Nearly every European Country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in eight countries across europe. In all countries studied, birth risks within cohabitation demonstrated a negative educational gradient. When directly comparing cohabiting fertility with marital fertility, the negative educational gradient persists in all countries except Italy, although differences were not significant in Austria, France, and West Germany. To explain these findings, we present an alternative explanation for the increase in childbearing within cohabitation that goes beyond the explanation of the Second Demographic Transition and provides a new interpretation of the underlying mechanisms that may influence childbearing within cohabitation.

Couples who have children are increasingly likely to have lived together without being married at some point in their relationship. Some couples begin their unions with cohabitation and marry before first conception, some marry during pregnancy or directly after the first birth, while others remain unmarried 3 years after the first birth. Using union and fertility histories since the 1970s for eleven countries, we examine whether women who have children in unions marry, and if so, at what stage in family formation. We also examine whether women who conceive when cohabiting are more likely to marry or separate. We find that patterns of union formation and childbearing develop along different trajectories across countries. In all countries, however, less than 40 per cent of women remained in cohabitation up to 3 years after the first birth, suggesting that marriage remains the predominant institution for raising children.

European demographers rarely study religion as a determinant of contemporary demographic behaviour. One reason could be the secularisation observed in European countries, implying that the effect of religiosity has been diminishing. This paper aims to show that religion can have an important impact on ideals, intentions and behaviour related to fertility.First we discuss recent trends in religiosity. We base our ensuing hypotheses on three deliberations why religion may have a bearing on fertility: importance of religious teaching, effect of social capital and function of religion to decrease uncertainty.Using FFS data we examine the influence of several measures of religiosity on the ideal number of children and intentions to have a second and third child, as well as on the expected and actual number of children. We find that all measures of religiosity are in general related to a higher ideal number of children, higher odds to intend another child and higher expected and actual number of children. Participation in religious services turns out to be slightly more salient than affiliation and self-assessed religiosity. We also discover that the effect of religion on ideals is more pronounced than its effect on intentions. Ideals stay further away from behaviour than intentions do and hence the influence of religion is intermediated by other social systems.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Future Fertility in Low Fertility Countries AbstractThis paper discusses results of the global survey of experts on the future of low fertility in low-fertility countries. The survey was coordinated by the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital as a part of an effort to produce global argumentbased population projections by age, sex and level of education. First we give an overview of fertility changes in major low-fertility regions. Next we outline main theoretical arguments and review a wide range of factors contributing to fertility change and variation in contemporary low-fertility settings. Subsequently, we present survey results based on 184 assessments of over 170 experts analysing 41 countries with currently low or aroundreplacement fertility and Israel. These experts provided forecasts of period total fertility rate (TFR) in 2030 and 2050, estimated 80% confidence interval of their forecast and assessed the validity and potential impact on fertility of 46 factors. We also compare expert-derived projections of the TFR trends with the forecasts formulated by the UN World Population Prospects in 2010. The survey results in combination with the feedback provided by the invited experts then serve as a basis for formulating a set of projection scenarios for all low fertility countries up until 2050, which are additionally expanded (in a simpler form) through 2200. We present these scenarios and discuss past changes in fertility differences by level of education and their potential future trends in main regions. Presented analyses and projections indicate that a global convergence of fertility to around replacement level, envisioned in the UN projections, appears unlikely. Continuing differentiation combined with partial convergence in fertility towards lower levels is suggested as a more plausible scenario, with East Asia (including China) as well as Russia expected to have sustained very low fertility below 1.5 through 2050.

We study the aggregate gap between intended and actual fertility in 19 European countries and the US based on a cohort approach. This complements prior research that had mainly used a period approach. We compare the mean intended number of children among young women aged 20 to 24 (born in the early 1970s), measured during the 1990s in the Fertility and Family Surveys, with data on completed fertility in the same cohorts around age 40. In a similar manner, we compare the share who state that they do not want a child with actual cohort childlessness. Our exploration is informed by the cognitive-social model of fertility intentions developed by Bachrach and Morgan (Popul Dev Rev 39(3):459-485, 2013). In all countries, women eventually had, on average, fewer children than the earlier expectations in their birth cohort, and more often than intended, they remained childless. The results reveal distinct regional patterns, which are most apparent for childlessness. The gap between intended and actual childlessness is widest in the Southern European and the German-speaking countries and smallest in the Central and Eastern European countries. Additionally, we analyze the aggregate intentions-fertility gap among women with different levels of education. The gap is largest among highly educated women in most countries studied and the educational gradient varies by region, most distinctively for childlessness. Differences between countries suggest that contextual factors-norms about parenthood, work-family policies, unemployment-shape women's fertility goals, total family size, and the gap between them.