Volume 52 - Article 22 | Pages 689–740  

Uncovering what matters: Family life-course aspects and personal wealth in late working age

By Nicole Kapelle, Carla Rowold

Abstract

Background: Capturing the complexity of family life courses as predictors of later-life outcomes like wealth is challenging. Previous research has either (a) assessed a few selective but potentially irrelevant summary indicators, or (b) examined entire life-course clusters without identifying specific important aspects within and between them.

Objective: Our aim is to investigate which family life-course variables that capture the order, duration, and timing of states and transitions are key personal wealth predictors for Western Germans aged 50 to 59, and to analyse the strength and direction of associations between the relevant variables and personal wealth, and whether these differ by gender.

Methods: We used German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data and combined feature selection, sequence analysis tools, and regression techniques.

Results: We identified 23 family life-course variables as relevant predictors, with 2 – the time spent never-married, with and without children – deemed most relevant. Most family life-course variables were negatively associated with personal wealth and characterised by single parenthood, marital separation, or early marital transitions with or without fertility transitions. The prevalence and significance of some of the associations between these variables and personal wealth differed across genders. The results highlight the importance of previously concealed family life-course variables for wealth inequalities in late working age.

Contribution: We extend previous research on the nexus between family demography and wealth stratification by using a novel, data-driven approach that more effectively explores family life-course complexities by considering the ‘entire’ universe of variables that describe such life courses and identifying those life-course variables that are relevant wealth predictors.

Author’s Affiliation

• Nicole Kapelle - Trinity College Dublin, Ireland EMAIL
• Carla Rowold - Max-Planck-Institut für Demografische Forschung, Germany EMAIL

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Sociodemographic variation in family structures and geographic proximity between adult children and parents in Europe
Volume 52 - Article 25    | Keywords: family structure, grandparents, kinship, multigenerational family structures, social stratification

Examining the relationships between education, coresidential unions, and the fertility gap by simulating the reproductive life courses of Dutch women
Volume 52 - Article 24    | Keywords: contraception, education, fertility, GGS, life course, LISS, microsimulation, Netherlands, physiology, unions

Household living arrangements and disparities in hardship
Volume 52 - Article 20    | Keywords: hardship, household living arrangements, household types, income, poverty, sociodemographic characteristics, wealth

The intergenerational transmission of migration capital: The role of family migration history and lived migration experiences
Volume 50 - Article 29    | Keywords: childhood, emigration, Europe, immigration, life course

Union formation and fertility amongst immigrants from Pakistan and their descendants in the United Kingdom: A multichannel sequence analysis
Volume 48 - Article 10    | Keywords: assimilation, fertility, life course, migrants, sequence analysis, union formation, United Kingdom