2022, Bellani, Luna, Bertogg, Ariane, Kulic, Nevena, Strauß, Susanne

The increase in inequalities during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been the topic of intense scholarly and public debate. School closures are one of the containment measures that have been debated most critically in this regard. What drives support for school and daycare/kindergarten closures during a public health crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic? More specifically, do inequality concerns affect this support? To identify causal linkages between awareness of inequalities and support for school and daycare/kindergarten closures, we use a survey experiment with information treatment, in which we randomly assign information designed to prime the respondents to think about either education inequality, gender inequality, or both. Based on an original survey experiment involving more than 3,000 respondents, conducted in spring 2021 at the end of a long lockdown in Germany, our findings show that concerns about education inequality and gender inequality are equally important for decreasing support for preschool and primary school closures, while they do not seem to matter regarding secondary school closures.

2021, Busemeyer, Marius R., Diehl, Claudia, Wöhler, Thomas, Wolter, Felix, Bertogg, Ariane, Strauß, Susanne, Kulic, Nevena

Vertraut die Gesellschaft ihrem Staat noch? Im zweiten Coronajahr gehen wir dieser Frage in vier Aspekten nach. Dafür untersuchen wir Wahrnehmungen und Einstellungen zu strukturellen Ungleichheiten in der Coronakrise auf der Basis repräsentativer Befragungen mit mehreren tausend Teilnehmenden. Das Ergebnis sind vier Kurzstudien: Wir betrachten das öffentliche Vertrauen in die Krisenresilienz des Gesundheitssystems. Wir untersuchen, ob sich am Zugang zu Impfungen Fairnessdebatten entzünden. Wir analysieren, inwiefern die Corona-Eindämmungsmaßnahmen in der Bevölkerung negative Reaktionen bis hin zur Radikalisierung hervorbringen. Schließlich richten wir den Blick auf Mehrbelastungen durch Kinderbetreuung im Lockdown.

2022, Bertogg, Ariane, Kulic, Nevena, Strauß, Susanne

The COVID-19 lockdown measures have challenged individuals to reconcile employment, childcare, and housework. This article addresses whether these challenges have reduced life satisfaction among German women by focusing on their labor market status and drawing upon a topical online survey (Kantar) collected in Germany at two points in time: May 2020 and November 2020. We find that part-time employed women were better protected against a decline in life satisfaction, but only during the first lockdown. Economically inactive women were most likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction during the first lockdown, but least likely during the second lockdown. Life satisfaction has further decreased between the first and the second lockdown, and the likelihood of a decrease has converged for full-time, part-time, and economically inactive women.

2021, Bertogg, Ariane, Strauß, Susanne, Vandecasteele, Leen

Our article investigates the role of relative income distributions within couples for individuals’ retirement risks. It addresses the following questions: How does the share someone provides to the couple income affect that person’s retirement decision? What gender differences do we observe and what contextual factors can explain country differences? Our multilevel analyses draw on data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) study (2010–2016), comparing 26 countries. The results show that female main earners transition to retirement earlier than female secondary earners as they approach the official retirement age. This effect is even stronger in countries with more traditional gender norms. The opposite pattern is found for men, whereby male secondary earners retire earlier than male main earners in more gender traditional societies. We explain this finding on the basis of doing gender theories, which predict that gender-atypical behaviour in one area of life is compensated by traditional gender behaviour in other areas, especially in contexts with traditional gender norms. A further finding relates to the generosity of the country’s pension replacement rate, which shows to be a factor facilitating retirement especially for those with an equal earning partner.

2021-05, Bertogg, Ariane, Nazio, Tiziana, Strauß, Susanne

2020-04, Bertogg, Ariane, Strauß, Susanne

Spouses (and partners) are the most important source of care in old age. Informal care for frail spouses is provided by both sexes and across all socio-economic backgrounds and welfare policy contexts. There are, however, interesting differences as to whether spouses care alone, receive informal support from other family members or formal support from professional helpers, or outsource the care of their spouse completely. The present article contributes to the literature by differentiating between solo spousal care-giving and shared or outsourced care-giving arrangements, as well as between formal and informal care support. Moreover, we show how care-giving arrangements vary with gender, socio-economic status and welfare policy. Adding to previous research, we compare 17 countries and their expenditures on two elder-care schemes: Cash-for-Care and Care-in-Kind. The empirical analyses draw on the most recent wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data from 2015. Our results show that men have a higher propensity to share care-giving than women, albeit only with informal supporters. As expected, welfare policy plays a role insofar as higher expenditure on Cash-for-Care schemes encourage informally outsourced care-giving arrangements, whereas Care-in-Kind reduce the likelihood for informally shared or outsourced care-giving arrangements. Moreover, the influence of these welfare policy measures differs between individuals of different socio-economic status but not between men and women.