Working papers

Kridahl, L., Ohlsson-Wijk, S. & Duvander, AZ. (2024). Economic Situation and Late-Life Divorce: A ‘His’ and ‘Her’ Perspective. Available as pre-print Stockholm Research Reports in Demography, SRRD 2024:44

Kawalerowicz, J., Abramsson, M., Kridahl, L. & Turunen, J. (2024). Splitting up late: housing changes around the time of divorce for older men and women in Sweden. Available as pre-print Stockholm Research Reports in Demography, SRRD 2023:13

Kridahl, Linda; Duvander, Ann-Zofie; Turunen, Jani (2024). Do your children or my children matter? A study on
the association between common children and stepchildren and divorce among older couples in Sweden. Available as pre-print Stockholm Research Reports in Demography, SRRD 2024:10

Kridahl, L., Ohlsson-Wijk, S., & Duvander, A. (2022). What matters most? The role of late fatherhood and grandfatherhood on retirement timing in Sweden. Available as pre-print Stockholm Research Reports in Demography, SRRD 2022:21
 

I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

• Who receives most? Gendered consequences of divorce on public pension income in West Germany and Sweden

  2024. Sarah Schmauk, Linda Kridahl. Ageing & Society, 1-24

  Artikel

  Sweden and West Germany have had persistently high divorce rates in recent decades, but these two welfare states were differently equipped to mitigate the economic consequences of divorce for individual security in old age: Sweden followed a gender-equal policy approach to enable women and men to achieve economic autonomy, while West Germany, following the male-breadwinner model, introduced the system of 'divorce-splitting' to account for differences in women's and men's income. Against this background, this study uses large-scale register data from the German Public Pension Fund and the Swedish population registers to examine how divorce is related to the monthly public old-age pension income of women and men. The main comparison groups are divorced and (re)married individuals who entered retirement between 2013 and 2018. We descriptively show annual income histories from ages 20 to 65, and calculate monthly public old-age pension income with respect to lifetime income and pension regulations, such as the supplements/deductions for 'divorce-splitting'. Multiple ordinary least square regression models further examine how family status relates to monthly public old-age pension income by gender. The results reveal that women and men in Sweden experience similar working histories, although women's incomes are lower. This is also reflected in women still having lower pension incomes than men. However, divorced and married women show comparable pension incomes, while divorced men receive approximately 26 per cent less pension income than married men. In West Germany, divorced women have significantly higher pension incomes than married women. The system of 'divorce-splitting' increases women's and decreases men's pension incomes, which seems to equalise their pension incomes. However, both stay below a married man's pension income. The findings indicate economic inequality in public old-age pension income by family status in Sweden and West Germany. 

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• Depressive symptoms, gender equality and belongingness among older partnered individuals in Sweden

  2023. Linda Kridahl, Ann-Zofie Duvander. Community, Work and Family

  Artikel

  Approximately one-third of all older adults in Sweden report periods with depressive symptoms. The study aims to find explanations for older partnered individuals’ depressive symptoms by focusing on their gender attitudes, household division of labor and conformity to younger partnered individuals’ commonly held gender attitudes and household division of labor. Analyses are based on a subsample (n respondents 1764) from the Swedish Generations and Gender Survey (2012/2013) including individuals aged 60–80. The analytical strategy is logistic regression. The findings show that individuals with traditional gender attitudes are more likely to report a high level of depressive symptoms than individuals with transitional (i.e. attitudes in between traditional and egalitarian attitudes) and individuals with egalitarian gender attitudes. Lower conformity to commonly held gender attitudes is also associated with a high level of depressive symptoms. However, neither the household division of labor nor conformity to common household division was associated with depressive symptoms. In later life, gender attitudes thus seem more important for depressive symptoms than the actual household division of labor. It may be that attitudes are more important than behavior among older couples, and a reason for this may be that behavior is likely more restricted by practical circumstances.

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• Financial Disagreements and Money Management Among Older Married and Cohabiting Couples in Sweden

  2023. Linda Kridahl, Ann-Zofie Duvander. Journal of Family and Economic Issues 44 (2), 394-411

  Artikel

  This study investigates how partners' money management strategies are associated with the experience of financial disagreements among older couples (60-80 years old). Money management is a broad concept, and this study operationalizes whether the partners pool all money, the partners pool some money, one partner manages the money (and gives a share to the other partner for personal spending), or the partners keep all money separate. The data comprise a subsample from the Swedish Generations and Gender Survey from 2012 to 2013. The descriptive statistics show that 11% of older couples experience financial disagreements and that there is a large variation in how couples manage their money. Contrary to our expectations, logistic regression analyses further indicate that couples who pool all money are less likely to have financial disagreements than couples who either keep all money separate or adopt a lower degree of pooling. Whether some or all money is kept separate does not seem to be important for the likelihood of financial disagreements, as all these couples are more likely to experience disagreements. Among couples with financial hardship, partial pooling and keeping money separate are associated with a higher likelihood of financial disagreements than pooling all money. In conclusion, the greater probability of financial disagreements among couples who do not pool their earnings calls for greater awareness of the potential consequences of various money management contexts among individuals, couples, decision-makers and practitioners. In the worst cases, couples may have poor financial wellbeing.

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• Money practices and couplehood among individuals in the third age in Sweden

  2023. Kristina Stenström, Linda Kridahl, Ann-Zofie Duvander. Families, Relationships and Societies, 1-19

  Artikel

  Couple relationships and money practices are intimately connected. Money can often cause disagreement and conflict within couples and represents symbolic values and expectations between partners. This study adopts a practices approach to exploring money practices among Swedish couples in the third age (60–80 years old) through 17 semi-structured interviews. We focus particularly on how money practices constitute and are constituted by dimensions of ‘being and doing couple’. We find that money practices both reflect and constitute couplehood. Our analysis has revealed that money practices are interlinked with couplehood through the primary themes of togetherness, fairness and trust, independence and finally, a reluctance to imagine oneself outside of couplehood, for other reasons than widowhood.

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• Relationship satisfaction and money pooling among older working and retired couples in Sweden

  2023. Linda Kridahl, Ann-Zofie Duvander. Family Relations

  Artikel

  Objective: This study explores whether relationship satisfaction among older individuals living with a partner is influenced by partners' status of working or being retired, and whether the degree of pooling money affects the association. Background: Couple's spending decisions are likely influenced by the partner with the greatest bargaining power, which may lead to different levels of relationship satisfaction. However, any role of partners' statuses on relationship satisfaction may change when adjusting for how partners organize resources. Method: The subsample consists of older respondents in the Swedish Gender and Generations Survey 2012-2013 (n = 1,737). The analytical approach is logistic regression where the outcome is whether the respondents are completely or not completely satisfied with their relationship. Results: Working respondents with a working partner were less satisfied with their relationship compared to retired respondents with a retired partner. In models considering the gender of whom is retired or working, respondents in couples with a working woman and a retired man were also less satisfied than retired respondents with a retired partner. However, this association disappears when adjusting for degree of pooling. Conclusion: In couples where the woman retires earlier than the man, it can have a negative impact on relationship satisfaction when the partners do not pool money. For couples with the same status, pooling seems to matter less. Implications: Financial educators, practitioners, and policymakers may acknowledge that retirement and working status of older partners play a role for relationship satisfaction, and how partners organize resources may be one area that provides a potential explanation for such problems.

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• Best done differently? Couples' money pooling and the association with economic conflicts

  2022. Ann-Zofie Duvander, Linda Kridahl. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 39 (5), 1344-1368

  Artikel

  Economic conflicts are likely to affect couples' relationship, and different strategies of handling money may be important for how common such conflicts are. This study investigates whether couples' choice of pooling money is associated with the occurrence of economic conflicts and whether different degree of pooling matters differently in different situations in life. The study focuses on whether the respondents experience economic hardship, their age (or cohort), and duration of union. We use the GGS 2012/2013 for Sweden including cohabiting and married respondents aged 20-80. Results from regression models suggest that couples who pool all money have lowest propensity for economic conflicts. Furthermore, to have difficulties making ends meet is associated with economic conflicts, older couples (or of earlier cohorts) are less likely to experience economic conflicts and likewise relationships of long duration less often experience economic conflict. It seems that pooling money is associated with less economic conflicts especially among the couples with economic hardships, among older couples, and couples of longer duration. Thus, pooling of money has a moderating importance for some situations.

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• Are Mothers and Daughters Most Important? How Gender, Childhood Family Dissolution and Parents' Current Living Arrangements Affect the Personal Care of Parents

  2021. Linda Kridahl, Ann-Zofie Duvander. Social Sciences 10 (5)

  Artikel

  This study examines adult children's propensity to provide personal care to older mothers and fathers. The theory of intergenerational solidarity facilitates the understanding of commitment and support between adult children and parents. Solidarity may depend on childhood events as well as the current situation, and we therefore focus on whether there was a parental breakup in childhood and the parent's current living arrangements. We also focus on the gendered aspects of the relations as earlier research has found stronger matrilinear relationships. The propensity for personal care was analyzed with regression analysis using the 2012 Swedish Generations and Gender Survey. The results show that daughters are more likely than sons to provide personal care to both parents. Parental breakup in childhood does not change the propensity of personal care to any parent. The probability of receiving care is higher for lone mothers than for mothers living with the father, but not for repartnered mothers. Adult children's care provision does not differ for lone fathers and fathers living with the mother, but children are more likely to provide care to lone fathers than to repartnered fathers. We interpret this to indicate that repartnering weakens ties to fathers but not mothers. The results indicate that the child's gender and the parent's living arrangements operate differently with regard to care for mothers and fathers. The most common pattern is care provided from daughters to mothers. For example, daughters of lone mothers are more likely to provide care than sons in the same situation. We conclude that intergenerational solidarity is not affected by parental breakup in childhood but that present living arrangements affect such solidarity in gendered ways.

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• Decisions on marriage? Couples’ decisions on union transition in Sweden

  2020. Ann-Zofie Duvander, Linda Kridahl. Genus 76 (1)

  Artikel

  Marriage is an institution that has become optional for many. This study investigates how decisions are taken regarding marriage among Swedish cohabiting couples in the twenty-first century, specifically focusing on whose intentions to marry are most decisive. We use the Young Adult Panel Study conducted in 2009 with augmented register data for 2009–2014 in order to observe both partners’ intentions and to then follow up on which couples ultimately married. The study finds that women’s and men’s intentions to marry seem to be equally important, but that there are gendered differences by educational level: women’s intentions carry more weight among highly educated couples, while men’s intentions carry more weight among lower educated couples.

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• Retirement and Aging Parents in the Swedish Population

  2020. Linda Kridahl, Merril Silverstein. Journal of Population Ageing 13 (1), 81-112

  Artikel

  The workforce is aging in most developed countries. Simultaneously, the parents of workers nearing retirement age are more likely to still be alive and in need of care. This study investigated the association between retirement transition and parental vital status in Sweden. The data were derived from Swedish population registers of women and men born between 1940 and 1945. A discrete-time survival analysis using complementary log-log functions was employed. The outcome was individuals' retirement transition, and the main dependent variable was parental vital status, e.g., whether the mother, father or both parents were alive in the year that the individual retired. We also controlled for whether either one or both parents recently died prior to the retirement transition. This study's findings indicate that the parental vital status has an independent, but relatively small, influence on individuals' retirement transition and that the association is somewhat stronger and more consistent among women than men, particularly women with only a living mother or father (approximately 8 and 6% higher risk of retirement, respectively). Additionally, women had a higher risk of retirement during the immediate period after parental death, especially when the father was widowed (9% higher risk). In contrast, men had a 9% higher risk of retiring when either the mother or father had been widowed for some years. Moreover, siblings seem to moderate the effect of retirement, and the pattern was most noticeable among women. Overall, the risk of retirement was greater among individuals without siblings with both living parents or only a living mother or father. These findings indicate that individuals with parents who are vulnerable due to widowhood are able to work longer if they have larger families, which is consistent with the caregiving explanation. This relationship was more evident among women, providing support for the conclusion that care provision for parents may motivate labor force disengagement in the form of retirement.

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• Retirement coordination in opposite-sex and same-sex married couples: Evidence from Swedish registers

  2018. Linda Kridahl, Martin Kolk. Advances in Life Course Research 38, 22-36

  Artikel

  This study examines how married couples’ age differences and gender dynamics influence retirement coordination in Sweden. High-quality longitudinal administrative registers allow us to study the labor market outcomes of all marital couples in Sweden. Using regression analysis, we find that the likelihood of couples retiring close in time decreases as their age difference increases but that age differences have a similar effect on retirement coordination for couples with larger age differences. Additionally, retirement coordination is largely gender-neutral in opposite-sex couples with age differences regardless of whether the male spouse is older. Additionally, male same-sex couples retire closer in time than both opposite-sex couples and female same-sex couples. The definition of retirement coordination as the number of years between retirements contributes to the literature on couples’ retirement behavior and allows us to study the degree of retirement coordination among all couples, including those with larger age differences.

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• Retirement timing and grandparenthood: A population-based study on Sweden

  2017. Linda Kridahl. Demographic Research 37, 957-994

  Artikel

  Objective: This study addresses the importance of grandparenthood in relation to retirement timing in Sweden. It extends previous research by assessing a number of grandparental characteristics, such as being a grandparent, a grandparent’s age and gender, number of years since the transition to grandparenthood, number of grandchildren, number of grandchild sets, and age of the youngest grandchild, while simultaneously controlling for other central predictors of retirement timing.

  Methods: The study uses survival analysis on Swedish population register data for cohorts born between 1935 and 1945 over the 1993‒2012 period.

  Results: The results indicate that grandparents have a higher retirement risk than non-grandparents, even after controlling for age and other central predictors of retirement. The results also show that those who have been grandparents for more than two years have a higher risk of retirement; however, there is variation with respect to the age of the grandparent. In addition, grandparents with multiple grandchildren and grandchild sets exhibit an increased risk of retirement. The study does not find strong differences between grandmothers’ and grandfathers’ retirement timing.

  Conclusions: The study finds that grandparents at different life stages have an elevated risk of retirement compared with non-grandparents, but there is also variation among grandparents, and the more complex the family situation, the higher the risk of retirement.

  Contribution: The inclusion of grandparenthood enriches the understanding of the complexity of the retirement decision and indicates that this decision is more closely linked to intergenerational family structures than the literature has previously shown. 

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• Time for Retirement: Studies on how leisure and family associate with retirement timing in Sweden

  2017. Linda Kridahl.

  Avhandling (Dok)

  Retirement transition is a major life event in later adult life. Its timing is important for older individuals for economic, personal and family reasons, as well as for aging societies contemplating a comprehensive plan for population changes, including sustainability of the labor force, pension system, and welfare services such as eldercare. This thesis explores retirement timing in contemporary Sweden, which serves as an interesting case study because of its aging population, high labor force participation of men and women, universal pension system and generous welfare services. The overarching aim of the thesis is to investigate how relationships in the private sphere associate with retirement timing by focusing on leisure engagement, family relations and intergenerational ties.

  The thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four empirical studies. The purpose of the introductory chapter is to place the four studies in context by focusing on the Swedish population structure, labor force participation and pension system and by highlighting some of the central theories and empirical findings related to retirement transition.

  Study I addresses leisure engagement before retirement and retirement timing, and how engagement in leisure changes after retirement. The study finds that retirement timing varies by both the type of preretirement activity domain and the level of engagement. For instance, occasional or frequent engagement in dance and music postponed retirement compared to no engagement in these activities. The study also finds that patterns of leisure engagement after transition into retirement tend to be a continuation of the corresponding preretirement patterns.

  Study II investigates the association between grandparenthood and retirement timing. The results show that grandparents at different life stages are more likely to retire compared to non-grandparents, but there is also variation among grandparents, and the more complex the family situation, the more likely grandparents are to retire.

  In Study III, the focus shifts to the relationship between survival of elderly parents and retirement timing. The study finds that parental survival is positively linked to retirement timing and that the effects are stronger and more consistent for women thanfor men, in particular when only one parent is still alive. Additionally, women have a higher propensity of retiring in the immediate period after parental death, especially when the father is widowed. In contrast, men have a higher propensity of retiring when either the mother or father has been widowed for some years.

  Study IV examines married couples’ propensity to coordinate retirement. The study finds that the likelihood that spouses will coordinate their retirement decreases as their age difference increases but that age differences have a similar effect on retirement coordination for couples with a larger age difference. The study also finds that coordination is largely gender neutral in opposite-sex couples with age differences, regardless of whether the male is the older spouse.

  The thesis shows that, compared to wealth or health predictors of retirement, factors concerning the private sphere are also most relevant in non-trivial ways to large shares of retirees in Sweden. Increased knowledge of these relationships is important both for individuals’ retirement planning and for decision-makers’ and policy-makers’ planning and organization.

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• Retirement and leisure: a longitudinal study using Swedish data

  2015. Linda Kridahl. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 12, 141-168

  Artikel

  This study explores engagement in leisure activities in relation to retirement among individuals aged 58–75 using Swedish longitudinal data over the 1981–2010 period. Our focus is on the relationship between leisure engagement before retirement and retirement timing, as well as on the relationship between leisure engagement before and after retirement. Engagement in leisure is measured through participation in several leisure activities which are popular in Sweden. The results indicate that leisure engagement is not associated with retirement timing when period is considered in the models. It is noteworthy that when the effect of period is excluded, but central predictors of retirement timing are included, leisure engagement is shown to be statistically significant. The results also indicate that leisure engagement patterns in retirement tend to be a continuation of preretirement leisure engagement patterns. The policy implications of these results for active ageing and health are discussed.

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