Objective
This project is the first comprehensive study of the demographic consequences of a major recent development in Europe: while men have always received more education than women in the past, this gender balance in education has now turned around. For the first time in history, there are more highly educated women than men reaching the reproductive ages and looking for a partner. I expect that this will have profound consequences for the demography of reproduction because mating practices have always implied that men are the majority in higher education. These traditional practices are no longer compatible with the new gender distribution in education. The objective of my project is to study in depth the consequences of this historically new situation for reproductive behaviour. The first step of the project is to reconstruct country-specific time series charting the shifting gender balance in education across time and space at different ages. These can then be used as contextual information in subsequent multilevel analyses of reproductive behaviour. In the second part, I will investigate how the reversal of the gender balance is influencing patterns of assortative mating by level of education. Third, I will study how the shifting gender balance is connected to the timing and probability of marriage versus unmarried cohabitation and to the timing and quantum of fertility. Finally, I will investigate the consequences for divorce and separation. Existing data sources will be used that cover a wide range of European countries. This project will not only be ground breaking by setting the research agenda for a new era in the European reproductive landscape. It will also introduce methodological innovations. First, agent based modelling will be used as a method to study assortative mating. Second, I propose a new way to study the causal effect of the gender balance in education. These methodological innovations will prove useful for many other social science projects.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
ERC-2012-StG_20111124
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Host institution
3000 Leuven
Belgium
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.