Conference Agenda

Inconsistent findings on mental health changes surrounding family transitions suggest subgroups drive effects. We examine if genetic susceptibility to depression explains this heterogeneity.

Using Finish data and random-effect models, we followed 30,192 individuals’ antidepressant (AD) purchase probabilities during union formation, separation, first childbirth, and widowhood. A polygenic index (PGI) for depression categorized individuals into low, medium and high risk.

Post-union formation, low-PGI individuals had decreasing AD purchase probabilities, while high-risk individuals exhibited increases. High-risk individuals showed a pre-separation increase in AD purchase probabilities, followed by an adjustment to previous levels. Post-widowhood, AD-probability increased among high-risk individuals, while low-risk individuals recovered fastest to pre-widowhood levels. PGI-differences surrounding first childbirth were not significant.

Overall, mental health trajectories surrounding union formation, separation and widowhood differ by depression PGI. High-PGI individuals had worse mental health during these events, while union formation was particularly beneficial for low-PGI individuals, who recovered fastest from separation and widowhood.

We explore what drives the differences in population growth among the municipalities in Denmark and Sweden and to what extent existing differences in age compositions across the municipalities are responsible for these differences.

Using Danish and Swedish aggregated municipal data, we decompose population growth of the municipalities into three demographic components, birth, death, and migration, and include a component that measures the effect of age composition on individual municipalities in relation to population growth.

We find that population growth and age structure are heavily linked to one another and largely determine migration patterns. More specifically, relatively older municipalities with negative contributions to growth from age structure also have a negative contribution from migration. On the other hand, younger municipalities with positive contributions of age structure component also tend to have a positive contribution from migration. Thus, rapidly ageing municipalities experience a double burden of both existing old-age structure and outmigration.

We investigate whether the prevalence of higher-risk pregnancies explains the trends and differences in stillbirth rates observed in European countries. We use data on stillbirths and live births, including maternal age and multiple pregnancies, from 2010 to 2021 in countries which are part of the Euro-Peristat project. Poisson regression was used to model trends. Kitagawa decomposition was used to decompose the stillbirth rate differences into structural and mortality effects.

Trends and levels of stillbirths vary between countries. Overall, maternal age is increasing, with fewer mothers aged under 25 and more aged 35 and older. There is also variation between countries in the prevalence of multiple births. Maternal age explains part of the within-country difference as well as the between-country difference. Due to low prevalence overall, multiple pregnancies fail to explain those differences. However, the majority of both differences in stillbirth rates are due to variations in fetal mortality.

One of the most distinct demographic trends in Western societies during the last 50 years is the increase in the proportion of one-person households (OPH). Nordic countries have been identified as frontrunners in this development. In Asia, equally developed countries like Japan retain elements of a strong-family system and an asymmetrical gender regime, simultaneously as they are experiencing rapid increases in OPHs. This article aims to uncover how the demographic and socioeconomic composition of OPHs have developed since the 1990s among working-age women in Sweden and Japan. In contrast to Japan, the level of OPHs remained stable over time in Sweden, and even declined among women with high incomes. This suggests that the negative association between family formation and women’s economic activity is temporary and only prevails as long as society has not adapted to the convergence of men’s and women’s socioeconomic roles.

Same-sex couples increasingly often live in legally recognized unions and have children together. The accessibility of parenthood, however, depends on intersecting contextual and couple-level characteristics. Using Finnish register data on 1,945 female same-sex couples who registered their partnership in 2002–2016, during which important legal changes regarding same-sex parenthood took place, we explore how education and the existence of prior children predict childbearing within the same-sex partnership. Female couples’ likelihood of childbearing within five years of registering a partnership increased from 20% to 45% over the observation period. The increase was not universal. For couples educated to tertiary level, the increase was from 24% to 55%. For primary and lower-secondary levels, the likelihood decreased from 27% to 9%. Educational differences in childbearing were only marginally explained by income level. Intensifying educational differences in fertility may reflect changes in couple-level characteristics as well as institutional barriers to childbearing that need more attention.

Objectives: The present study investigates whether the relationship between widowhood and healthcare use differs between native- and foreign-born persons residing in Denmark. It also studies the variations of health effects of widowhood by the immigration backgrounds of spousal.

Methods: Leveraging Danish population register data from 1995-2014, we investigate trajectories of doctor’s visits 3 years before and 3 years after widowhood and the risk of post-widowhood hospitalization among immigrants and native-born Danes aged 50 and older.

Results: We found that immigrant women had a smaller increase in doctor’s visits before and after widowhood than Danish women. Immigrant men had a smaller increase in doctor’s visits before widowhood, while the post-widowhood change in doctor’s visits was similar among immigrant and native men. The change in the number of doctor’s visits varied across marriage type among immigrants. Discussion: The results suggest that aging immigrants are more vulnerable to stress related to spousal loss.

This paper aims to examine the extend of loneliness of the Afro-diasporic community in Germany. We focus on Afro-diasporic migrants aged 18-50 (N=213) and compare them with native Germans (N=14,269) from the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA 2021). First, we present findings on the prevalence of emotional loneliness (Afro-diaspora: 21.1 %, natives: 13.1 %) and cognitive loneliness (Afro-diaspora: 19.4 %, natives: 13.4 %). Especially social rejection is reported more frequently by Afro-diasporic migrants (21.30 %, natives: 16.32 %). In a second step, we estimate the outcome variables (emotional and cognitive loneliness) of cross-sectional regressions. The models focus on compositional differences between migrants and natives (e.g. education) as well as on cultural factors influencing loneliness (e.g. religion). Preliminary results indicate that loneliness is significantly higher in the Afrodiasporic community compared to the native German population.Intersectional risks such as low socioeconomic status or being female increase the likelihood of higher loneliness.

The demographic transition is putting the German statutory pension insurance system under enormous pressure to reform. A factorial survey experiment conducted as part of the German Economic Institute’s 2023 IW Survey of Individuals related the level of pension contributions to the degree of security and the standard retirement age and simulated the adjustments reforms could achieve. However, even this explicit illustration of reform options failed to counteract popular aversion to changes. Hence, the status quo receives the greatest approval. In direct comparison, postponing the standard retirement age by one year is as unacceptable as a 3-percentage-point increase in the contribution rate or a reduction in pension benefits of about 4 per cent. The lowest acceptance of reforms is to be found among those whom they would least affect: the over-50s. Among under-50s, the rejection of all reform options is considerably weaker.

The P-score is a common measure of excess mortality, indicating the percentage by which actual measured deaths deviate from expected deaths, that result from a counterfactual scenario. It is often used to compare pandemic mortality burdens between countries, but such comparisons can be biased due to differences in population age structures. Here, we show that the P-score depends on the expected distribution of deaths over age in a population, and propose a Kitagawa-type decomposition that decomposes P-score differences into an excess mortality difference and an age distribution of death difference. As an example, we calculated P-scores for women in European countries for the year 2020, with expected deaths assuming pre-pandemic conditions. Applying Kitagawa's decomposition, it can be shown that differences in the age structure of expected deaths have only a small influence on the comparison of P-scores between European countries.

Smoking significantly impacts mortality, with both low and high levels of consumption having detrimental effects. The duration of smoking, in addition to the intensity of consumption, plays an important role in determining the extent of these effects.
We analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey between 1997 and 2014. By using Cox proportional hazards models to control for factors such as socioeconomic status, pre-existing conditions, and individual lifestyle factors, we were able to observe both gender-specific and health-related effects.
Our analysis showed that all smokers, regardless of their health status, have a higher relative mortality risk compared with non-smokers. The longer the period of heavy smoking, the higher the relative risk of death compared with non-smokers, especially for smokers under 70 years.
Male smokers have a higher relative mortality risk than female smokers, while tobacco consumption has a significantly more negative effect on female smokers than on non-smokers.