The data comprises three of the Cross-National Equivalent Files. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1970-2013) ; the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (1984-2015) and the UKHLS (2009-2014) and the British Household Panel Study (1991-2009). The following variables were extracted: personal identifier (x11101LL), household identifier (x11102), survey year (year), sex (d11101LL), marital status (d11104), income (i11110), employment status (e11101), hour worked (e11101), education (d11108/9), partner identifier (d11105), household size (d11106) and number of children (d11107). The data came in a harmonized form from the data providers. For the papers on Germany, in addition to the variables described above, life satisfaction, work hour flexibility, caregiving, housework hours, widowhood status and carer ID were further extracted from the original German Socio-Economic Panel Study.Longitudinal research has mainly focussed on women's problems in maintaining a career. However, mothers in a relationship are the ones who struggle because fathers often rely on their unpaid work efforts to maintain a career (Blossfeld and Drobnic, 2001, Gershuny, 2000). This suggests that couple-level shifts in the division of labour upon entering parenthood are at the heart of the problem of gender inequalities in life course career investment. Women who enter parenthood are also the majority of the UK female population (Office for National Statistics, 2012). Hence, this project's main goal is to understand how couples' careers are interrelated across their lives. The second goal is to analyse which factors are associated with dual career failure and dual career success.

No primary data was collected, see related resources for data used.