Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SchoolandTransitions (The influence of schools on the off-time transitions to parenthood and partnership)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-06-01 do 2025-08-31
The School&Transitions project examined how secondary school environments and classmates’ behaviour shape two key early life-course transitions—entry into parenthood and entry into co-resident partnership—as well as later educational outcomes. Although adolescent transitions to parenthood and partnership have long been studied, previous research has focused primarily on individual and family background determinants, while largely overlooking the role of schools as formative social environments. This omission has been driven foremost by data limitations: until recently, there were no population-wide data that made it possible to construct full peer networks or follow entire cohorts across the schooling system and into adulthood.
This project addressed these gaps using Dutch administrative microdata, which allowed me to build complete school peer groups and track individuals over time. By combining event-history models, multilevel and cross-classified models, and preregistered quasi-experimental designs, the project aimed to achieve three core objectives:
(1) to examine how school contexts and classmates’ behaviour shape the timing of parenthood and partnership;
(2) to assess whether schools and peers mitigate or amplify inequalities linked to socioeconomic background, migration background, family structure, and maternal age at first birth; and
(3) to analyse how the influence of schools and classmates evolves as adolescents leave secondary school and move into diverse early-adulthood pathways.
In addition, a new work package examined how socioeconomic segregation in secondary schools is linked to students’ subsequent educational attainment, particularly in higher academic tracks.
Early transitions to parenthood and partnership often constrain educational attainment, reduce labour-market opportunities, and increase the risk of long-term economic vulnerability. These transitions are disproportionately common among young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, thereby reinforcing cumulative disadvantage across generations. Understanding the conditions under which school environments delay or accelerate these transitions is therefore crucial for designing interventions that can reduce inequality and expand opportunities for vulnerable youth. In parallel, the segregation-focused work shows that school composition and peer environments also shape who progresses to higher education, further reinforcing or attenuating these inequalities.
The project is deeply rooted in the social sciences and humanities, drawing on theories of socialisation, stratification, peer influence, and life-course development, and applying them to contemporary questions about inequality, education, and family behaviour. By integrating psychological and sociological theories, demographic methods, and administrative microdata, the project offers a robust evidence base for improving youth policy, strengthening educational systems, and ultimately mitigating the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage in both family and educational trajectories.
This project addressed these gaps using Dutch administrative microdata, which allowed me to build complete school peer groups and track individuals over time. By combining event-history models, multilevel and cross-classified models, and preregistered quasi-experimental designs, the project aimed to achieve three core objectives:
(1) to examine how school contexts and classmates’ behaviour shape the timing of parenthood and partnership;
(2) to assess whether schools and peers mitigate or amplify inequalities linked to socioeconomic background, migration background, family structure, and maternal age at first birth; and
(3) to analyse how the influence of schools and classmates evolves as adolescents leave secondary school and move into diverse early-adulthood pathways.
In addition, a new work package examined how socioeconomic segregation in secondary schools is linked to students’ subsequent educational attainment, particularly in higher academic tracks.
Early transitions to parenthood and partnership often constrain educational attainment, reduce labour-market opportunities, and increase the risk of long-term economic vulnerability. These transitions are disproportionately common among young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, thereby reinforcing cumulative disadvantage across generations. Understanding the conditions under which school environments delay or accelerate these transitions is therefore crucial for designing interventions that can reduce inequality and expand opportunities for vulnerable youth. In parallel, the segregation-focused work shows that school composition and peer environments also shape who progresses to higher education, further reinforcing or attenuating these inequalities.
The project is deeply rooted in the social sciences and humanities, drawing on theories of socialisation, stratification, peer influence, and life-course development, and applying them to contemporary questions about inequality, education, and family behaviour. By integrating psychological and sociological theories, demographic methods, and administrative microdata, the project offers a robust evidence base for improving youth policy, strengthening educational systems, and ultimately mitigating the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage in both family and educational trajectories.
The project used population-wide Dutch administrative data, which I first organised into longitudinal datasets. This included creating person-month histories that link individuals to their classmates, families, and later outcomes. This data infrastructure underpinned all subsequent analyses. Together with my co-authors, I worked on the following.
I examined the transition to parenthood using discrete-time event-history, cross-classified models. I analysed how classmates’ background characteristics, school track, school composition, school peer behaviour and neighbourhood characteristics relate to early motherhood. The results show that early parenthood is strongly structured by educational track, parental socioeconomic position, family structure, and maternal age at first birth.
Next, I studied the transition to co-resident partnership using monthly histories from ages 15 to 21. Here, classmates’ partnership behaviour is associated with individual transitions, but the influence is time-bound: it is strongest while adolescents are still in secondary school and weakens after they leave. The analyses also reveal marked gender and track differences, with boys’ partnership timing more strongly aligned with the behaviour of male peers.
In a new work package, I extended the project to educational outcomes. I worked on a propensity score matching study on school segregation, examining how exposure to different school compositions by household income relates to tertiary educational attainment, particularly in higher academic tracks.
I examined the transition to parenthood using discrete-time event-history, cross-classified models. I analysed how classmates’ background characteristics, school track, school composition, school peer behaviour and neighbourhood characteristics relate to early motherhood. The results show that early parenthood is strongly structured by educational track, parental socioeconomic position, family structure, and maternal age at first birth.
Next, I studied the transition to co-resident partnership using monthly histories from ages 15 to 21. Here, classmates’ partnership behaviour is associated with individual transitions, but the influence is time-bound: it is strongest while adolescents are still in secondary school and weakens after they leave. The analyses also reveal marked gender and track differences, with boys’ partnership timing more strongly aligned with the behaviour of male peers.
In a new work package, I extended the project to educational outcomes. I worked on a propensity score matching study on school segregation, examining how exposure to different school compositions by household income relates to tertiary educational attainment, particularly in higher academic tracks.
The project moves beyond the state of the art by providing one of the first population-level evidence on how classmates and school environments influence early parenthood and partnership, using complete peer networks derived from administrative registers. My analyses demonstrate that family background structure has a key influence on early life-course transitions, however educational track, school peer composition and school peer behaviour substantially add to the outcomes.
The new WP3 adds a further conceptual innovation by applying a preregistered quasi-experimental approach to assess the effects of migration-background segregation on academic attainment. These results identify track-specific patterns in how students’ exposure to higher- or lower-income peer environments shapes tertiary education prospects, illustrating how segregation and peer composition can reinforce cumulative inequality.
The project provides scalable methodological tools—longitudinal peer network construction, cross-classified event history analysis, preregistered propensity score design—that can be adopted by future research. Further work could extend these findings to additional life-course outcomes or examine the consequences of policy reforms such as school-integration initiatives.
The new WP3 adds a further conceptual innovation by applying a preregistered quasi-experimental approach to assess the effects of migration-background segregation on academic attainment. These results identify track-specific patterns in how students’ exposure to higher- or lower-income peer environments shapes tertiary education prospects, illustrating how segregation and peer composition can reinforce cumulative inequality.
The project provides scalable methodological tools—longitudinal peer network construction, cross-classified event history analysis, preregistered propensity score design—that can be adopted by future research. Further work could extend these findings to additional life-course outcomes or examine the consequences of policy reforms such as school-integration initiatives.