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Who Finds a New Partner?
Increasing divorce and separation rates among couples make repartnering an important factor to understand the dynamics of partnership formation today. Using register data from Belgium, Inge Pasteels and Dimitri Mortelmans (2017) from the University of Antwerp, explore how economic resources and an individual’s previous union influence the likelihood of finding a new partner.
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Who Pays More for a Better Work-life Balance?
To better understand the consequences of career breaks within the scope of governmental schemes to support a better work-life balance, research so far has mainly focused on the effects of parental leave for women and gender gaps in wage differentials. Mortelmans and Frans (2017) go beyond these shortcomings by examining the impact of career breaks on the income of both men and women, and across the life course.
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News: Prof. Godelieve Masuy-Stroobant
Population Europe sadly announces the passing of Prof. Godelieve Masuy-Stroobant (1948-2017). As the director of the Center for Demographic Research at the Université catholique de Louvain, Godelieve was one of the founding members of Population Europe in 2009 and actively supported activities, particularly during the formative years of our network, and ever since. We will miss her great support and advice and will always honor our colleague and friend in memory.   On behalf of Population Europe Dr Andreas Edel Executive Secretary  
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News: The Effect of Family Formation on the Build-up of Pension Rights Among Minority Ethnic Groups and Native Women in Belgium
Authors: Karel Neels, David De Wachter, and Hans Peeters  

Gender penalties in pension outcomes are widely acknowledged and have been documented for majority populations in various settings. A recurring finding is that the gendered impact of family formation on work–care trajectories adversely affects women's accumulation of pension rights over the lifecourse relative to men. Although maternal employment is particularly low in migrant populations, few papers have explicitly addressed pension protection of migrant women. 

Neels
Karel
Family and Children
Migration and Integration
Working Life
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Once a Barrier to Fertility, Women’s Employment Is Now Key to It.
The question of how work influences women’s fertility has been high on the demographic research agenda for decades. For a long time, the assumption was that higher labour force participation among women was negatively associated with fertility. In recent years, however, more and more researchers argue that this may no longer be true. 

The question of how work influences women’s fertility has been high on the demographic research agenda for decades. For a long time, the assumption was that higher labour force participation among women was negatively associated with fertility. In recent years, however, more and more researchers argue that this may no longer be true. The argument goes that the expansion of reconciliation policies and changing gender roles have decreased the opportunity costs associated with childbearing, which leads to a positive relationship between female employment and fertility in dual-earner societies. Being out of the labour force may be perceived as a cheap time for childbearing, but lacking employment in a dual-earner society can yield feelings of nonfulfillment, prevent leaving the parental home, postpone union formation, and hamper the accumulation of the resources necessary to face the costs of family formation.

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Failure or Success?
Some immigrants stay in their host countries while others decide to return home, but return motives can be remarkably diverse. Migrants may decide to return if they have not been able to improve their lives through migration, a situation that can perhaps be read as a ‘failure’. Others instead may make the same decision only when they have saved and remitted enough to invest in their country of origin, making the return a measure of success.
Van Bavel
Jan
Family and Children
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Books and Reports: Unequal Attainments. Ethnic educational inequalities in ten Western countries
This book, edited by Anthony Heath and Yaël Brinbaum investigates the educational careers of the second-generation groups in ten western countries - Belgium, Britain, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA. The contributing authors use large-scale national datasets and harmonised analyses of outcomes to identify patterns of success and failure in education and the mechanisms underlying such inequalities.
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