Essays on Family Dynamics : Partnering, Fertility and Divorce in Sweden

Abstract: Diversity in household and family structures poses interesting questions for scientific inquiry. What accounts for patterns of reproduction, partnering, household formation and household dissolution? This dissertation investigates facets of this question in the context of modern Sweden from a longitudinal and individual level perspective. It consists of three empirical studies using data from administrative registers and panel survey data. The first study begins with noting a rapid expansion in online education and analyzes whether this development leads to higher fertility in student populations. The second study asks whether individuals’ predispositions towards divorce change after exposure to the experience of parenthood, union formation and union dissolution. The third study builds on the literature on assortative mating and investigates what drives underlying preferences for this behavior.