This study employs longitudinal data from Germany and Canada to investigate how patterns of education, employment and care work influence wellbeing in midlife and how these patterns differ by gender and national context. Although previous research has addressed wellbeing at different life stages, it has rarely examined long-term effects across gendered life trajectories within contrasting welfare state contexts. We conduct separate analyses for men and women using partial proportional odds models (PPO) to estimate wellbeing levels. The models include clusters of educational and employment trajectories, along with socio-demographic variables that capture individual and family contexts known to affect wellbeing. Our results extend prior research demonstrating that education and employment trajectories shape midlife wellbeing, with associations varying by gender and country. Our analyses illustrate that Canadian women are able to draw benefits from part-time work, whereas for German women no consistent associations emerge once family-centred factors are considered. Among German men, wellbeing seems to be shaped primarily by household income, while for Canadian men good health is significantly associated with wellbeing. Our study underscores how gendered life course patterns continue to influence wellbeing and how welfare state regularities reinforce these inequalities. We conclude with a critical reflection on the compatibility of work and family life and its implications for wellbeing among women and men.

This study examines how life course transitions unique to adolescence and young adulthood affect gender ideologies of men and women. After childhood, young people are exposed to new contexts that shape their beliefs in different ways than parents. By integrating a life course perspective with the conceptualisation of gender as a social structure and interest- and exposure-based explanations, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of change mechanisms. It extends the literature by examining the role of age-specific transitions: into vocational training, university, employment, romantic relationships, and cohabitation. Using representative data from the German Family Panel pairfam, I conducted fixed-effects regression analyses with gender interaction terms (n = 2888 individuals; ages 15-27). To account for the multidimensionality of gender ideologies, I used separate attitude items. Results show that attending university is associated with increased support for gender equality in the public and private sphere, particularly for young men. Transitions into vocational training are related to an increase in public sphere egalitarianism, while transitions into employment mostly did not have an additional effect. When they enter heterosexual relationships, results are gender-specific: Women become more traditional regarding maternal employment, while men increase their support for equal housework sharing and both women's and men's caretaking roles. With cohabitation, women decrease their support for equal housework sharing. Overall, the findings suggest that young people's gender ideologies can be subject to persistent change beyond early formative years and that life course transitions may be crucial in shaping them.

A growing body of research examines changes in the division of housework over the life course, yet the influence of religion remains underexplored. Using couple dyad data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations (1988-2005) and a life course perspective, this study investigates how wives' and husbands' religious affiliations shape life course trajectories of the housework gender gap and individual housework time among different-sex couples in the U.S. Growth curve analyses reveal religious differences in these trajectories. Among couples where either spouse is Mormon or the wife is Catholic, the housework gender gap declined over the life course, whereas it remained stable among Protestant (mainline or evangelical), Jewish, other religious, and nonreligious couples. These declines appear to be driven by reductions in wives' housework time over the life course among Mormon couples and increases in husbands' housework contributions over time among couples with Catholic wives. Notably, religious disparities in the housework gender gap followed distinct patterns across life stages: the initially larger gender gap among Mormon couples and couples with Catholic wives in early life converged in midlife and became smaller than in some groups in later life. This study advances research on gender inequality in housework by highlighting the role of religious affiliation over the life course. The findings inform targeted policy interventions to support women disproportionately affected by excessive housework burdens in early life.

Prevalent in the Global South, child marriage powerfully shapes women's work and family lives. Analyzing data from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey, we examine how child marriage influences the work-family life courses of Egyptian women between ages 6 and 30, to advance life course research in two crucial aspects. First, using multichannel sequence analysis, we identified six distinct work-family trajectories of Egyptian women who married as children and compared these with women who married as adults. Girl brides' work-family trajectories are mostly marked by early fertility and minimal labor force participation, particularly in the public sector. While some clusters combine private-sector work with early, frequent childbearing, most remain out of the labor force despite their education. In contrast, women who married as adults exhibit delayed fertility and greater participation in stable public-sector employment, suggesting that the timing of marriage and childbirth shapes sector-specific work opportunities. Second, we use a counterfactual approach to test key mechanisms-education (human capital) and childbirth timing (gender role)-through which child marriage is expected to shape women's work-family trajectories. While improved education increases girl brides' public-sector employment, its impact on family trajectories is minimal. Delayed fertility impacts women's family but not work trajectories. Our findings reflect critically on mainstream theories of, and interventions in, work-family life courses in the event of child marriage. They highlight the need to scrutinize the transition into "accelerated adulthood" as a distinctive feature of young adult life courses in the Global South, particularly among those affected by child marriage.

Studies have shown that the risk of divorce is higher for same-sex couples, especially for female couples, compared to opposite-sex couples. However, the underlying reasons are still poorly understood, despite their potential to deepen our understanding of gender roles and intersecting identities. We examine whether nationality intermarriage, religious affiliation, education, or income of the spouses plays any role in explaining the heightened divorce risk among same-sex couples. Drawing on prospective register data of same-sex couples (n = 3780) and opposite-sex couples (n = 339,401) from Finland, the results suggest that income and religious affiliation play roles-although modest-in explaining female couples' heightened divorce risks, whereas intermarriage is more important for male couples. Intermarriage between a foreign-born husband and a native-born spouse appears to destabilize marriages, regardless of the latter spouse's gender, indicating that being a man in a host society can strain marriages. Dissimilarity in spouses' religious affiliations increases divorce risk in same-sex couples, particularly in male couples. Elevated income of the presumed primary breadwinner (husband or older spouse) stabilizes marriages, regardless of the gender composition of the couple, whereas increased income of the secondary breadwinner (wife or younger spouse) stabilizes same-sex marriages only. The implication is that intersections of gender norms and other identities shape divorce risks.

A well-documented trend in family demography is that young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to enter their first partnership earlier and forego marriage more often than their advantaged counterparts. Yet, limited research has explored whether there is also an association between parental background and expectations for partnership formation, which are considered important precursors of behaviours. Further, few studies have explored the potential mechanisms mediating these differences. This paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society to analyse the relationships between parental socioeconomic status and young Britons' expectations for marriage, cohabitation, and attitudes towards ideal age at marriage. Using the KHB decomposition as a mediation method, we verify whether these relationships are explained by two mechanisms measured during the young adults' adolescence: family structure socialisation and academic socialisation. We find that marriage expectations are socially stratified in the UK. Those from the least advantaged backgrounds have significantly lower expectations for marriage than the most advantaged, but this difference does not hold for cohabitation. Those from the least advantaged backgrounds are also more uncertain about their ideal age at marriage. Academic socialisation mediates these relationships to a limited extent. Family structure socialisation mediates a greater percentage, especially living with a single parent, rather than married parents, during adolescence.