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What was the role of the family in individual reproductive decisions during state socialism? Can the family help to understand regional variations in fertility decline? This study provides an in-depth analysis of family relationships and their influences on individual reproductive decisions during the transition from first to second birth in Soviet Ukraine. Life history interviews are used to compare the western and eastern borderland cities of Lviv and Kharkiv, respectively, around 1950–1975. The findings reveal that regional differences in intergenerational ties and spousal cooperation shaped two reproductive strategies of transition to second birth, specifically postponing in Kharkiv and spacing in Lviv.

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This article examines socio-cultural conditions underpinning the so-called abortion culture in Soviet Ukraine. Unlike previous studies on abortion in the Soviet Union which primarily used country-level data, this study employs original sourcesin-depth biographical interviews and archival materialsto investigate local conditions and the manner in which decisions regarding abortion were made. The author studied couples whose reproductive years comprise the period from 1955 to 1970, when modern contraceptives were not readily available but abortion was legal. Two localities in Ukraine, the cities of Lviv and Kharkiv, are included in the investigation. The findings suggest that local patriarchal gender regimes and their associated spousal dynamics define when and how women exercise their agency in birth control and abortion decisions. In couples where spouses communicated about birth control and abortion decisions women sought abortions less. Those women did not feel a need to exercises their agency as the husband took over both responsibilities. When abortion was practiced as a routine family size limitation method, spouses did not communicate about birth control and abortion, and the two were practiced solely as a husband's and wife's responsibilities, respectively. Those women sought abortion to fulfill their own goals, and at the same time to maintain the dominant patriarchal order in marital relationships as they understood it. Additionally, peer networks seemed to be the crucial element reinforcing women's agency in these processes.

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BACKGROUND In post-Soviet countries, low fertility has been achieved through postponement of second birth, while entrance into parenthood still takes place relatively early in life and within marriage. Studies suggest that grandparental support with childcare drives this reproductive behaviour. However, we still know little about the exact way in which decisions about first parenthood are shaped by family relationships, especially with respect to the expected and actual support they exert. OBJECTIVE This paper explores how family relationships-spousal and intergenerationalinfluenced decisions to enter parenthood in Ukraine between 1950 and 1975, when fertility there declined below the replacement level for the first time. METHODS A total of 66 qualitative life-history interviews were conducted with women and men from the Ukrainian cities of Lviv (west) and Kharkiv (east); age-specific fertility rates and the total fertility rate in 1960 were measured for the two provinces.

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