Low Fertility

The present study aims to explore the dynamics of the cohort fertility in Sweden, Spain, the Czech Republic and Ukraine. The postponement and recuperation of fertility are analysed in order to find the differences within this process and how it is reflected in complete cohort fertility rate. The study is based on the Human Fertility Database that provides high quality, comparable and detailed data for comparative analysis of the fertility postponement and recuperation process of childbearing. The benchmark model proposed by Sobotka, Zeman, Lesthaeghe and Frejka has been used as the main tool. The results show that the diversity of complete cohort fertility rates of the 1970s cohort of women is determined by the different level of recuperation of the postponed births. Sweden and the Czech Republic, which experience the stronger recuperation of the postponed births, have a complete cohort fertility higher than in countries with weaker Recuperation Index (Spain and Ukraine). The lower ...

Women's educational attainment is essential for fertility decline in any region. Rising female educational attainment in the country is not always proportionally related to fertility decline. With economic development and urbanization, women's education increased over the decades in India. This analysis aims to explain the pattern of fertility differentials by the level of education and the contribution of the changes in women's educational attainment in relation to fertility decline during the fertility transition in India. The data for this study were drawn from the four rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) survey, a nationally representative cross-sectional survey which was collected in India from 1992-93 to 2015-16. In this study, it was found that women's educational improvements contributed less than one-fifth of the completed cohort fertility (CCF) decline across the region of India between 1945-49 and 1970-74 birth cohorts. If we look at the recent Total Fertility Rates (TFR) between the period 1992-93 and 2015-16, the improvements in women's education contributed 39% to the reduction in TFR. The educational differentials in fertility are narrowing in India over the decades because most of the decline in fertility rates comes from the no educated women and no educated women are the drivers of the fertility declined in India. Although, improvements in women's educational attainment had a very small contribution to CCF decline across the region. Nevertheless, the advancement of women in education is playing a significant role in the decline of TFR. Investments in female education would benefit the future fertility decline in the currently high fertility regions of India. v Acknowledgments My virtual YSSP journey has been highlighted by the opportunity to work with outstanding supervisors Dr. Michaela Potancokova and Dr. Erich Striessing. They were courteous, professional, and willing to spend time with me. They also made significant contribution to this report. I believe that I have improved my research abilities during this three-month YSSP program with the assistance of my supervisors. In between, we have discussed a range of aspects, including the quantum and tempo of fertility, the proximate determinates of fertility and childlessness; the postponement and recuperation of fertility rates, the reconstruction of long term fertility trends, and different methods for estimating fertility such as Poisson regression and exposure methods. I am grateful to them for their time, patience, and strength in advising me. Thank you to the world population team, notably Dr. Samir KC, Dr. Raya Muttarak, and Dr. Tomas Sobotka for their useful comments and suggestions. Thank you to the entire YSSP cohort for an incredible summer of professional and personal growth. Thank you to the entire YSSP team, especially

The news that birth rates hit record low levels in many countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas in the past decade was met with some alarm globally. More than half of the world's population lives in countries with a total fertility rate below two children per woman. The rate is below 1.5 in 46 countries (fig 1), and ranges from 1.3 to 1.8 in many middle income countries such as Brazil, Iran, China, Turkey, and India. 1 Countries that, until recently, had fertility Box 1: 1994 UN International Conference of Population and Development Big changes in health and longevity drove an increase in global population from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 5.3 billion by 1990. 1 This perceived unrestrained demographic growth resulted in fears of resource scarcity, environmental collapse, and overcrowding, 4 leading stakeholders to advocate reducing fertility, sometimes

This paper examines fertility and family policies in 15 Central and East European (CEE) countries to establish firstly, likely directions of cohort fertility trends for the coming decade; and secondly, to provide an overview and analysis of family policies in CEE countries, and to assess their impact on cohort fertility trends. Demographic analysis suggests that the cohort fertility decline of the 1960s cohorts is likely to continue at least among the 1970s birth cohorts; stagnation cannot be ruled out. Births that were postponed by women born in the 1970s were not being replaced in sufficient numbers for cohort fertility to increase in the foreseeable future, and shares of low parity women (childless and one child) were larger than shares of high parity women among the late 1960s cohorts than in older cohorts. Also, childbearing postponement which started in the 1990s is reflected in dramatic changes of childbearing age patterns. As period fertility rates have been increasing in th...

This article suggests that emerging adulthood, the stage in the life cycle described by Arnett for the United States, is also evident in Europe. The article examines the characteristics of emerging adulthood in Europe and highlights their regional and national similarities and differences. Also examined are the differences between European emerging adulthood and the American model, which chiefly involve the various ways European youth ameliorate economic and domestic instability. This article is based on a study of one of the most salient consequences of emerging adulthood, low fertility. A clear sign of emerging adulthood in Europe is that historically low numbers of children are being born there. KEYWORDS-Europe; emerging adulthood; low fertility Arnett (2004) has proposed that emerging adulthood in the United States is an extended period of both exploration and instability, when many young people between the ages of 18-25 struggle with uncertainty even as they revel in being free. Emerging adulthood for Arnett has several social characteristics among which are a lengthening of time spent in higher education, prolonged job instability, and expanded, more flexible roles for women. There is also, due largely to effective contraception, an uncoupling of sex and marriage and childbearing. Finally, this new period is associated with a rise in the mean age of entering not only marriage but especially parenthood, those final steps, as Arnett (2004) calls them, historically linked with adulthood. According to Arnett, adulthood is seen by many contemporary young people as a peril to be avoided, the end of independence. For them, the new stage of emerging adulthood represents unprecedented freedom to explore-education, love, work, and fun-and to gain a broad range of life experiences. It is also a time for self-focus with few ties or daily obligation to others. In short, it is an in-between time, full of possibilities and high hopes. However, this time of exploration is also a time of instability, with young people moving from job to job, from one romantic relationship to another, and, often, from one residence to another. Arnett also proposes that a period of emerging adulthood is becoming more pervasive throughout the world. However, he recognizes that it is not a universal period of human development and that it comes into being under certain conditions, mainly in industrial and postindustrial countries. As Arnett points out, emerging adulthood is characteristic of cultures rather than countries, though in some places, it is associated more with social class than with ethnicity or with urban areas more than rural areas. What is mainly required for emerging adulthood, however, is a high median age of entering marriage and parenthood, resulting from the longer periods of education needed in postindustrial, globalized economies (Arnett, 2002). This key condition increasingly applies in Europe, where some suggest that emerging adulthood has made an appearance (Arnett, 2006, 2007; Bynner, 2005). Recently, I collaborated with several colleagues investigating the European trend of lower fertility rates, defined as ''the frequency with which birth From Duty to Desire is how Jane Collier titled her 1997 book about the differences she found between the generations in a small village in the south of Spain where she did ethnographic fieldwork for 2 years in the 1960s and then again 20 years later in the 1980s. ''From Duty to Desire'' was her concise descriptor of the opposing values of those generations in Spain and maybe in this postindustrial, postmaterialist world.

Fertility, particularly at its current low level in many developed countries and high level in some less developed countries, is a key factor driving demographic, economic, and societal changes at local, national, and global levels. Population ageing due to low fertility and increasing longevity represents one of the most significant global megatrends and risks. Many countries are already experiencing population decline and rapid growth of their elderly populations, with implications for workforce size, economic development, health and pension schemes, and social security arrangements. Actuaries are well known for their work on mortality and morbidity, but they have rarely considered fertility and its proximate determinants, despite their demographic and economic effects. This paper explores key explanations and outcomes of past and projected future fertility trends, and the implications for actuaries and for political and economic decisionmakers.

This paper proposes a new conceptual framework of "education bubble" in analyzing the human capital investment and formation. We apply this concept to the Korean experience. Sixty years ago Korea was destitute not only of income but also of all sorts of education, but now it is one of the leading countries in educational attainment as well as in other conventional measures of human capital investment indices such as the PISA tests and the number of researchers. We argue, however, that such phenomenal expansion of these quantitative measures involved the problems of enormous burden of private tutoring and the mass production of low-quality higher education institutions, which did not contribute to increasing the effective unit of human capital particularly since the 1990s. We find that despite rapid increase in private educational expenditure for college entrance, the college wage premiums for the bottom two decile groups of 4-year college graduates and the bottom half of 2-year college graduates are both negative. This striking evidence from the microeconomic data suggests that such phenomenal expansion in aggregate quantity of human capital indices of Korea could be a bubble. We learn from this evidence that the quantitative expansion of education may not be good enough for sustainable development, which would guide the design of human capital policy not only for Korea but also for other developing countries.

Most European societies have experienced a marked decline in the number of births during the last decades. This study aims to contribute to our understanding of the past twists in the number of births and our ability to foresee future patterns. It discusses various possibilities of decomposing the changing number of births, starting from a basic decomposition that distinguishes tempo, quantum, and 'mean generation size' components, and illustrating further extensions of this decomposition. The empirical analysis focuses on the impact of the three main components on the declining number of births from the onset of fertility postponement in 13 European societies. It reveals considerable variability: in all of the analysed countries, fertility postponement has put downward pressure on the number of observed births. Tempo distortions constituted the major force, negatively affecting the number of births in Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and in three post-communist societies: the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. The analysis of the recent role of tempo distortions in period fertility may be used to project future trends. This paper argues that an explicit inclusion of assumptions concerning tempo effects may lead to a considerable improvement of the projection scenarios of fertility and births. Using examples of three countries with different intensity and duration of fertility postponement (Austria, the Czech Republic, and Finland) this study shows how the eventual stabilisation of the mean age at childbearing may affect the number of births in the future.

In this study I describe the scope and variety of grandmotherly nurturing practices during the socialist regime and in post-socialism in Bulgaria. In the first part of the paper I examine childcare practices during the socialist period in the context of the ruling ideology and the corresponding approach to the family and women by the communist authorities. The second half of the paper focuses on the transformations in grandmotherly help in childcare after 1989. They range from supplementary help to full time, live-in engagement, depending on the social status and needs of the young families and the personal hardships they may be going through. Taking into account the changes in policy and living conditions during different time periods in Bulgaria, as well as the accompanying social perceptions about the grandmaternal role in childcare, I show that it was and still is a major source of help for young families with children, especially in cases of single divorced mothers. The research is based on qualitative methods that include participant-observation, semi-structured and biographical interviews with adults who were children in the 1970s and 80s in Sofia and who currently raise their own children.

This article analyses the transformation in the mode of partnership formation in seven countries of Eastern Europe. The aim of the study is to provide an up-to-date account of the switch from direct marriage to non-marital cohabitation as it has progressed from the 1960s to the mid-2000s, using data from the Generations and Gender Surveys. Unlike previous analyses of partnership formation, we examined the extent to which crossnational variations, in the onset and scale of transformation characteristic of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT), could be linked to nuptiality regimes that existed in the region in the 19th and early 20th centuries. With few exceptions, the results support the notion of correspondence between historical and contemporary patterns. Forerunners in the transition to partnership formation outside marriage tend to come from areas which exhibited a late/low prevalence of marriage; the latecomers are typically situated east of the Hajnal line. Thus our study co...

The below replacement fertility, persisting in many industrial countries, impacts the decrease in the population dynamics and consequently, the population decline. It also imposes the durable shifts in the age composition, which result in distorting relationships between subsequent generations (children, adults, old people). Therefore, fertility growth has become an increasingly highlighted goal of family policy. The article presents the situation in Poland in terms of changes in births and fertility on the one hand, and family policy reforms on the other hand. The attempt to evaluate whether family policy reforms implemented since 2008 might be considered as supportive for demographic renewal refers to numerous comparative studies on fertility effects of different policy measures. In the conclusion, a strong statement is formulated that to evaluate adequately the effects for demographic renewal from a longer time perspective, policy panel surveys on family relative behaviours and c...

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Shadow Education is a misunderstood form of education that is pervasive throughout Asia and is found all over the world. It should be no surprise that shadow education is misunderstood, due to the wide variety of names used to describe or define it.In this article, terminology will be discussed and further defined with the objective of assisting further research into this important, yet neglected form of education. Reasons why the terminology matters are also discussed

We focus on Italy and Spain, two countries that have a "latest late" pattern of leaving home, with a high synchronisation between departure from the parental home and first union formation. FFS surveys in the two countries cover a group of cohorts born from the postwar time to the mid-seventies. In the paper, we analyse leaving home and first union formation as interdependent processes, by means of multiple destination event history models. Firstly, we study cohort dynamics by destination. Educational and working careers are then introduced as determinants. Finally, the impact of pre-union conceptions is analysed.

The aims of this short paper are first, to illustrate the trends in legal separation in Italy by year of marriage and duration and second, to forecast possible tendencies in the near future. In order to elaborate on our second point (i) we project the probabilities of legal separation by duration; (ii) we

The views and opinions expressed in this document do not necessarily re ect those of the United Nations Population Fund. This document presents a brief overview of the characteristics of low and very low fertility regimes. In it we identify the demographic challenges faced by the countries leading these changes, together with the main public policies implemented to provide solutions to the ensuing consequences. It likewise seeks to draw lessons from the experience obtained in these countries that could be useful for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Most research on the relationship between economic conditions and fertility has shown that fertility has a procyclical relationship with economic growth. We examine this relationship by investigating the implications of the current economic crisis on fertility in Greece. Given the brief time period since the start of the economic crisis in Greece (a potential methodological limitation), we examine the evolution of fertility from 1960 to 2015, using empirical data provided by the Hellenic Statistical Authority and paying special attention to changes during the crisis years. Using these data, age-specific fertility rates by order of birth, total annual fertility rate, and mean age of mothers at childbearing differentiated by birth order are calculated. Our analysis shows that in the 2000s TFR increased as a result of the recuperation of births that were postponed during the late 1980s and the 1990s, and then TFR decreased, especially for first and second order TFR. We attribute the recent fall of TFR to the simultaneous fall of fertility rates of women younger than 30 years. It appears, therefore, that the crisis interrupted the recuperation of births that began in the early 2000s and halted fertility increases among younger ages. Recent changes in fertility are indicative of an accelerated decline of the complete fertility of women born after 1980, mainly because the recession was initiated during a time when the mean age of childbearing was very high (30 years for the first child). These facts do not allow for optimism concerning the reversal of fertility rates of younger generations who are probably going to spend a significant part of their reproductive life under crisis conditions.

This paper examines the representation of back-alley abortions in postsocialist Romanian cinema as reproductive burden and the abortion ban during the socialist period 1966-1989, when Decree 770 was in effect. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007), tells the story of a university student, who resorts to an illegal abortion. The female characters in Mungiu's art film show reproductive agency. Backalley abortions became a way of reclaiming women's bodies. In the documentary Children of the Decree, director Florin Iepan explores Ceaușescu's pronatalist policies by subversively juxtaposing official propaganda images with a series of interviews with medical professionals, abortionists, and women. Iepan's contribution is to show the eugenic dimensions of Ceaușescu's population policy that preferred healthy children to the detriment of disabled children. In another serialized documentary Truths about the Past female director Raluca Rogojină explores the impact of communist patriotic pronatalist policies on women and children. This article investigates the representation of back-alley abortions as women's reproductive burden in postsocialist Romanian fiction film and documentary. Ceaușescu's pronatalist policies rendered women susceptible to an abortion black market and unsafe abortion procedures. The representation of women's reproductive experiences in 4 luni, 3 săptămâni, și 2 zile/4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu 2007) discloses women's agency and grit, female solidarity, but also women's vulnerability in seeking illegal abortions. This article examines different narratives about Ceaușescu's policies of fertility control in two postsocialist documentaries Născuți la comandă, Decrețeii/Children of the Decree (Iepan 2004) and Adevăruri despre trecut/Truths About the Past (Raluca Rogojină, 2015). These documentaries have shaped public perception in postsocialist Romania about the reproductive burden placed on women in socialist Romania by Ceaușescu's strict pronatalist policies and have captured the negative implications for disabled institutionalized children of eugenic conceptions of childhood that shaped Ceaușescu's population policies. This article centres on mapping out postsocialist Romanian fiction film and documentary discourses on the communist abortion ban from 1966 to 1989 and Ceaușescu's pronatalist policies, as a type of memorial discourse.

The influence of China’s family planning policies on fertility transition is widely acknowledged in research studies. However, little is known about how improvements in women’s education have shaped reproductive decisions of Chinese women across different family planning regimes, particularly at micro level. This study uses retrospective pooled birth history data from five consecutive population and family planning surveys collected over the period 1982–2006 to systematically examine the interrelationship between family planning policies and women’s education, and their interactive effect on the second and third birth transitions. We hypothesize that family planning policies had a differential influence on educational groups in reducing the transition to second and third births. The results from discrete time complementary log–log survival models provide strong evidence of differential reproductive behavior of education groups across time in China, and the simultaneous influence of ...

The authors would like to thank Tomas Sobotka and Krystof Zeman of the Vienna Institute of Demography and its Human fertility Data Bank for their extensive help with exploring the possibilities of the Life Cycle Sensitive TFR. Without their initial help, this article would not have been written. Correspondence to [email protected] Sub-Replacement Fertility: Trapped or Recovering? 2 After at least two decades of sub-replacement fertility in virtually all European countries, some theories expect a reversal of the decline whereas others see a “low fertility trap. ” In this article we take a longitudinal, life-cycle view of fertility rather than operate with the classic period TFR, and document how two clusters of countries and regions of respectively higher versus lower fertility have come into existence. We refute the statistical basis of fertility rising with improving human development (HDI) or any other such general composite index. Instead we show that the bottlenecks ...

Reproductive decisions imply long-term direct and indirect costs and individuals can utilise family, market and the state’s assistance to achieve resources perceived as necessary for childbearing. Reliance on kin help, social assistance and employment markets may have various impact on childbearing choices. The evidence presented in this paper is based on 42 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Polish mothers and fathers in the UK and Poland, conducted in 2011. The findings illustrate that specific socio-institutional settings are linked to different strategies parents employ to achieve desired resources related to their childbearing intentions. Respondents in Poland often resorted to the market and the family itself (nuclear and extended). The pervasiveness and importance of long-term kin support in the Polish familialistic context increases economic resources seen by respondents as necessary for childrearing and it has negative consequences for reproductive intentions because...

Italy and Spain are extreme cases of low fertility linked to postponement of childbearing. Demographers continue to debate causes of postponement. This qualitative study was designed to contribute, by purposively selecting Italian and Spanish women in different socio-economic circumstances who are partnered, childless and aged 30 to 35. Most want children but "not now" or are deferring the decision whether to have children. Their different circumstances inflect explanations of postponement in a language of choice, either "taking time" to achieve other goals or "holding on" for conditions to change. They are encouraged to postpone by optimism about their capacity to conceive, flexible norms about "the right age," prolonged dependence on their parents, the normative salience of "total motherhood," and family-unfriendly, gender-unequal workplaces. Elements of competing demographic theories often coexist in interviewees' accounts. The "desires-intentions gap" does not always capture their flow or complexity.

The subject of this study is the fertility of the cohorts of women born in Bulgaria after 1932. The object of the study are the size and structure of delayed births – total and by rank of child born, for the calendar period 1980-2018 and for cohorts of women born in the period 1932-1990.
The aim of the present research is to study the changes in the fertility levels in Bulgaria in the context of the ongoing transition to postponement of births and the observed changes in the fertility age patterns in cohort and period perspectives.
The current study maintains the thesis that the low birth rate in Bulgaria is determined by the change in the fertility regime which occurred after the mid-1950s in combination with the start of the transition to postponement of births.
The complexity of the studied phenomena and of the multi-layered period of the research determined the need of applying a systemic and complex approaches. The analysis was performed in a period and cohort aspect embracing births of different parity.
The main source of statistical information are the National Statistical Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (HFD) databases.
The first chapter presents the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of postponed births and low fertility. The theoretical framework of the study is the theory of transition to postponement of births. Methods for adjusting period measures of fertility, methods for decomposing changes in births by parity, method for predicting cohort fertility, method for reconstructing cohort fertility history, etc., were used in the analysis.
The second chapter presents the results of the cross-sectional analysis of fertility in Bulgaria and Europe. Based on the analysis of data on fertility, the beginning and stages of the transition to postponement of births in Bulgaria have been determined. Adjusted fertility measures have been calculated. The missing births of tempo, quantum and generational effects have been decomposed.
The third chapter examines the completed cohort fertility rates for 40 generations of women born in the period 1930-1970 in Bulgaria. The changes in the fertility patterns – in total and by rank, were studied in the longitudinal aspect. The results of the analysis provided grounds to determine the generations of women with whom the transition to postponing childbirth began. Childlessness levels have been established in generations of women who have completed their reproductive lives. The specific changes in the cohort fertility model were studied on the basis of a method for decomposing the reduction of the completed cohort fertility rate by parity components.
Chapter four contains the results of the forecast of the completed cohort fertility rates of women still in childbearing age by the method of the “reference cohort” proposed by K. Zeman. The main differentiating factor for the forecast variants is the degree of recovery of postponed births disaggregated by rank.

This study analyses and compares the fertility behaviour and childbearing plans of Polish migrant families in Ireland and those of their counterpartsfamilies in Poland. The study has a comparative and explanatory character and applies both quantitative and qualitative methods. The analysis is based on the author's own data collected from an online survey of Polish family units in Ireland in 2014 and compared with secondary data on families in Poland retrieved from the 2011 Gender and Generation Survey (GGS). My research reveals fertility postponement and fewer families with children among migrant families; nonetheless, migrant parents have more children than their counterparts in Poland. The results highlight the significance of socioeconomic and institutional contexts. The study also reveals a dichotomisation of fertility strategies within the migrant population, with distinct differences in the number of children, transition age to parenthood, and further fertility intentions between migrants who became parents in Poland and those who did so after the move. The results also provide insights into the childbearing motivations and fertility patterns of recent Polish migrants and contribute to the discussion of migrants' fertility in general.

The views and opinions expressed in this document do not necessarily re ect those of the United Nations Population Fund. This document presents a brief overview of the characteristics of low and very low fertility regimes. In it we identify the demographic challenges faced by the countries leading these changes, together with the main public policies implemented to provide solutions to the ensuing consequences. It likewise seeks to draw lessons from the experience obtained in these countries that could be useful for Latin America and the Caribbean.

In this paper we study two aspects of the decision-making process following the birth of a child: whether or not the mother works, and whether or not the couple provides the child with formal childcare. Focusing on Padova and its district (North-East Italy), we discuss differences in the strategies of Italian and foreign mothers, controlling for socio-economic status, opinions on women's roles, and family structure, using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. Six to thirty months after the birth of a child, the proportion of foreign mothers who are not employed is more than double that of Italian mothers (51 % vs. 21%). In addition, 25 % of Italian women entrust their children to the care of their parents and in-laws, vs. only 13 % of foreign women. Although there are differences in the effects of variables on participation at work in the two groups, what matters most is the different composition of Italian and foreign women, especially as regards education and partners ’ character...

In this paper we study two aspects of the decision-making process following the birth of a child: whether or not the mother works, and whether or not the couple provides the child with formal childcare. Focusing on Padova and its district (North-East Italy), we discuss differences in the strategies of Italian and foreign mothers, controlling for socio-economic status, opinions on women's roles, and family structure, using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. Six to thirty months after the birth of a child, the proportion of foreign mothers who are not employed is more than double that of Italian mothers (51 % vs. 21%). In addition, 25 % of Italian women entrust their children to the care of their parents and in-laws, vs. only 13 % of foreign women. Although there are differences in the effects of variables on participation at work in the two groups, what matters most is the different composition of Italian and foreign women, especially as regards education and partners ’ character...

The views and opinions expressed in this document do not necessarily re ect those of the United Nations Population Fund. This document presents a brief overview of the characteristics of low and very low fertility regimes. In it we identify the demographic challenges faced by the countries leading these changes, together with the main public policies implemented to provide solutions to the ensuing consequences. It likewise seeks to draw lessons from the experience obtained in these countries that could be useful for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Several studies suggest that over the last several decades in Italy, the negative effects of education on fertility have attenuated. Recent analyses developed in other countries, however, highlight that considerations of the relationship between education and fertility should take selection bias into account. With this mind, we developed multiprocess hazard models with four simultaneous equations (one for each birth order)

FOREWORD The current debates on demographic transformation have been characterised on the one hand by declining birth rates and on the other by increasing life expectancy. Such debates usually focus on the consequences for society, which are frequently described in dark terms. In this booklet, by contrast, you will find analyses and suggestions on how to improve the situation of children and parents to make it easier to realise the desire to have children. In the spring of 2009, both academies set up an interdisciplinary research group sponsored by the Jacobs Foundation that pursued a different perspective. This research group, entitled 'A Future with Children: Fertility and the Development of Society', concentrated on the causes of the low birth rates in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. An important universal element of the group's research is its focus on the life course. A Future with Children, seen from this perspective, means above all to reconsider the way that t...

When I was asked what would be the most important factor likely to influence fertility in the near future, my first inclination was to focus on countries experiencing very low fertility, particularly European and East Asian nations. Out of the multiple factors that are bound to have large effects on childbearing behaviour in low-fertility advanced nations-and, eventually, in less developed settings as well-I wish to highlight three examples. First, the continuous postponement of first births (and the associated challenges for fecundity), combined with the growing role of artificial reproduction techniques (ART) and genetic manipulation, could raise new ethical issues surrounding births. Second, a deepening of the current structural changes in the labour market, which have led to reductions in jobs in mid-skilled occupations and increases in more unstable positions at the low end of the market, may lead to a further flattening or even a reversal of the educational gradients of fertility (Adserà 2017). Third, the digitalisation of society, which is characterised by the dominance of social media and the internet as an information source, may affect childbearing decisions differentially across socioeconomic groups and origins. Indeed, recent research suggests that the internet is already having a significant effect on fertility patterns; although determining which mechanisms are at work in this association remains an open research agenda (Billari et al. 2019). Nevertheless, as policy efforts to raise fertility in low-fertility countries have shown, the margins for changing fertility levels in those settings are limited (Gauthier 2007). When looking at the current levels across the world, we can see that the largest potential margins of change in overall fertility levels are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Table 1 shows UN Population Division estimates of the total fertility rate by Sustainable Development Goal regions. Africa, Western Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia are the only regions that are expected to end this decade with fertility rates above replacement level and, within those regions, Sub-Saharan Africa is a clear outlier, with an average total fertility rate of close to five.

Our motivation in this paper comes from a growing concern in demography for a better understanding of context in reproductive behavior outcomes. This takes on particular importance in Italy, a country still characterized by very low fertility. We exploit detailed life history calendar data for a large, nationally representative sample of Italian women, and we conduct a more refined analysis of the relationship between personal traits, regional context and fertility. After introducing the Italian setting, the descriptive analysis verifies the persistence of significant differences in the reproductive behavior of women according to region of origin. Our multivariate analysis tests for the influence of women's employment, union status, region of origin, and other standard traits on the annual probability of first and second birth. Our results point to very strong effects of a woman's own employment (and weaker effects of her regional context) on first and second birth. We also find that more secular unions are associated with lower rates of first birth, and that more secular regional contexts are associated with lower rates of transition to first birth. Advocates of several competing explanations of very low fertility will find items of support in these results.

This article provides an overall survey on fertility and its determinants in Romania after 1995. The empirical evidence presented in this paper supports the view that after the fall of the communism we register only five years of decline in fertility. After 1995 follows a very weak variation in fertility on the national level, but with significant differences between regions. Using a descriptive statistical analysis we emphasize the differences for fertility in these regions and we assume that the variation in fertility can be explained by demographic and economic variables. The results of the econometric model identify the principal determinants of the fertility variation in time and between Romanian regions after 1995.

This paper analyses the effect of the increasing female participation in the labour market on the transition to first childbirth. In this analysis both the generational and the regional perspective are taken into account to understand, how postponement behaviour is spreading from one region to the other and from one generation to the next. The analysis is based on the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey of Italy and Hungary. It adopts a multilevel event history model to focus on the micro-level relationship between the transition to adulthood and reproductive behaviour, to understand the empirical importance of macro-level factors related to regional socioeconomic and cultural differences and to indicate differences in micro-level relationships among people of different family, socio-economic, and educational backgrounds. The results of the model shows that the delayed entry into labour market has a significant negative effect on the probability of having a child. This e...

We examine how far changes in fertility trends are related to ongoing economic development in OECD countries. In the light of the inverse J-shaped relationship between the human development index (HDI) and total fertility rates that was recently found by Myrskylä, Kohler and Billari (2009), we single out the impact of economic development on fertility. We empirically test the hypothesis of a convex impact of GDP per capita on fertility, using data from the OECD area that spans the years 1960 to 2007. We test the robustness of our findings by controlling for birth postponement and for different income distribution patterns. By designating a clear turning point in the relationship between economic development and fertility, we find that economic development is likely to induce a fertility rebound, but is not sufficient to lift fertility to a significantly higher level in all OECD countries. Country-specific factors explain why countries with similar GDP per capita levels achieve significantly lower or higher fertility rates than the estimated baseline, however. By decomposing GDP per capita into several variables, we identify female employment as the main factor impacting fertility, behind GDP variations. The positive association between the increase in female employment and fertility rates suggests a key role played by the changes in norms and institutions supporting the combination of work and family that go along with the process of economic development.

The Czech Republic population development regardless of recently improving natural development balance and its present moderate surplus does not look optimistic in perspectives posterior to the year 2010. It is only international migration which can ensure population replacement ...

The Curious Case of the Unplanned Baby, Italian Low Fertility, and the "End" of Rationality Even in a country with super-low fertility rates, at least one-quarter of all babies are unplanned. The finding puzzles policymakers. This article uses Italy's "curious case" as a jumping-off point to expose assumptions about rationality. It offers a model to dismantle the "conceit" of rationality, drawing on Max Weber's classic critique and Emily Martin's contemporary appraisal. It asks: (1) How do assumptions about rationality related to sexuality and reproduction manifest? (2) How do qualitative data challenge rationalist assumptions? and (3) How are cultural logics expressed and what do they reveal about the "problem" of low fertility? Methodologically, the article offers an innovative approach, juxtaposing ethnographic data derived from the author's fieldwork with startling findings from Italian researchers' multicity project. The analysis exposes the rationality trope as a technique of governance in a context in which policymakers yearn for social cohesion and population politics intensify around birthing, immigration, and aging. [rationality, fertility, politics of reproduction, Italy, Europe]

This article suggests that emerging adulthood, the stage in the life cycle described by Arnett for the United States, is also evident in Europe. The article examines the characteristics of emerging adulthood in Europe and highlights their regional and national similarities and differences. Also examined are the differences between European emerging adulthood and the American model, which chiefly involve the various ways European youth ameliorate economic and domestic instability. This article is based on a study of one of the most salient consequences of emerging adulthood, low fertility. A clear sign of emerging adulthood in Europe is that historically low numbers of children are being born there. KEYWORDS-Europe; emerging adulthood; low fertility Arnett (2004) has proposed that emerging adulthood in the United States is an extended period of both exploration and instability, when many young people between the ages of 18-25 struggle with uncertainty even as they revel in being free. Emerging adulthood for Arnett has several social characteristics among which are a lengthening of time spent in higher education, prolonged job instability, and expanded, more flexible roles for women. There is also, due largely to effective contraception, an uncoupling of sex and marriage and childbearing. Finally, this new period is associated with a rise in the mean age of entering not only marriage but especially parenthood, those final steps, as Arnett (2004) calls them, historically linked with adulthood. According to Arnett, adulthood is seen by many contemporary young people as a peril to be avoided, the end of independence. For them, the new stage of emerging adulthood represents unprecedented freedom to explore-education, love, work, and fun-and to gain a broad range of life experiences. It is also a time for self-focus with few ties or daily obligation to others. In short, it is an in-between time, full of possibilities and high hopes. However, this time of exploration is also a time of instability, with young people moving from job to job, from one romantic relationship to another, and, often, from one residence to another. Arnett also proposes that a period of emerging adulthood is becoming more pervasive throughout the world. However, he recognizes that it is not a universal period of human development and that it comes into being under certain conditions, mainly in industrial and postindustrial countries. As Arnett points out, emerging adulthood is characteristic of cultures rather than countries, though in some places, it is associated more with social class than with ethnicity or with urban areas more than rural areas. What is mainly required for emerging adulthood, however, is a high median age of entering marriage and parenthood, resulting from the longer periods of education needed in postindustrial, globalized economies (Arnett, 2002). This key condition increasingly applies in Europe, where some suggest that emerging adulthood has made an appearance (Arnett, 2006, 2007; Bynner, 2005). Recently, I collaborated with several colleagues investigating the European trend of lower fertility rates, defined as ''the frequency with which birth From Duty to Desire is how Jane Collier titled her 1997 book about the differences she found between the generations in a small village in the south of Spain where she did ethnographic fieldwork for 2 years in the 1960s and then again 20 years later in the 1980s. ''From Duty to Desire'' was her concise descriptor of the opposing values of those generations in Spain and maybe in this postindustrial, postmaterialist world.

This paper looks at the consequences of political, institutional and market changes for life-course patterns in East and West Germany. It summarizes major institutional changes and developments on the macro level and discusses possible relationships to crucial ...

We argue that South Korean families with children are today overinvesting in the level of education due to their high levels of expenditures on private after-school tutoring programs. This situation has evolved due to a combination of factors: a changing labor market, increasing housing and debt payments, as well as an educational "arms race" among Korean families with children. These changes are exacerbating both economic and social issues in Korean society, but are increasingly difficult to address due to issues of complementarity and coordination failures related to educational expenditures. Korea might be inexorably falling into a surprising "education trap."

Births outside marriage (BoM) account for around 15% of all births globally. However, the distribution around the world is very uneven, as are cultural and political attitudes towards them. Studies from East Asia have shown that the percentage of such births is very low, with only modest increases in recent years. The orthodox demographic view holds that the maintenance of conservative views around the relationship between marriage and childbearing can play a role in keeping fertility low. Prenuptial pregnancies (PNP) (where births occur within eight months of marriage) have been identified as a growing phenomenon in Japan, possibly being an 'alternative' Asian pathway to family formation. As yet, no comprehensive statistical analysis of the trends of BoM or PNP has been performed for Hong Kong. Using a comprehensive microdata set of birth registration in Hong Kong from 1984-2015 (N = 1,680,831) we provide evidence of recent trends in such 'alternative pathways' to family formation and examine predictors through regression analysis. Our results indicate, in common with elsewhere in East Asia, low overall period rates of either BoM or PNP (although the latter has risen notably in recent years). While more recent birth cohorts exhibit higher prevalence of such births, their incomplete nature and higher expected propensity suggests that the figures are exaggerated. In our regression analysis, we find that lower educational attainment is a strong predictor of both BoM and PNP, suggesting that a bifurcation of experience may be occurring. This adds further evidence to the theory that the maintenance of traditional family formation systems in the context of revolutionised educational and work opportunities for women mean that the opportunity costs of the 'marriage package' become too high. Current disparities in rights and privileges between married and unmarried parents-and especially their children-means that targeted family planning services and support for vulnerable families are policy priorities.

A nonlinear three-stage least-squares technique is used to estimate a fourequation model in which age-specific fertility, marriage, divorce, and female labor force participation rates are the dependent variables. In addition to a range of explanatory variables, two proxies for the Easterlin hypothesis are tested within the model, one measuring relative income and the other measuring relative cohort size. Findings indicate that the Easterlin proxies, while not statistically significant in all cases, help to explain time-series movements in various socioeconomic variables in the postwar United States. D 1988 Academic PKSS. IK.