A Demographic Perspective on Gender, Family and Health in Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Framework

   • Jordi Gumà, Gabriele Doblhammer

   Pages 1-7Open Access

3. Summary and Research Implications

   • Gabriele Doblhammer, Jordi Gumà

   Pages 9-19Open Access

4. Keynote Chapters

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

      PDF

   2. Families and Health: A Review

      • Karsten Hank, Anja Steinbach

      Pages 23-39Open Access

   3. The New Roles of Men and Women and Implications for Families and Societies

      • Livia Sz. Oláh, Irena E. Kotowska, Rudolf Richter

      Pages 41-64Open Access

   4. Sex Differences in Health and Survival

      • Anna Oksuzyan, Jordi Gumà, Gabriele Doblhammer

      Pages 65-100Open Access

5. Country Specific Chapters

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 101-101

      PDF

   2. Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Household Position and Health in Twelve European Countries: Are They Associated with the Value Climate?

      • Gabriele Doblhammer, Jordi Gumà

      Pages 103-131Open Access

   3. Similarity of Perceived Health Between Household Members: The “Mutual Influences” Hypothesis

      • Patrizia Giannantoni, Viviana Egidi

      Pages 133-154Open Access

   4. Household Position, Parenthood, and Self-reported Adult Health. Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence from the Austrian Generations and Gender Survey

      • Isabella Buber-Ennser, Doris Hanappi

      Pages 155-191Open Access

   5. The Contextual and Household Contribution to Individual Health Status in Germany: What Is the Role of Gender and Migration Background?

      • Daniela Georges, Daniel Kreft, Gabriele Doblhammer

      Pages 193-232Open Access

   6. Health-Risk Behaviour of Women and Men—Differences According to Partnership and Parenthood. Results of the German Health Update (GEDA) Survey 2009–2010

      • Elena von der Lippe, Petra Rattay

      Pages 233-261Open Access

   7. Fertility Histories and Health in Later Life in Italy

      • Cecilia Tomassini, Giorgio Di Gessa, Viviana Egidi

      Pages 263-281Open Access

   8. The Effect of Current Family Situation on Slow Walking Speed at Old Age

      • Gabriele Doblhammer, Steffen Peters, Debora Rizzuto, Anna-Karin Welmer

      Pages 283-303Open Access

This open access book examines the triangle between family, gender, and health in Europe from a demographic perspective. It helps to understand patterns and trends in each of the three components separately, as well as their interdependencies. It overcomes the widely observable specialization in demographic research, which usually involves researchers studying either family or fertility processes or focusing on health and mortality.

Coverage looks at new family and partnership forms among the young and middle-aged, their relationship with health, and the pathways through which they act. Among the old, lifelong family biography and present family situation are explored. Evidence is provided that partners advancing in age start to resemble each other more closely in terms of health, with the health of the partner being a crucial factor of an individual’s own health. Gender-specific health outcomes and pathways are central in the designs of the studies and the discussion of the results. The book compares twelve European countries reflecting different welfare state regimes and offers country-specific studies conducted in Austria, Germany, Italy - all populations which have received less attention in the past - and Sweden. As a result, readers discover the role of different concepts of family and health as well as comparisons within European countries and ethnic groups.

 It will be an insightful resource for students, academics, policy makers, and researchers that will help define future research in terms of gender and public health.

• Family influence on health
• Relationship between family and health in Europe
• Household position and context
• Health behaviours
• Parenthood and partner status
• Open access

• Institute for Sociology and Demography, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

  Gabriele Doblhammer

• Department of Political and Social Sciences, University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

  Jordi Gumà

Gabriele Doblhammer-Reiter studied Statistics at the University of Vienna and received her PhD in 1997 in the fields of demography and statistics. She worked as a research scientist from 1995 to 1998 at the Institute for Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. From 1995 to 1996, she was a guest scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg (Austria), yet also in 1996-1997 at the Institute for Family Research in Vienna. As senior research scientist and science coordinator, she worked  at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, in the Laboratory of Survival and Longevity from 1997 to 2004. In 2002, Doblhammer-Reiter has been visiting Associate Professor at the Stanford Institute for Public Policy at Duke University, North Carolina. Since 2004, she is Professor for Empirical Methods in Social Sciences and Demography at the University of Rostock. She is Executive Director of the Rostock Center for the Study of Demographic Change (since 2006) and is distinguished research scholar at the MPIDR (since 2008). Among other things, she is a reviewer for professional journals (e.g. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) or Social Science and Medicine) and reviewer for funding organizations (e. g. German Research Foundation (DFG), Fund for Scientific Research (FWF)). Since 2009 Gabriele Doblhammer-Reiter is working for the DZNE in Bonn and Rostock / Greifswald.