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This study explores changes in partnership and marriage beliefs across the life course in seven European countries. Cohort replacement and social diffusion have been emphasized as key mechanisms of observed large shifts towards greater acceptance of different relationship and family forms. We conceptualize and empirically investigate relationship transitions as a mechanism for changing partnership and marriage beliefs, as they may reinforce or weaken cohort replacement effects. Moreover, existing studies focused on marriage beliefs, whereas more general partnership beliefs are crucial to study against the backdrop of a weakening marriage but a persistently strong couple norm. We conceptualize adaptations in relationship beliefs to be the result of either increasing correspondence or unplanned contradictions of own relationship trajectories with “chrononormative” ideals around the standardized life cycle.
Authors: Marie-Fleur Philipp & Pia S. Schober, University of Tübingen
About the speaker
Professor Pia Schober is a social policy and sociology scholar and an expert on gender inequalities across the life course with a focus on how regional and national family policies and cultural contexts shape gender and relationship beliefs and practices and mental health and subjective wellbeing. In terms of methods, she uses survey-experimental and longitudinal or quasi-experimental designs and quantitative statistical methods as well as mixed-methods designs. Pia Schober has been the recipients of many national grants including several grants by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Two recent grants include “Gradational gender identification, work and care practices and mental wellbeing across European gender regimes” and “Romantic relationships of adolescents and young adults: Reproducing gendered ideologies and identities?” She also holds a leading role in the DFG-funded international research training group on “Women’s mental health across the reproductive years”.