The changing patterns of marriage and partnerships and their effects on fertility

This paper compares the fertility patterns of consensual unions and marriages in 13 Latin American countries using census microdata from the three most recent census rounds and a methodological approach that combines the own-children method and Poisson regression. Results show that in all countries examined fertility is slightly higher within consensual unions than marriages. The largest difference can be observed among women aged 30 to 45. Once educational attainment and other socio-demographic compositional variables are controlled, differentials generally fade. The age pattern of fertility is also documented to be very similar in marital and consensual unions. According to these results, we can conclude that in Latin America, at least since the 1980s, women’s childbearing patterns depend on their age and on their living in a conjugal relationship, but not on the legal nature of this relationship.

In the analysis of parents’ roles during the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) our stance draws on the social norms’ approach. Data from a qualitative study (15 focus group discussions, 87 participants) shows that from a normative view there are two main domains of decision-making concerning reproduction: (1) delays to reproduction driven by new norms stressing that a family should only be established once a state of economic independence and self-actualisation has been reached, and (2) gender dynamics – a push-pull dilemma, in which women tend to pull men into the sphere that has traditionally been the domain of women, and simultaneously try to maintain their leading position in the household, thus reinforcing the norm of the irreplaceable mother. These findings are tested in the broader context of psycho-social variables in a quantitative survey (representative national sample, N=1400).

In Sweden, as in many other countries, the patterns of partnership formation and dissolution has changed substantially with a general trend towards less stable unions. This study aims to give insight about the development of childbearing caused by union instability. Stepfamily fertility is studied for the period 1970–2011. It is measured by studying how many children who at birth have half-siblings, and by studying how many women and men have children with more than one partner. The analysis is based on register data containing information on childbearing histories of all women and men in Sweden. The results show that the impact of stepfamily fertility has declined in the 2000s. In a logistic regression model the reasons for this decline is explored. The results of the regression models show that factors such as postponement of family formation, higher educational levels and increasing numbers of foreign born only partly can explain the downturn. Thus, there are also other explanations. One could be increasing gender equality.

Using national survey data and city-year-specific indicators, I examine the effect of demographic and institutional determinants of individual marriage in urban China spanning 60 years. A growth in importance of economic prospect has been observed during the rapid economic development in China. In addition, evidence of cohort changes indicates that the positive effect of working in the state-owned sector on marriage formation decreases, which reflects the marketization in China during recent decades. Capitalizing on the house reform in urban China, I find that the effects of education on marital behavior varied with the levels of house price. Specifically, higher education is associated with larger probability of entering marriage when the house price is relatively high; in contrast, education has a marriage-delaying effect in the cities with relatively low house price. Taken together, these results suggest that the determinants of marriage should be understood by taking the institutional changes into account.

The Palestinian community in the Palestinian territories is a special case of its kind, is characterized by early marriage rates, especially for females (median rate of first marriage is approximately 19 years), in contrast there is a high percentage of never married women for whom aged 35 and over (more than 10% of all women in this age), as characterized by the Palestinians, particularly high proportion of females educated (Holds a bachelor's degree or higher) compared with the developing societies and the high proportion of married relatives, and this study will try to analyze and study the trends and patterns of marriage in the Palestinian territories and the factors influencing the high rates of early marriage and delayed marriage in the Palestinian territories and the factors influencing the high rates of early marriage and delayed for females in the Palestinian territories at the same time , through the data available from censuses and surveys carried out in 1995-2010 in the Palestinian territories.