Centre for Population, Family and Health - CPFH

📢 New publication alert!

CPFH-colleagues Zeynep Zümer Batur, Dimitri Mortelmans, Jorik Vergauwen and Jeroen Vermunt from Tilburg University have published a new article using longitudinal data from SHARE, in which they examined how gender and labour force participation shape support provided by adult children to ageing parents across 29 countries.

💡Longitudinal analysis identified seven distinct patterns of filial support, ranging from no support to very intensive caregiving, while grouping countries according to their overall levels of involvement in filial support.

The study shows that caregiving for ageing parents remains strongly gendered, with daughters typically providing more intensive support than sons. It also highlights how employment status and national context shape caregiving patterns, underscoring the influence of both labour market opportunities and cultural caregiving norms. Policies aimed at supporting caregivers should therefore take the intersecting factors of gender and employment status into account to better address caregiving burdens in ageing societies.

📖 Read the article via the link below 👇

www.cambridge.org

🌍 New publication alert!

CPFH colleague Linda Campbell is co-author of a new article in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The publication concerns the CABU-EICO trial, a community-based intervention to improve antibiotic use and patient management in rural Burkina Faso and DR Congo.

The study highlights the importance of working beyond hospitals and formal healthcare settings, and engaging the full range of community-level antibiotic providers (including informal vendors) in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.

🎙️ Also out today: a new episode of The Lancet Infectious Diseases in conversation with authors of the study, on what it takes to design interventions that are locally tailored, practical, and scalable.

Congratulations to Linda and the full CABU-EICO team!

👉 Read the full article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1473309926001696?dgcid=author
👉 Listen to the podcast here: https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Fepisode%2F2PozWo447MjRZqTTksMfKX%3Fsi%3DHue1dHmsSzaO7eUi3VImsQ&data=05%7C02%7CElke.Claessens%40uantwerpen.be%7Cfc7534ef1ed44bbddf7d08decb8081d0%7C792e08fb2d544a8eaf72202548136ef6%7C0%7C0%7C639171950125240916%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=bxQ%2B1HXw1QsKifQ%2FTn%2B2HLfv%2B9uCqajZTAg33bRMVd8%3D&reserved=0

Brecht Ingelbeen and Daniel Valia on a community-based antimicrobial stewardship intervention in Burkina Faso and DRC The Lancet Infectious Diseases in conversation with · Episode

❗️Conference in the spotlight: our research group was well represented at the European Population Conference in Bologna!

📕 Various CPFH colleagues presented their research and participated in interesting discussions on several topics, such as segregation, fertility, stratified transitions into and out of singlehood, and ALMP training programmes.

🤩A special thanks to the organisers and all participants for the wonderful conference and inspiring research!

💍 Is marriage for the rich? 💸

At today’s lunch seminar, Elisa Janssens and Julie Van den Bussche presented their master’s thesis research on this thought-provoking question. Through a unique collaboration between Law and Sociology, they explored how changing relationship forms, socioeconomic inequality, and Belgian relationship law are interconnected.

Julie used Belgian register data to examine who (still) transitions into a first marriage, while Elisa reflected on what these patterns mean from a legal perspective, in a system where marriage continues to occupy a central position.

The seminar had a plentiful audience from within and outside the university, and was a wonderful example of how empirical research and legal reflection can strengthen each other. Congratulations to both students on this strong interdisciplinary project! 👏

Yesterday, we traded our desks for the beautiful streets of Ghent during our annual team day! 🎉

We kicked off with some friendly (and surprisingly competitive) VR games, explored the city through a fun city challenge, and wrapped up with a delicious meal together.

A big thank you to everyone who made this team-building day such a success! 🥂🙌❤️

Yesterday, CPFH colleague Elke Claessens had the honor and pleasure of serving as an opponent alongside emeritus Prof. Dr. Robert Emery for the public doctoral defence of Maria Morbech at the University of Oslo. The impressive PhD dissertation, titled "Children in post-separation residence arrangements: Family characteristics, relationship dynamics, and children’s mental health", offered the opportunity for a very inspiring discussion, with wonderful celebrations afterwards.

🎓 Congratulations to Dr. Maria Morbech on achieving this academic milestone!

World Menstrual Health Day! 🌍🩸

CPFH colleagues Anna Wallays, Amina Yakhlaf and Jolien Inghels attended the ‘Gender and Health’ event of Vlaanderen is Inclusief on this important day.

Throughout this inspiring event, personal experiences, societal attitudes, and structural barriers surrounding menstruation and menopause in Flanders took centre stage. Discussions focused on:
• the research project ‘Red Flags and Hot Flushes’ (Rode Vlaggen en Vapeurs)
• menstrual wellbeing in education and among young people (BruZelle)
• period poverty (Caritas)
• menstruation in the context of female ge***al mutilation/cutting (GAMS Belgium)
• and the importance of research! (for example the Isala project)

Our main takeaways? That there is still a major lack of language and openness to talk about menstruation- and menopause-related complaints. That medical knowledge about women’s bodies still too often falls short. And above all: that menstruation should no longer be something we whisper about.

No more hiding tampons in sleeves or pockets. No more having to invent excuses for “that one inconvenient day”. It is time to continue breaking the taboo.

Would you like to contribute to research on this topic, specifically on PMS, and are you a person who menstruates? Then be sure to fill out the online survey by our colleagues at the GHent Experimental Psychiatry Lab: https://www.gheplab.ugent.be/msg/grote-steekproefstudie-naar-premenstrueel-syndroom-in-vlaandere

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GHent Experimental Psychiatry LAB — Home GHent Experimental Psychiatry LAB

🌟CPFH was well represented at the Dag van de Sociologie 2026, hosted at the University of Antwerp! 🌟

Several CPFH colleagues presented research on a wide range of timely and socially relevant topics, including singlehood, pre-abortion counseling, medicalized female ge***al cutting, family involvement in mental health decision-making, and practicum experiences in childcare professions. We were also proud to see several thesis students contribute with presentations on a host of topics, including maternal gatekeeping, religious influence on abortion attitudes, parental agency, and the work-life balance of single parents in shared custody.

A great showcase of the breadth, relevance, and societal engagement of sociological research at CPFH. 👏

📢 New publication alert!

CPFH colleagues Dries van Gasse and Nina Van Eekert have published a new article exploring how single fathers in Belgium navigate caregiving and breadwinning after divorce or separation.

📖 Based on qualitative interviews with single fathers across diverse socio-economic backgrounds, the study examines how societal expectations around fatherhood and work shape fathers’ everyday experiences and their ability to balance employment and care responsibilities. Their findings reveal a typology of four fathering strategies among Belgian single fathers: withdrawn fathering, traditional breadwinning, performing “daddycation” and family-centred fathering.

💡 The study illustrates that expectations surrounding fatherhood shape how single fathers combine work and care responsibilities, highlighting how broader social norms and inequalities shape post-separation family life.

👉 Read the full article via the link below 👇
https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2026.2661381

📢 New publication alert!

A new article, “Sexual harassment protocols at the European universities: An overview of key components and recommendations for improvement”, co-authored by Anneleen De Cuyper, has just been published in PLOS ONE.

The study analyses and compares sexual harassment protocols across seven European universities, highlighting both good practices and important shortcomings in how higher education institutions address sexual harassment.

Key findings include:
💡 Sexual harassment protocols differ considerably across the seven universities studied.

💡 Some universities provide comprehensive protocols with procedural, preventive and reparative measures, while others show important gaps.

💡 A practical intersectional approach is largely missing from the analysed protocols.

📖 Read the open-access article via the link below 👇

Sexual harassment protocols at the European universities: An overview of key components and recommendations for improvement Protocols against sexual harassment (SH) have been widely adopted in European universities as part of a broader structural gender approach in higher education and research institutions. However, existing literature indicates that these protocols have often been insufficient. In particular, there is....