Scientific Presentations

LabTalks@­SocialDemography

Department Social Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, December 09, 2025

1:00 PM: Talk with Zafer Büyükkeçeci - When Fathers Die and When Mothers Die: Gendered Reconfiguration of Parent–Adult Child Ties After Bereavement

Abstract

Social relationships are important to individual well-being, and intergenerational ties provide important sources of support, especially during periods of need or crisis. In this study, I examine how parental death is linked to adult children’s relationships with the surviving parent and whether these changes vary by the gender of the surviving parent, the gender of the adult child, and the parental relationship status prior to the death. Using 14 waves of data from the German Family Panel, I focus on multiple dimensions of intergenerational solidarity, including contact frequency, emotional closeness, and functional support exchanged between adult children and the surviving parent.

Findings show that solidarity with mothers increases notably after the death of the father, whereas relationships with fathers change less significantly following the death of the mother. These patterns do not differ meaningfully by the gender of the adult child. Parental relationship status, however, plays a key role. When parents were separated prior to the death, increases in mother–child solidarity after paternal loss were smaller, reflecting the mother’s greater independence. In contrast, father–child solidarity increased more strongly after maternal loss when parents had been separated, suggesting that father–child ties may become more salient or accessible in the absence of the maternal coordination that previously structured family interactions.

Overall, these findings provide insight into how families reorganize in the face of loss and highlight the gendered nature of intergenerational relationships, showing when and for whom parental death activates support and connectedness.

1:45 PM: Talk with Angela Carollo - A boosted multistate model of partnership trajectories in Germany

Abstract

Romantic partnerships trajectories over time can be analyzed by means of multistate models. Individuals move between states such as dating, cohabiting, marriage and union dissolution in non-random ways, usually determined by some observable and non-observable characteristics. To disentangle the heterogeneity in these transitions, researchers usually fit regression models, choosing sets of predictors based on theoretical considerations, previous findings, and available data. In order to exploit the full potential of rich survey data, such as the German Family Panel (pairfam), we suggest to combine theoretical considerations with data-driven approaches of variable selection, such as statistical boosting, to identify the best set of predictors for each transition in a multistate model. The result is an interpretable statistical model for each transition, in which the effect of each covariate was selected and estimated automatically by the boosting algorithm. In this study, we combine statistical boosting algorithms with multistate models to study partnership trajectories in Germany and to identify the best predictors of transitions between states in a relationship. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approach, and we detail future directions of research.

Room 400 and Zoom

Please register via email (office-myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de) for online participation. The Zoom link will be sent to you afterwards.

LabTalk, December, 9th from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (Rostock time)