Parity Transitions and in-Work Poverty across the Life Course in the US and Germany

Zachary Van Winkle , University of Oxford
Emanuela Struffolino, WZB Berlin Social Science Center

In this study, we go beyond institutional and stratification approaches to in-work poverty by analysing the short- and mid-term associations between parity transitions and the risk of belonging to the working poor across the life course. Longitudinal data from the US and Germany are applied to between-within random effects linear regression models to estimate how the risk of in-work poverty increases initially following the transition to a first, second, and third child as well as how the initial increase in the risk of in-work poverty changes in the following six years. We further explore differences by age groups when childbirth occurs. Our results show that transitioning into parenthood increases the probability of in-work poverty especially for younger individuals. The initial increase in the risk of in-work poverty is much larger in the US compared to Germany. However, the positive association between each parity transition and the risk of in-work poverty is highly persistent in both contexts for all age-groups.

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 Presented in Session 102. Parenthood and Paid/Unpaid Work