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TransEurope Network organized 2nd Young Researcher Workshop 2009 in Groningen, The Netherlands

From October 15-18, the ESF Social Science Networking Programmes "TransEurope" and "Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences (QMSS) 2" joined forces to organize both a two-day seminar as well as a Young Researcher Workshop, dealing with "Advances in Fertility and Family Research".

The aim of the Young Researcher workshop, headed by the TransEurope Network, was to bring together young researchers at post-graduate and post-doctoral level from different European countries working on family-and fertility related issues from a life course perspective. In doing so, the workshop explicitly connected to the topic of the TransEurope Network in the year 2009, namely women’s employment and fertility decisions - that also made up the thematic focus for this year’s Network workshop in Tallinn. A total of 20 carefully selected young scientists from various European countries participated at the workshop and were given the chance to present and discuss their own research results and to receive advice from experienced senior scientists of the network.

Before participation at the Young researcher workshop, students were given the opportunity to participate in the QMSS 2 seminar where experienced senior scientists and experts provided an impressive overview of new developments in family and fertility research.

The subsequent young researcher workshop consisted of individual presentations, but equally left time for fruitful discussion of the presented research approaches and results. The presentations of the workshop encompassed a broad array topical foci, ranging from marriage and partnership formation, employment and fertility decisions to the division of paid and unpaid work within families. Further contributions also considered the variety of newly emerging family forms (such as same-sex couples, one-parent households etc.) that increasingly provide the contextual background for women’s employment lives.

The workshop provided an important opportunity for young researchers to establish scientific research networks among each other, and to seek for possible ways of research collaboration.

Further information about the workshop may be found in the workshop programme.

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