This study examined social interaction effects on family formation and dissolution, asking whether fertility, marital, and divorce behavior spread in the sibling network. Using panel data from the German SOEP (1984 – 2016; N = 4,521 individuals), we estimated discrete-time event history models with random effects at the individual to examine whether siblings’ transitions to parenthood, marriage, and divorce influence an individual’s chance to have children, marry, and divorce. Results show that the hazard of becoming a parent increased in the short term after a sibling had a child. Similarly, the hazard of getting married increased following a sibling’s marriage. Tentative evidence also suggested that transition rates to divorce increased in the longer term following a sibling’s divorce. Furthermore, we found evidence for social interaction effects across different transitions in the process of family formation, as the transition rates to marriage decreased after a sibling divorced. Conversely, the risk of divorce decreased following a sibling’s entry to marriage. Overall, these findings illustrate that the impact of network partners on demographic behavior is not limited to the same behavioral domain and might be negative as well as positive.

这项研究考察了社会互动对家庭形成和解散的影响，询问生育、婚姻和离婚行为是否在兄弟姐妹网络中传播。使用德国 SOEP 的面板数据 (1984 – 2016; N= 4,521 个人），我们估计了对个人具有随机影响的离散时间事件历史模型，以检查兄弟姐妹向父母身份、婚姻和离婚的过渡是否影响个人生育、结婚和离婚的机会。结果表明，在兄弟姐妹有了孩子后，短期内成为父母的风险会增加。同样，兄弟姐妹结婚后结婚的风险也会增加。初步证据还表明，从长远来看，在兄弟姐妹离婚后，离婚的过渡率会增加。此外，我们还发现了家庭形成过程中不同转变过程中社会互动效应的证据，因为在兄弟姐妹离婚后，结婚的转变率下降了。相反，随着兄弟姐妹结婚，离婚的风险降低。