The LIVES Working Group on Family Dynamics brings together researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds interested in family relationships, diversities, configurations, transitions and regulations.
Starting in March 2026, the Working Group will launch a new webinar “Families in Flux: Contemporary Dynamics Across Disciplines”. This online series aims to shed light on the latest research on families. Speakers from different countries, disciplines, and methodological backgrounds will present their findings and discuss them with the virtual audience. Each session will take around one hour, with 30 minutes of presentation and 30 minutes of discussion and questions from the audience.
The online series will take place four times a year:
Speaker: Zachary Van Winkle — Sciences Po, Centre for Research on Social Inequalities, CNRS, Paris
Zachary Van Winkle is Associate Professor of Sociology at Sciences Po (CRIS), and associate member of the University of Oxford and the Einstein Center for Population Diversity in Berlin. His research examines the interplay between family demography and social inequality from a comparative life course perspective. He is PI of the ERC Starting Grant project WIDOW on the social demography of widowhood, and has published in leading journals including the American Journal of Sociology, Demography, and the Journal of Marriage and Family.
Contemporary family research has become increasingly interested in understanding how genes and environments interact to shape individual outcomes across the life course. For example, recent studies have shown that parental separation lowers children’s genetic influences on education. However, previous research paid little attention to heterogeneous effects by socioeconomic status or family transitions following separation.
This study estimates the extent that parental separation and re-partnering moderates genetic influences on children’s academic test scores by mother’s level of education. Genotyped data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) linked with administrative registers allow not only the inclusion of household economic resources, but also genetic nurture effects (indirect genetic effects).
In contrast to previous results, no evidence is found that parental separation lowers genetic influences on children’s educational outcomes in Norway. However, findings demonstrate that re-partnering weakens the genetic effect on test scores among lower educated mothers. Results support the argument that stress related with re-partnering suppresses genetic influences on educational achievement, but highly educated mothers compensate for adverse conditions.
Venue:
- Thursday, 19 March 2026
- 13:00-14:00
- Online: The Teams link will be provided upon registration
Speaker: Michaela Kreyenfeld & Sarah Schmauk
Michaela Kreyenfeld is Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School. Her research is situated at the intersection of social inequality, social policy, and family sociology/demography. A key methodological focus lies in the analysis of life courses using longitudinal data. She is Co-Director of the Einstein Center Population Diversity. Michaela Kreyenfeld is also a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and actively engaged in academic and policy advisory bodies.
Deadbeat after Divorce? Men’s Employment Trajectories and Union Dissolution in Germany
Many studies have shown that divorce affects women’s employment and economic well-being. However, less is known about the impact on men’s employment careers. In this study, we use register data from the German Public Pension Fund to analyse the employment trajectories of men who divorced between 2008 and 2014 (n = 9,580). We employ sequence and cluster analysis to map and categorize men’s employment trajectories, which we follow from two years before to five years after divorce. Furthermore, we apply a matching procedure to construct a control group that closely aligns with the divorced men in key biographical and sociodemographic characteristics. The results show considerable stability in men’s employment trajectories around the time of divorce. However, when comparing divorced men to their matched control group, divorced men are more likely to be in the unemployment trajectory, while they are less likely to be in the employment trajectory with stable and very high income. Overall, divorce seems to mainly affect men at the top and bottom of the income distribution.
Venue:
- Thursday, 28 Mai 2026
- 13:00-14:00
- Online: The Teams link will be provided upon registration
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Register here : Registration form will be available here soon