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Wealth and Family Formation: Insights from First Cohabitation, Marriage, and Birth in Germany

Existing research has demonstrated that wealthier individuals differ in family formation. Potential explanations draw on wealth’s use and symbolic value as well as the relative economic bar of family formation. This study examines the relationship between wealth and three family formation events in Germany: first cohabitation, marriage, and birth. Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002–2017) ...

When You’re Down and Out: Who Benefits from Volunteering in Old Age?

Theoretical considerations suggest that volunteering contributes to retirement adjustment because it compensates for role losses following retirement. However, the idea that mental health benefits of volunteering are stronger after retirement than prior to retirement has been hardly tested empirically. Moreover, it remains open to question who benefits from volunteering in retirement in particular. ...

With Great Prestige Comes Great Responsibility: The Role of Occupations in Shaping Employee Behavior

What compels a doctor to volunteer at a makeshift clinic in a remote village? Why do lawyers from elite firms devote hundreds of hours to pro-bono cases? These examples illuminate how occupations shape behavior beyond formal job requirements. As careers become increasingly defined by occupational rather than organizational membership, understanding the occupational forces that shape discretionary behaviors ...

Unemployment, unemployment duration, and health: selection or causation?

This study aims at disentangling the causal effects of unemployment on physical and mental health from the selection of the unhealthy into unemployment. To identify causal effects, it explores hypotheses concerning how physical and mental health deterioration gain additional momentum with a longer duration of unemployment. In contrast, mere selection into unemployment implies time-constant effects ...

Do local public expenditures on sports facilities affect sports participation in Germany?

This paper analyzes the effect of local public expenditures on sports facilities on sports participation in Germany. To this end, we construct a new database containing public expenditures at the municipality level and link this information with individual level data. We form locally weighted averages of expenditures based on geographic distances since people also benefit from expenditures of neighboring ...

Status anxiety and quality of life: How much does inequality hurt?

Differences Between Lifelong Singles and Ever-Partnered Individuals in Big Five Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction

Being romantically partnered is widely seen as a societal norm, and it has been shown to be positively associated with important life outcomes, such as physical and mental health. However, the percentage of singles is steadily increasing, with more people staying single for life. We used the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE; N = 77,064, mainly ≥ 50 years, 27 countries) to investigate ...

Social origins and educational attainment: The unique contributions of parental education, class, and financial resources over time

This study examines the unique contributions of parental wealth, class background, education, and income to different measures of educational attainment. We build on recent sibling correlation approaches to estimate, using Norwegian register data, the gross and net contribution of each social origin dimension across almost 3 decades of birth cohorts. Our findings suggest that parental education is ...

Under blood pressure – differentiated versus undifferentiated marketing to increase blood donations

Despite strong evidence in current marketing theory and practice that a differentiated marketing approach increases recruitment success, blood services worldwide often use undifferentiated marketing strategies to address new blood donors. Relying on the assumption that differentiated marketing is highly promising; the authors developed an online experiment among 838 participants who had not donated ...

Zooming into the first year after parental death: Loss and recovery in adult mental health

The initial year after parental death is a critical period for grief and coping. Despite its significance for declines in and recovery of adult mental health, this initial period is not sufficiently captured in existing research following changes across annual or even broader intervals. This paper assesses the impact of the first and second parent’s death on adult mental health on more fine-grained ...