On the other hand, then fewer children of immigrants would be getting an academic degree, and that is the trade off that I report in my study.

Christine Garrington 6:55

Yeah, so it was in fact something of a double-edged sword in the end was it really?

Jesper Fels Birkelund 6:59

Yes, that is exactly the point that I'm trying to make here so we see that high aspirations among children of immigrants, help them close the educational gap between them and their native peers, and that is an important point to make, then I also see the high aspirations entail of particularly low performing students of immigrant origin, choose to enrol in these educational programmes that turn out to be too challenging for them, and then they end up either dropping out of the programme, or they complete the programme but with quite poor grades, leaving them with fewer options for continuing in in higher education.

Christine Garrington 7:29

So what would you say them that we learn from all of this and how might policymakers - those working on the ground in education in Denmark - take this into consideration when looking, obviously, to create equal opportunities to thrive for those youngsters who might have something, you know what we might think of as a as a tougher start in life if they've if they've come as, as the children of immigrants potentially to Denmark?

Jesper Fels Birkelund 7:53

Well what we actually observe in Denmark right now is that policymakers are making it increasingly difficult to enter academic secondary education, if you have low compulsory school grades, so they have introduced recently a GPA threshold for access, and that is of course, one way of going about reducing the number of dropouts. However, as I see it, this policy also limits the educational opportunities, particularly for ethnic minority students, as many of these students have GPAs that are in the area below this threshold. So a different course of action would be to take a look at the educational institutions, and make them better equipped to serve the needs of low performing students. What do we see in the market is that some secondary schools already screened new students for the reading and math abilities, and then they provide additional support for the students, they find to be struggling, and that may be one way of helping students that have high aspirations, or who may lack the resources to realise them.

Christine Garrington 8:47

So as we said at the beginning of our discussion this piece of research is part of a wider project looking at whether and if so how different educational systems in Europe might influence or reinforce social inequalities over the life course. Are you able to say then if this is being seen elsewhere I think you sort of hinted that this that it is at the beginning, and if so, are there important learning points for other countries as well as Denmark, would you say obviously each country has a potentially different types of system.

Jesper Fels Birkelund 9:15

Well, in general I think the points that I just made applies to many European contexts. So if we look all over Europe, we see that an increasingly large proportion of youth cohorts, grew up and had immigrant origin. In the cohort that I study in Denmark 7% are children of immigrants, but in the cohorts that are being born now, it's now more than twice as many, and of course as this minority group gets bigger, it becomes an increasingly pressing question whether children of immigrants are making the right educational choices in the first place for themselves, but also whether schools are equipped to serve this group of students who obviously have high aspirations but may struggle to realise them.

Christine Garrington 9:51

Aiming high and missing the mark? Educational Choice, Dropout Risk, and Achievement in Upper Secondary Education among Children of Immigrants in Denmark is research published in the European Sociological Review by Jesper Fels Birkelund from the University of Copenhagen. You can find out more about the Life Track project at lifetrack.eu. A details of DIAL's wider research programme at dynamics dynamicsofinequality.org.

In Episode 1 of Series 3 of the DIAL Podcast, Professor Yvette Taylor from DIAL's CILIA LGBTQI+ project talks about her research with Matson Lawrence looking behind the celebratory rhetoric of the UK Government's LGBT Action Plan published in 2018. She also discusses emerging findings from the project and LGBTQI+ people say about their lives and how they view the 'progress' claimed in the plan and more widely by politicians.

The UK government LGBT Action Plan: Discourses of progress, enduring stasis, and LGBTQI+ lives 'getting better' is research by Matson Lawrence and Yvette Taylor and is published in the Journal of Critical Social Policy.

In the first Episode of our podcast looking at research emerging from the Equal Lives project, we talk to Marika Jalovaara from the University of Türku in Finland and Anette Fasang from Humboldt University in Berlin about their research, Family Life Courses, Gender and Mid-Life earnings. The research explores whether the reputation of Nordic countries for having family friendly policies that create a fairer and more equal society is deserved. Using register data from Finland, the researchers look at the earnings of adults based on their family lifecourse and reveal 2 groups of young adults who should be a focus for policy makers and researchers going forward.

In Episode 12 of the DIAL Podcast, Alessandro Di Nallo from the University of Lausanne talks about his research looking at the links between job loss and divorce for couples to see if the likelihood of separating is greater for more or less advantaged couples.

The heterogeneous effect of job loss on union dissolution. Panel evidence from Germany, Switzerland and the UK is research presented at the DIAL Mid Term Conference in June 2019.

Transcript

Alessandro Di Nallo: Job loss and divorce: worse for disadvantaged couples?

In Episode 12 of the DIAL Podcast, Alessandro Di Nallo from the University of Lausanne talks about his research looking at the links between job loss and divorce for couples to see if the likelihood of separating is greater for more or less advantaged couples.

The heterogeneous effect of job loss on union dissolution. Panel evidence from Germany, Switzerland and the UK is research presented at the DIAL Mid Term Conference in June 2019.

Christine Garrington 0:00

Welcome to DIAL, a podcast where we tune into evidence on inequality over the lifecourse. In today's episode we're talking about the lengths between job loss and divorce, and whether the risk of separation is greater for less advantaged couples. Our guest is Alessandro Di Nallo from the University of Lausanne who started by explaining some of the context of his research.

Alessandro Di Nallo 0:21

Job loss and unemployment in general is a stressful event. It triggers a reaction within the couple that eventually increase the level of stress, decrease the perception of attractiveness with the partner, and ultimately also reduce the wellbeing of partners. The alternative channels through which, unemployment can also be dangerous for a couple's stability could be the self-perception of attractiveness. As the partner who loses his job or her job is considered to be less attractive than he was supposed to be before losing his job. So this decreasing in attractiveness may ultimately lead to the couple to separate, to split up.

Christine Garrington 1:06

What do you want to look at specifically? And why in your research in this area?

Alessandro Di Nallo 1:12

We want to look at the different effect of unemployment of the male partner and the female partner, they're rarely treated in the literature. And we also wanted to see whether the ethical unemployment changes according to the level of partnership income so does it affect more comfortable advantaged couple or disadvantaged couple.

Christine Garrington 1:39

You used two long running studies which track the lives of people in Germany and in the UK over many years, tell us a bit about the data you use, how you could use it to look at this question of whether being out of work increases the risk of separation?

Alessandro Di Nallo 1:53

Yeah, so we collected data from two long running studies. The GSOEP, the German survey that's been running since the early 1980s, and to produce surveys. BHPS Understanding Society, that has been running since 1991 combined. We focussed on heterosexual couples in their working age, and that have been in the survey for at least two years. This is important. And then we ended up with even more than 40,000 couples for each survey. Then we separated the couples into two groups, the couples who have experienced a spell of unemployment of at least two months, and those who never did. So the first group is called the treated group, and the second one is the control group. And then we run our sort of quasi experimental methods that is called difference in difference, trying to assess whether the separation rates of the treatment group after experiencing unemployment, were systematically lower, or below the level of the control group. We use an additional method that is called causing and site matching that allows us to pair treated capitals with the comparable couples in the control group according to characteristics such as age, age differences between the partners, education, social class and other characteristics.

Christine Garrington 3:14

Let's turn them to some of your findings. Can you talk first about what you found for men and women in the UK?

Alessandro Di Nallo 3:20

So in the UK we found that couples from which men, experienced unemployment, were more likely to separate by how much. Let's see around 1.5 percentage point more than control factor couples. So for instance, if the average predicted probability for separation control factor couple is about, slightly above 2 percent, 1.5 more means 3.5 percent. This risk increases to an extra three percentage point one year after the couple experience males' unemployment. Well we didn't find significant effect when it comes to female unemployment. Men's unemployment is probably more dangerous for a couple of abilities that men take home a larger share of family income.

Christine Garrington 4:08

And what about for Germany?

Alessandro Di Nallo 4:10

We find more consistent results in Germany. We found extra risk of separation for both couples in which men and women experience unemployment and the extra risk, extra probability of separation ranged between two and three percentage points more with respect to the control factor couples.

Christine Garrington 4:28

Out of all of those facts and figures what are the key ones to take away would you say? Sort of what do we learn?

Alessandro Di Nallo 4:34

So we learned that men's unemployment is definitely dangerous for couple's stability. And that this extra risk of separation is about 5%, 4-5% on a yearly basis. In, on the first year of unemployment and for a four-year window after unemployment.

Christine Garrington 4:53

One of the things you took into account is how much people earned. Did that matter? Was that, was that relevant?

Alessandro Di Nallo 4:58

Low income families are more prone to separation, probably because they don't have enough resources, financially in the first place to absorb the stress, and to deal with costs due to separation.

Christine Garrington 5:12

And in terms of what we learn from your research about how unemployment can impact on relationships then what would you say?

Alessandro Di Nallo 5:20

There are reasons for which couples should remain together. Another reason that pull couples apart. So we're not saying that there are the only reasons that pull couples apart. Some mechanisms incentivise couples to stay together such as facing legal fees, increasing childcare costs, housing costs, all these kinds of things probably incentivise the couples to be together. But probably the challenge through which stress increases partnership instability is the prevailing one. We're able to say that among the two channels stress is the overwhelming part.

Christine Garrington 5:56

Okay so stress is really key. Now policy makers in both of these countries, and indeed elsewhere, are very keen to keep couples and families together for all sorts of reasons. What can they take away from your findings and from your research would you say?

Alessandro Di Nallo 6:09

So, we also find that less advantaged couples tend to split up when they are hit by unemployment, and they are significantly more so. So, it means that they are particularly exposed to increasing risk, deriving from separation - as I told you direct costs, childcaring and so on. Which impact on a larger fraction of household income for the low income family. So these are hidden costs of separation which taxation reform might relieve at least in part. There's also some research, highlighting the fact that couples that are more prone to separation have probably characteristics that lead them to be more prone to job loss. I'm talking about undesirable individual traits, such as personality disorders, anti-social tendencies, mental health problems. So this triggers a problem of self-selection of these couples into both unemployment and instability. And that's why we're looking for alternative methods that approach a causal link between unemployment, and separation.

Christine Garrington 7:15

So where did your research go from here?

Alessandro Di Nallo 7:17

we'd like to analyse alternatives, an additional country would probably include Switzerland in our analysis, and then we'd like to explore more the reason why man's unemployment is so more consequential for couples' stability or instability in the UK, other than in Germany, and probably we're looking at how the division of resources and the participation to income pooling within the family is organised in the two countries.

Christine Garrington 7:46

The heterogeneous effect of job loss on union dissolution. Panel evidence from Germany and the UK is research presented at the DIAL mid term conference in June 2019. You can find out more about the NORFACE funded DIAL projects at www.dynamicsofinequality.org. Thanks for listening to this episode of our podcast, which is presented and produced by Chris Garrington and edited by Elina Kilpi-Jakonen.