Pearl Dykstra, born in Sarnia, Canada, in 1956. Ph.D. from VU University Amsterdam. Research Professor at the NIDI (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute), The Hague.
Fellow (1 April 2009 – 30 June 2009)
FAMILY SOLIDARITY ACROSS EUROPE
During my three months at NIAS I was able to complete unfinished work, write new papers, catch up on my reading, and develop ideas for new research. I wrote a policy brief for the EC-funded project MULTILINKS on legal and policy frameworks regulating intergenerational obligations. I submitted three papers to journals. These were: “The role of European welfare states in intergenerational monetary transfers: A micro-level perspective”, with co-authors Niels Schenk and Ineke Maas; “Ties between parents and their adult children: A western European typology of late-life families”, with co-author Tineke Fokkema; and “Parent-child consensus and parental well-being in mid and late life”, with co-author Jornt Mandemakers. This last paper was also delivered as a NIAS lecture, with The Volkskrant reporting on this lecture. I also prepared a paper for an international conference entitled “Normative beliefs and responsiveness to increasing parental needs”. I gave a lecture on the tenability of the Dutch family in the Utrecht University Studium Generale series which garnered considerable media attention and new lecture invitations.