Doctorats

Promoteurs : Bruno Schoumaker (UCLouvain), Marie-Laurence Flahaux (Aix-Marseille)
Financement : UCLouvain

Le projet migratoire, dans sa dimension dynamique et temporelle, est une projection dans l’avenir, sans cesse amenée à être redéfinie en fonction du contexte et des stratégies sociales et/ou individuelles. A ce titre, il est considéré comme un bon « proxy » pour mesurer les éventuelles (ré) migrations. Il a surtout été étudié pour les individus qui n’ont jamais quitté leur pays d’origine mais, de plus en plus d’études s’intéressent aux projets migratoires de ceux qui ont déjà migré et qui souhaitent retourner dans leur pays d’origine ou migrer ailleurs. Ces mouvements, qualifiés de "rémigrations" s’expliquent dans la littérature soit comme un échec de l’intégration à destination soit comme une stratégie de subsistance dans laquelle la rémigration est une suite logique du processus migratoire. Plusieurs facteurs à la fois familiaux, socio-économiques et politiques ont été abordés dans la littérature pour expliquer d’un côté le projet migratoire et de l’autre la rémigration alors que la rémigration s’inscrit le plus souvent dans un projet migratoire. Une autre limite de la littérature sur la rémigration est que la dimension politique est, à ce jour, moins analysée empiriquement. Cette recherche présente l’avantage (1) d’étudier les intentions migratoires et les comportements migratoires réels des migrants africains dans un contexte précis, (2) d’articuler deux approches d’analyse -micro et macro- qui interrogent le vécu, la situation familiale et les effets des politiques migratoires pour expliquer les projets migratoires et la rémigration et enfin (3) de comprendre comment les processus sociaux varient selon les contextes en analysant les effets de l’évolution du contexte socio-économique dans quatre pays d’origine (RD. Congo, Cameroun, Rwanda et Burundi) et en Belgique sur la rémigration. Pour y arriver, les données quantitatives, notamment de l’Enquête POMBE, du Registre national belge couplé aux données de la Banque carrefour de la sécurité sociale et de données contextuelles DEMIG POLICY, seront mobilisées et les données qualitatives permettront d’affiner les hypothèses et d’étoffer les résultats quantitatifs. Des analyses transversales et biographiques permettront d’expliquer d’une part, le projet migratoire et l’occurrence de la rémigration au niveau « Micro » et d’autre part, d’estimer l’effet de l’évolution du contexte socio-économique dans le pays d’origine comme de destination et de politiques migratoires en Belgique sur la rémigration au niveau «Macro».

Promotrice : Schnor Christine (UCLouvain)
Financement : FSR

Over the years, an increase in the prevalence of lone parent households has occurred in all Western countries. Current research shows that lone parents are a particularly vulnerable social group at high risk of poverty or social exclusion. However, it is not clear whether the socioeconomic disadvantage of lone parents is due to the fact of being a lone parent itself (causation mechanism) or because of selection mechanism into lone parenthood. Additionally, the increasing phenomenon of lone fatherhood brings out the gender dimension to the attention: are lone fathers and lone mothers facing the same difficulties in terms of reconciliation of work and family life? Does a higher involvement of fathers allow mothers to work fulltime?
By adopting a longitudinal life course approach, this project aims to tackle these and other overdue unanswered questions regarding the relationship between lone parent families and socioeconomic inequalities: 1) which mechanisms and socioeconomic determinants related to lone parenthood, and 2) whether socioeconomic differences between lone mothers and lone fathers have been reduced over the time. The data used are mainly from the Belgian National Register and Censuses.

Promotrice: Christine Schnor
Financement: UCLouvain - FSR

This project investigates a relatively new way of entering motherhood: not living with a partner, at advanced ages (30+). Late single motherhood increased with educational expansion, postponement of childbirth, and new reproductive technologies. Using Belgian register data, this project will look into how women's age, socioeconomic status, and proximity to parents affect the likelihood, heterogeneity, and stability of single motherhood. The research will differentiate single mothers by mode of conception (natural versus medically-assisted) and by information on the father in the population register (whether or not the father has recognized the child). Income-changes and partnership-formation after the onset of single motherhood will also be analyzed. 

Promoteurs : Masquelier Bruno (UCLouvain), Devleesschauwer Brecht (Sciensano), Faes Christel (UHasselt)
Financement : BELSPO

Disparities in health and well-being between socioeconomic (SE) groups are one of the major challenges for public health sectors worldwide. Despite the joint efforts of the Belgian authorities and other stakeholders to close the gap in SE and health inequalities, there is still a high proportion of Belgian population who is affected by material and social deprivation, and experiences health inequalities. New studies, using a more complex indicator of SE deprivation than education or income alone, are needed to precisely identify the hot spots of SE health inequalities. Therefore, we aim to develop an innovative area-level index of multiple deprivation (IMD) that would measure disparities accurately and over time, and implement this at the level of statistical sector (i.e., the smallest administrative subdivision of Belgium). The IMD will allow analyzing and comparing deprivation in small areas across Belgium, identifying which of them are among the most deprived, and exploring which type of deprivation are more prominent within areas. The IMD will be further used in studying the SE health inequalities in Belgium at the aggregate level. Since ecological bias are unavoidable, its magnitude will be assessed using alternative, individual approaches. It will help our understanding of whether there are social or health-related opportunities related to tackling neighborhood SE health inequalities.

Promoteurs : Eggerickx Thierry (UCLouvain), Rousseaux Xavier (UCLouvain)
Financement : BELSPO/BRAIN

Cette recherche, menée dans le cadre du projet IPV-PRO&POL (Intimate Partner Violence: Impact, Processes, Evolution and Related Public Policies in Belgium), vise d’une part à étudier l’évolution de la mortalité violente en Belgique, et d’autre part à comprendre plus particulièrement les mécanismes en jeu dans les violences entre conjoints et les homicides conjugaux. Les données utilisées proviennent du Registre national, des recensements, du système informatique des parquets correctionnels (TPI), mais aussi de dossiers de justice et d’entretiens avec des auteurs et des victimes de violences.

Promotrices : Schnor Christine (UCLouvain), Jalovaara Marika (University of Turku – UTU)
Financement : Mandat d'assistante UCLouvain

In recent decades, lifelong singlehood and childlessness have increased across many European countries. Family formations have become a more extended sequence of demographic events as a result of demographic behavior changes such as the postponement of marriage and motherhood, and the increasing popularity of unmarried cohabitation and union dissolution. The rise of childlessness rates has fueled interest in this phenomenon and the reasons for it. While existing research has explored complexities in the life-course of childless people, few studies have examined (biological) childless’ partnership biographies, how it is linked to contemporary union dynamics, and how it differs between countries. On the one hand, this project aims to capture the heterogeneity of partnership trajectories leading to childlessness. Using sequence and cluster analyses, this research considers how the joint occurrence, timing, and duration of multiple states in a union trajectory are associated with childlessness. On the other hand, as remaining never partnered is a strong determinant of childlessness, we focus on life trajectories of individuals that have never been in a coresidential partnership and explore their specific characteristics, with an emphasis on the family of origin’s characteristics. Based on the observed residential and income patterns, socioeconomic status, and the family of origin’s characteristics, we develop a typology of partnerless trajectories that led to childlessness, emphasizing the importance of understanding this specific population as a heterogeneous group. From a cross-country comparison, we study Finland and Belgium to explore the nature of childlessness and the social settings: how similar are childless adults in different countries? Analyses are based on high-quality (administrative) data covering the complete registered populations. Shedding light on the diversity of partnership trajectories, the present research contributes to the existing literature by studying lifetime childlessness as a complex process outcome rather than a distinct cross-sectional state.

Promoteur : Bruno Schoumaker
Financement : Mandat d’assistante d’enseignement en méthodes quantitatives (UCLouvain)

Despite large fluctuations from one year to the next, Belgium receives many applications for international protection each year. Depending on the influence of social, economic and political context of the host and origin countries, the number of first applications for international protection fluctuates between 11.000 and 43.000 per year over the period 2000-2020 (Commissariat Général aux Réfugiés et aux Apatrides (CGRA), 2015, 2021). As a result, scientific interest in asylum seekers and refugee populations has increased significantly, with many studies published on the subject, particularly on the integration in the host countries. However, few studies currently exist on the subsequent migrations of these immigrants (Stewart & Shaffer, 2015), i.e. the internal and/or international mobility trajectories these individuals experience once registered in a host country. The aim of this research is to describe and understand the subsequent migration of applicants for international protection in Belgium from the early 2000s to the most recent period (2020). Based on national register data, it will particularly focus on the internal migrations within the Belgian territory during the asylum procedure and afterwards (whether the migrant has been granted a protection or not). Using a longitudinal approach, this work will examine internal migration pathways and link them to other trajectories (family, administrative or professional), allowing both a description of the situations and an explanation based on various determinants possible. Understanding where asylum applicants settle and why allows to put their integration in Belgium into perspective.

Sources citées dans le résumé :
Commissariat Général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides (CGRA), 2015, Statistiques d’asile—Bilan 2014, CGVS/CGRA, https://www.cgra.be/sites/default/files/statistiques_asile_decembre_2014_externe.pdf
Commissariat Général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides (CGRA), 2021, Statistiques d’asile : Décembre 2020, CGVS/CGRA. https://www.cgra.be/sites/default/files/statistiques_dasile_decembre_2020.pdf
Stewart E., Shaffer M., 2015, Moving on? Dispersal Policy, Onward Migration and Integration of Refugees in the UK, University of Strathclyde, https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/library-document/moving-dispersal-policy-onward-migration-and-integration-refugees-uk_en