Peters Steffen
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Eur J Popul. 2025 Sep 16;41(1):23. doi: 10.1007/s10680-025-09748-4.
Personality has increasingly become relevant for family formation processes. However, the association between personality and family formation (dissolution) has been underexplored in demographic research. This study contributes to existing research by examining the prospective association between two personality factors [social maturity (SM), and emotional stability (ES)] and family formation and dissolution processes, i.e., (1) marital status, (2) fertility, and (3) partnership dissolution as both (a) divorce and (b) cohabitation dissolution, based on large Swedish register data. Poisson regression, Linear Probability, and Cox proportional hazard models were applied for different outcomes. Findings suggest that males with high scores on SM and ES measured at age of assignment to military service (17-20 years) are more likely to get married by age 39 and above. Regarding fertility, SM and ES show positive associations with offspring counts and negative associations with the probability of remaining childless by age 39 and above. Relationship dissolution is negatively linked with SM and ES, in particular among the lowest personality scores. Further analyses using sibling comparisons support these findings.
个性在家庭形成过程中越来越重要。然而，人口学研究对个性与家庭形成（解体）之间的关联探讨不足。本研究基于瑞典大型登记数据，通过考察两种个性因素[社会成熟度（SM）和情绪稳定性（ES）]与家庭形成和解体过程之间的前瞻性关联，即（1）婚姻状况、（2）生育情况以及（3）作为离婚和同居关系解体的伴侣关系解体，为现有研究做出了贡献。针对不同结果应用了泊松回归、线性概率和考克斯比例风险模型。研究结果表明，在应征入伍年龄（17 - 20岁）时SM和ES得分较高的男性在39岁及以上时结婚的可能性更大。关于生育情况，SM和ES与子女数量呈正相关，与39岁及以上无子女的概率呈负相关。关系解体与SM和ES呈负相关，尤其是在个性得分最低的人群中。使用兄弟姐妹比较的进一步分析支持了这些发现。
