ABSTRACT

Austria, France, Germany, and Hungary are four neighbouring European societies all with conservative welfare regimes, yet with distinct institutional and structural features. We investigate how these differences shape a particular example of culturally contingent behaviour: cohabiting couples’ marriage behaviour when they have a child. Based on a discussion of relevant differences in family policy, legal frames and normative contexts, we develop hypotheses on country-specific marriage patterns. We test these hypotheses using longitudinal data from the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) and the German Family Panel (pairfam). A number of relevant covariates were harmonized in order to be able to control for potential confounders which may affect the fertility process as well as marriage formation. Using discrete-time event history analysis, we observe robust differences in the effects of fertility on the marriage rate of cohabiting couples between the four countries. Pregnancy increases the marriage rate in Austria, Germany and Hungary, whereas no significant effect of fertility is found for France. After childbirth, the transition rate drops to its pre-pregnancy level in Austria and Germany and even below that in Hungary. Our findings point to a critical role of the socio-cultural context in which couples make relevant decisions about their private lives.

摘要

奥地利、法国、德国和匈牙利是四个相邻的欧洲社会，它们都拥有保守的福利制度，但具有鲜明的制度和结构特征。我们调查了这些差异如何塑造文化偶然行为的一个特定例子：同居夫妇在有孩子时的婚姻行为。基于对家庭政策、法律框架和规范背景的相关差异的讨论，我们对特定国家的婚姻模式提出了假设。我们使用来自世代和性别计划 (GGP) 和德国家庭小组 (pairfam) 的纵向数据来检验这些假设。协调了许多相关协变量，以便能够控制可能影响生育过程和婚姻形成的潜在混杂因素。使用离散时间事件历史分析，我们观察到生育率对四个国家同居夫妇结婚率的影响存在很大差异。在奥地利、德国和匈牙利，怀孕会提高结婚率，而对法国的生育率没有显着影响。分娩后，奥地利和德国的过渡率下降到怀孕前的水平，甚至低于匈牙利的水平。我们的发现指出了社会文化背景的关键作用，在这种背景下，夫妻对他们的私人生活做出相关决定。奥地利和德国的过渡率下降到其孕前水平，甚至低于匈牙利的水平。我们的发现指出了社会文化背景的关键作用，在这种背景下，夫妻对他们的私人生活做出相关决定。奥地利和德国的过渡率下降到其孕前水平，甚至低于匈牙利的水平。我们的发现指出了社会文化背景的关键作用，在这种背景下，夫妻对他们的私人生活做出相关决定。