German Society for Demography | 24.03.2021Awards Presented to Two BiB Scientists

Source: © Coloures-Pic / Adobe Stock

Best Paper Awards: Family Trajectories in the Context of Migration

The "Family formation trajectories: A sequence analysis approach to Senegalese migrants in Europe" paper by Dr. Elisabeth K. Kraus won the 2021 Best Paper Award. It examines the differences in family trajectories among Senegalese migrants before and after the migration event. The findings of sequence analyses show clear differences between male and female fertility trajectories. The link between starting a family and the experience of migration was more pronounced among women than among men. Their results prove that a clear distinction must be made between the behaviour of men and women when studying family formation in a migration context.

DGD Young Researcher Award for Dissertation on Suicides in the GDR

The DGD Young Researcher Award went to BiB researcher Dr. Ellen von den Driesch for her dissertation “Unter Verschluss - Zur Geschichte des Suizids in der DDR 1952 - 1990” (“Under lock and key - The history of suicide in the GDR 1952 - 1990”). In the course of her extensive research she unearthed the suicide statistics of the GDR, which were thought to be lost. By shedding light on something that had long been concealed, the data makes an important contribution as part of the collective remembrance of those who died by suicide. At the same time, the paper also refutes various myths about suicides in the GDR. These include the argument that the high suicide rates in the GDR were attributable to the country's political system. A more accurate reading is that suicide rates were multi-causal in origin. “My research shows that the rediscovered data sets debunk the myth that suicides were no longer counted in the GDR after 1977,” Dr. von den Driesch emphasised.

Demographic Research Issues in the COVID-19 Period

The central theme of this year's conference was the challenges posed by the corona pandemic from a demographic perspective. Scientists presented a range of current research approaches. BiB scientist Dr. Inga Laß also took part, along with Dr. Sebastian Klüsener and Dr. Matthias Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge.

Pandemic Leaving Parents Overwhelmed

Dr. Laß looked at the situation of parents during the corona crisis in terms of their work, use of time and perceived levels of strain. She emphasised that the great majority of parents were affected by the closure of daycare facilities and schools. Above all, it was mothers, single parents, families on low incomes and full-time employees who experienced significant levels of strain as a result of the lockdown. Parents were immediately faced with multiple challenges due to the change in the work situation as well as the discontinuation of face-to-face daycare and schooling.

Despite being expanded, home-office working only proved a viable solution for a minority – on the one hand because many jobs cannot be performed from home, and on the other hand because professional duties had to be combined with care-giving or home-schooling. "Parents found their own labour-division solutions in this situation," said Dr. Laß. Fathers shouldered more family work than before the pandemic, for example, but mothers did so to an even greater extent. "All in all, it is inaccurate to speak of a general trend towards retraditionalisation or a strong push towards gender equality," the researcher summed up.

How well people managed the situation depended both on the family situation and on their personal resources. These include the nature of their occupation and partnership, and the income and housing situation. According to Dr. Laß, a task for research in the future will be to investigate the long-term effects of the pandemic on aspects such as the division of labour, mental health and fertility. It is also important to consider the effects not only on the parents, but also on the children.

Projections of Demand for Intensive Care Beds

Dr. Sebastian Klüsener and Dr. Matthias Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge showed how the number of patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units can be predicted by means of a model that uses a variety of data – such as local population structure, commuting data, number of intensive care patients and deaths – to create a microsimulation of the pandemic. "Our model yields regional predictions of demand for intensive care beds in different scenarios and takes into account differences such as the proportion of elderly people, local hotspots and spatial spread of the pandemic," explained Dr. Klüsener. This approach allows conclusions to be drawn about the need for additional measures and scope for relaxing the lockdown.

The findings to date show that the intensive care units would quickly be overwhelmed without the contact restrictions, said Dr. Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge, giving his analysis. "It also emerges that there was varying scope for lifting contact restrictions in different regions during the quiet phases in the summer of 2020," he pointed out. On the other hand, there were smaller differences in the need for adjustments in contact restrictions in very dynamic phases.