New Talks and Network Kickoff

On October 28th, Ariane will present some new work at the SHARE online seminar series, and on November 11th, at the Department Colloquium at the University of Konstanz. Both talks kann be attended online:

On October 8th and 9th, the CAREnet network, of which Ariane is a founding member kicked off in Berlin. Over the coming three years, young scholars from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria will collaborate to identify and tackle issue around caregiving and care policy in research and policy.

On October 8th and 9th I had the pleasure to come together with 13 bright scholars in the field of caregiving research to kick off our new DFG-funded network titled CAREnet. Here i a picture from our first meeting at DZA in Berlin (picture credits: Lisa Jessee and Agnes Haußleiter):

​I am excitingly looking forward the collaborative efforts to jointly move the field in the coming three years! 

Summer Highlights

With the summer coming to an end, we wanted to share some of our highlights with you!

Ariane had a busy summer of travelling for presentations and conferences. Berlin was one of her stops, where she was a guest at the Charité (8), the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the German Centre of Gerontology (DZA). She also spent some time in Konstanz enjoying relaxed summer vibes at the Rhine (4). Outside of work, she went hiking and river rafting in the Swiss Alps (2). She closed the conference season with the DGGG in Frankfurt, in a joint session with Andrea and researchers from the DZA (9).

Andrea attended the RECSM Methods School in Barcelona, where she also visited the Aigües Library (7). After three years, she returned to her hometown of Austin, Texas (6), before attending a workshop at MHH Hannover and moving on to Frankfurt for closing the conferencing season at the DGGG in Frankfurt.

Kübra attended the SOEP conference in Berlin and the ESHMS conference in Hamburg (5) Her summer vacation was spent well in Istanbul (10).

Saioa travelled to Canada and visited Bruce Peninsula National Park (1). She will be spending the next few months studying at the University of Western Ontario (3).

After such a great summer, we are excited to welcome a new member to our team! Ria Chawla will be joining us as a student research assistant. She is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Sociology of Inequality in Konstanz.

We are looking forward to the new semester and wish you all a sunny and productive fall!

New publication out - Informal Care and Work-Family Interface

Kunz, C. & Bertogg, A. (2026). Transitioning into Informal Care During Working Age: Longitudinal Evidence on the Work–Family Interface Among Employees in Germany. Journal of Family and Economic Issues. Online first. Link to study: https://rdcu.be/XZCu51WbwPE

🔎 Research question: How does transitioning into informal caregiving affect the work–family interface — and does this association differ by the direction of spillover (family-to-work vs. work-to-family) and caregiving intensity?

📊 Data & method: Using longitudinal data from the BAuA Working Time Survey, the study combines difference-in-differences with propensity-score matching (DiD-PSM) to examine changes associated with transitioning into occasional and frequent informal caregiving.

🔄 Family → work: Transitioning into occasional or frequent caregiving significantly increases family–work conflict, but not work–family conflict.

📈 Caregiving intensity matters: The increase in family–work conflict is larger among those transitioning into frequent rather than occasional caregiving.

💡 Relevance and Insight: As population ageing increases the need for informal care, more employed people are likely to combine paid work and caregiving. Our findings show that both the direction of spillover and caregiving intensity matter for understanding these challenges.