Anne Boschini

The aim of this project is to investigate the causal mechanisms behind fatherhood and no, or low, use of parental leave benefits among men who do have children. Since the extensive margins of male fertility and parental leave have been largely neglected in the literature, despite their relevance both for research and policy, our project fills a knowledge gap. Moreover, we also study the impact of technological change on inequality for labour market, family, demographic, and health outcomes of men and women.

This project examines marital agreements and how they shape economic security and gender equality both within marriage and at divorce. In Sweden, matrimonial law is based on the principle that the value of spouses’ assets minus debts is as a default divided equally upon divorce, a principle designed to protect the financially weaker spouse, particularly those who have earned less or taken on greater responsibility for home and family. Couples can, however, choose to depart from this arrangement through a marital agreement specifying how their assets should be divided. Today, roughly one in five married people in Sweden is estimated to have such an agreement. Yet despite their prevalence, we know surprisingly little about who enters into these agreements, what they actually stipulate, and what consequences they carry. This gap matters, because marital agreements ultimately determine how economic resources and risks are allocated between spouses, yet they have remained largely invisible to researchers, as they are not captured in standard administrative data.

This project addresses that gap by combining a unique dataset of all marital agreements registered in Sweden with detailed administrative records on, for example, income and family circumstances. Tracking individuals and couples over time, we examine who draws up marital agreements, what kinds of arrangements they choose, and how different agreement types relate to economic security and equality over the life course.

The findings will contribute to research on family law and economic inequality, and inform broader public debate about how legislation and private contracts together shape people’s financial lives.

Despite the decline in gender inequality in the labour market, differences in pension outcomes remain large and persistent. One potentially important and relatively under-researched explanation is that divorce among older people has increased sharply in recent decades. When couples separate late in life, opportunities to recover financial losses are limited, and women are hit particularly hard since pension rights are not divided upon divorce. In this research project, we analyse the economic and social consequences of divorce after the age of 50 — so-called grey divorces. We examine how incomes, pensions and wellbeing change when people divorce late in life. We also study the adjustments that women and men make in terms of work and pension withdrawals, as well as the role of marital agreements, both in relation to the risk of divorcing and the financial consequences when a separation does occur.

A central part of the project is the collaboration with the pensioners’ organisation SPF Seniorerna to gain insights into how older people themselves experience a late divorce, what changes they have made, and what support they feel they need. The project is expected to generate new knowledge about which groups face the greatest financial risk in the event of a late-life divorce, how and to what extent welfare systems protect them, and whether prenuptial agreements serve as a financial safeguard or instead reinforce inequality.

While income inequality is commonly studied at the household level, in this project the focus is to examine individual-level inequality in order to measure differences between genders and within genders. Particular attention is given to the top of the total income distribution and the mechanisms behind the increased share of women in the top.

Using a survey of actual managers rather than students, this project investigates whether managers treat male and female colleagues differently.