Magdalena Żadkowska is one of the authors and leading editor of the book ‘Reconfiguring Relations in the Empty Nest. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay’, part of the series Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Żadkowska’s co-authored book delves into the spectrum of experiences taking place when adult children leave home and parents find themselves in the ‘empty nest’ stage of life. In an interview, we asked Magdalena, who spent three months doing a fellowship at the EUI, to discuss her co-authored book, her research interests, the project she was a principal investigator of, and plans for future research endeavours.
What motivated you to choose the ‘empty nest’ research topic? Could you explain where and how you conducted the research that led to the publication of the book?
I define myself as a ‘sociologist of intimate life and of couple’s life’. In my work, I start by considering the perspective of the micro world - in the case of this research, the family setting or household setting environment - to observe changes influencing wider groups. I am interested in events that represent a turbulence for the couple and for the family setting. A major turmoil for couples is certainly the moment when their adult children leave home, and couples find themselves in what we call the ‘empty nest’ stage of life.
Thanks to the funding of the National Science Centre in Poland, I was the principal investigator of an extensive four-year study focused on couples in Poland whose children had left the family houses. The same research was replicated with couples in France. We did thematic interviews at couples’ houses, and we followed-up with second interviews one year later. We conducted our research between 2019 and 2022, the initial interviews took place in 2019. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic somehow disrupted our planning, and we had to perform the follow-up interviews online. Our work ended after the pandemic.
We examined partners’ changes and reactions when their adult children leave home, which represents a crucial moment when the couple is suddenly alone at home again or, in other cases, alone at home for the first time. Our book presents how the children’s transition to independence and adulthood is experienced by Polish and French couples. For the French part of the research, I cooperated closely with Professor François de Singly and Professor Christophe Giraud from Université Paris Cité.
Regarding our survey participants, there were some differences between the Polish couples and the French ones. Most Polish couples were relatively young, as they belonged to a generation that is still traditional and in which most women would have a first child at around 21 or 22 years old. This means that our Polish interviewees were in their late 40s or early 50s, in a phase of their lives in which they were still quite busy with their careers. The French interviewees were usually older. Moreover, in many cases, the Polish partners had never lived alone as a couple as they had their first child right after moving in together, while the French couples usually experienced between two and four years of life alone, before having the first child. In France, most of the families we interviewed had three children, while the Polish households were smaller, with two kids maximum. Despite these divergences in the age and size of families, our results showed more similarities than differences between the Polish part of the research and the French one, revealing that gender differences are far more relevant than cultural ones.
Let’s now zoom in on the core of your research and its results. Could you explain the phases and the importance of the ‘empty nest’, focusing on the challenges and opportunities it brings to the couple’s relationship?
In our book, we analysed the notion of the ‘empty nest’, which often has a negative connotation, because it is frequently confused or associated with the ‘empty nest syndrome’. The aim of our book was not to establish whether the ‘empty nest syndrome’ exists, but to present the entire spectrum of experiences that the ‘empty nest’ stage involves. Families grow and decrease in size and adjust to new situations during the life course. The process of ‘emptying the nest’ represents one of the most significant changes that leads to a reconfiguration of familiar roles and interactions. Couples whose lives revolved around the children need to relearn how to live together when their major life project (raising the children) has ended.
The process for adult children to leave the family home usually consists of two phases. In a first stage, the adult children are ‘absent but integrated’, meaning that they leave independently but return regularly to their parents’ home. For some families, not much changes in phase one, as children often move very closely and pass by their parents’ home for dinner almost every evening. Moreover, the young adults often still receive financial support from their families. However, the first phase is usually followed by a second one in which adult children gain complete independence from parents. The young person is ‘absent and no more integrated’ into the family and, even if a return home is always possible in life, it represents more of an ‘accident’ in the course of their lives.
As for the importance and effects of the ‘empty nest’ phase on couples, we examined how couples redefined themselves after the children’s departure. The process of relearning how to be a couple after many years of focusing on children may be a challenging task. Our research highlighted the existence of two categories of couples. Some partners began a sort of ‘new honeymoon’ after the departure of their children, meaning that they focused on strengthening their marital bond. Those couples invested their time, money, and attention to reinforce their relationship. Partners make use of this ‘new honeymoon’ phase to sometimes develop big projects - such as long-distance trips, home renovations, moving into a new house - or smaller but still important ones, such as doing Sunday activities together.
On the contrary, other couples find it much more difficult to adjust to the ‘empty nest’ phase. In this second scenario, partners realise they had very little in common, as only parenthood united the couple and gave them a sense of purpose and a common project. We define this second typology as the couples ‘living together apart’. While parenthood mostly united the couples and provided them with shared practices and conversation topics, the empty nest phase revealed the poor state of their relationship. In extreme cases, being ‘together apart’ can go as far as the partners deciding to live in different floors of the house or starting to live parallel lives, rather than a shared one.
Your book highlights that, after children move out, animal companions become even more important for the partners. What is the role played by them in an ‘empty nest’?
In one chapter of the book, we explore the importance of animals in families and how the relationship with dogs and cats changes when children leave home. Even if a dog is obviously not a child, for some couples taking care of a dog somehow replaces the role of taking care for their children. In general, our research showed that dogs and cats play a special role in three ways. First, the presence of an animal in the house can make it no longer feel so empty and certain practices of family life and the life of the couple can be preserved. Second, family animal companions structure a temporal rhythm within the household, as the daily time can be organised around their activities. Third, raising and educating an animal sometimes becomes a new focus for the couple, which is important especially for those ‘living together apart’.
I developed a keen interest in ‘interspecies families’, meaning families with domestic animals, and the unique connection that creates between the humans and the animals within those households. I recently co-authored the article ‘Doing family in three – two partners and an animal companion’, published in the Journal of Family Studies, which reveals that animals play an active role in family life and highlights the importance of the interspecies bond between humans and their animal companions.
During my fellowship at the EUI, among other activities - such as mentoring some researchers and speaking at EUI seminars - I worked on an application for funding from the National Science Centre in Poland for a new study on interspecies families. I believe that scholars who study families should always include questions about ‘animal actors’ within families. This is because households with animals are very different from those without, from three points of view: space, budget, and, most importantly, from the point of view of the emotions.
Another area of research that interests you is the demographic changes taking place in Europe. Could you please tell us more about this area of your work and share some of your future research plans?
My research on animal companions is somehow linked to one of my other areas of interest: the demographic changes happening in Europe. The average age for becoming mothers and fathers has been increasing a lot in every European country. Consequently, many Europeans will never become grandparents, or they will eventually, but at a late age. This means that certain practises of care will remain unfulfilled due to the lack of children. That is why family animals become even more important actors, as they can somehow fill the emotional gap.
In the future, I plan to conduct a qualitative study about seniors. Moreover, I would like to focus on the topic of grandparents and animal companions. Seniors represent the biggest demographic group in Europe. Taking into account the demographic changes happening in our continent, we should consider how to address certain actions and policies towards seniors. For example, we should analyse where the seniors come from, who lives with them in the household (sometimes a dog or a cat), if they have grandchildren or might have them in the future or, if they will be, as I call them ‘grandparents without grandchildren’.
Finally, I also aim to work on gender equality plans and, more in general, on gender issues and intersectional perspectives. My Fernand Braudel Fellowship at the EUI, funded by the EUI Widening Europe Programme, was very helpful also in this respect, as I could learn about projects and studies done by EUI scholars in these important fields.
Magdalena Żadkowska was a Fernand Braudel Fellow at the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences from 16 September till 15 December 2024. She is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Gdansk. Magdalena’s research focuses on the sociology of couples, family life courses, career trajectories of women and men in STEM, and interspecies families.
The Fernand Braudel Fellowship special call for applications was launched in the framework of the EUI Widening Europe Programme, which is supported by contributions from the European Union and EUI Contracting States. The programme is designed to strengthen internationalisation, competitiveness, and quality in research in targeted Widening countries.