Socioeconomic differentials in fertility and family formation

Cohort trends in Belgian fertility show that higher educated women have consistently realised the more frequent progression to second and third births. Using a prospective study, based on longitudinal microdata from the 1991 and 2001 Belgian censuses, this paper investigates the mechanisms behind the positive gradient and explores (i) the correlation with household positions and activity status among Belgian women and their partners; and (ii) the variation in second and third birth hazards between Belgium’s main administrational units. Our results suggest that higher educated women have reduced the opportunity costs of parity progression after the first child by having access to stable employment, homogamy to highly educated partners and more frequent uptake of (in)formal child care. For lower educated women, parity progression more often entails a further weakening of their position on the labour market. Homogamy to less educated partners as well as higher unemployment risks of these partners further reduces second and third birth hazards. Finally, regional variation in second birth hazards is largely explained by regional differences in education, household positions and activity status. For third births, regional differences remain evident and women living in Brussels and Wallonia keep realising the highest birth hazards.

In Sub Saharan Africa, fertility levels in rural areas remains high. In Senegal, the number of child per women 15-49 years was 5.0 in 2010, but the gap between urban and rural context is growing (3.9 vs. 6.0). We use data from the Niakhar Health and Demographic Surveillance System in rural Senegal, where a demographic follow-up is running from several decades (since 1963 for 8 villages and 1983 for 30 villages). Data allow to document trends in fertility and to understand the process of behavioral change in a population just engaged in the first stage of transition. Results show that fertility is declining specifically at young ages from the 1960s, age at marriage is rising, men become sexually active earlier and premarital births are more frequent in the younger generations. We will test common assumptions such as the impact of education, religion and economic factors on fertility behaviors. Preliminary results show that only age at marriage and urban experience (measured by a at least one-year stay in Dakar between age 15 to 19) are significant factors. Neither education nor religion can explain variations in fertility levels. Fertility level from women living in domestic-richest household is lower, while fertility level from women living in agricultural-richest household is higher.

Using longitudinal data from the Household Survey on “Family and Social Subjects” carried out in Italy between 2003 and 2007 we study fertility intentions of Italian women in reproductive ages by their mother’s employment status when they were 14 years old. We expect mother’s working experiences during childhood to be a key determinant of fertility intentions especially for younger women at the beginning of their reproductive career who may better anticipate the conflict between work and family life than their counterparts whose mother was at home. Preliminary results suggest that mother’s employment status does not directly influence daughter’s child-number intentions and daughter’s probability to have a child in the inter-survey period given that it was planned in the short period before. However, the experience of having had a working mother during childhood strengthens the correlation between mother’s and daughter’s educational level and decreases the likelihood to revise downwards the initially stated childbearing plans after the birth of a second child.

Sibling studies have been the method of choice to study the effect of family background - everything siblings share - on socioeconomic and demographic outcomes. Recent research on family formation emphasized that fertility and partnership transitions are embedded in a holistic process of family formation that unfolds over time. The main analytical contribution of this study is to combine the sibling approach with sequence analysis to disentangle the mechanisms that link family background to holistic family formation trajectories. We use Finnish register data from 1987 until 2007 to construct family formation sequences for sibling and non-sibling dyads from age 18 to 30 (N=9581 dyads). The empirical analysis employs sequence analysis, sibling correlations, and regression analysis. Preliminary findings show that siblings’ family formation is indeed more similar than family formation of non-sibling dyads. The intersection of education and gender composition of the sibling dyad appear as important explanatory factors for the similarity of siblings’ family formation.

The family building process is a sequential process, where to reach a couple's completed family size, the women move succcessively from marriage to first birth, first birth to second birth and so on. Analysis of birth intervals is essential to study this sequential process, because through this analysis, one can determine whether the fertility changes are due to changes in starting, spacing and/or stopping of child bearing (Moreno-Navano, 1987). This sequential process often emphasizes cumulative nature of life course events and future patterns and outcomes. In such cases, it seems more apparent to study the analysis of interlive birth intervals. Again, the different socio-economics factors affecting fertility, may affect differently at various stages of reproduction.

The understanding of the family building process needs to observe the pattern and propensity of childbearing. The present paper focuses on the exploration of the socio-economic factors influencing the transition from one birth to another birth. This paper also investigates whether there is any considetrable change in the findings in between seven years gap of time, using the survey data obtained from the second and third National Family Health Surveys (NFHS-3 and NFHS-2) for an Indian State namely Bihar.

In Indian society women has secondary status, number of studies proved that the empowered women influence decision making process. Therefore the study tries to find out dose women empowerment influences fertility. The women empowerment encompass various dimensions, such as house hold decision making, mobility related decision making and economic decision making index. It helped to calculate women empowerment in different states. The result shows the effect of women empowerment on fertility in different states of India which gives an idea about how women autonomy and fertility varies with state to state.
Methodology: NFHS-3 collected information from a nationally representative sample of 109,041 households, 124,385 women age 15-49, among these 87925 ever-married women has been interviewed. The NFHS-3 sample covers 99 percent of India’s population living in all 29 states.
The composite indices prepared to calculate women empowerment and mass media awareness by using various indicators. Multivariate and bivariate indicators are used to find out the influence of women empowerment and fertility.
Findings: it has been observed that women empowerment and its dimensions vary with the state to state. Also it has been observed age group plays an important role in women empowerment with the increase in age women autonomy increases

Patriarchal nature of Indian society has legitimized the perpetuation of domestic violence on women since ages. Many times women have to suffer violence which may be perpetrated by their husband or family members/relatives. Using data from NFHS-3, present study examines the relationship between domestic violence and fertility behavior among currently married women in India. Using multiple linear and logistic regressions the relationship between the exposure to different forms of domestic violence and fertility behavior has been explored. Fertility behavior is measured by children ever born, ideal family size and desire for another child. The findings reveal that the experience of any violence reduces the pace of fertility transition. It indicates significantly strong positive effect of life time exposure to domestic physical, domestic sexual and any domestic violence on the children ever born. This suggests that the women who experience domestic violence are likely to produce more children. Findings highlight no significant association between life time exposure to any form of domestic violence with the ideal family size. The study highlights the critical need to address the menace of domestic violence against women that potentially stifles the contemporary fertility transition in India, particularly in the North-central India

Demographic transformations that occurred in developed countries during the past decades, including the delay in marriage and age at first birth and the significant decline in fertility rates, are usually explained by increases in women’s education and labour force participation as well as the decline in traditional forms of religious practice and the shift of values towards greater individualism. The current paper, explores the relationship between religion and women’s transition to first birth in highly secularized Western countries – France and Britain – and the role of education in affecting this relationship. Using data from the French survey of the Generation and Gender Programme and the British Household Panel Survey, the relationships between religious factors and the transition to first birth are examined by employing a model of event history analysis. The findings show a differential effect of education on completed fertility and entry into motherhood according to women’s level of religiosity.

The most striking feature of low fertility is its divergence in the developing world. In these regions couples are going for one child and most of them are reluctant to have the second one. The main focus of the study will be to see the process and of emergence of low fertility pattern in Urban Bengal and its implications. Principle data sources will be National Family and Health Survey, Sample Registration System (SRS) and Census of India, 2011. Trends in these will be examined and differentials will be analyzed using logistic and cox proportional hazard regressions. On the whole about 8.4 percent of women remain childless till the end of the reproductive years. A large proportion of the women may remain so voluntarily. It is also seen that concentration of women with one child is high among women with higher standard of living, higher education, greater exposure to mass media, not working women and Hindu women. The preliminary results from hazard model indicates women with high educational level and subsequently starting first child bearing at higher ages and sex of the previous child with no child mortality experience in the past determines the transition to second or third order child.

Abstract:
The essay uses the data from the survey on fertility desire and change of only children parents, DongCheng District, Beijing in 2006 and 2011 to analyze the fertility desire and change of only children parents. Furthermore, in the essay, consistency degree is compared between the influences that only children parents personal features have on the ideal number of children and the fertility desire of only children and their parents. In the end, the writer deems the ideal number of children is still mainly one, but the desire that parents want two children is a little bit growing. And there is not obvious preference in gender. To a certain degree, the fertility desire of this group has changed. Otherwise, only mother’s education degree has influence on ideal number of children. The fertility desire of parents and children has higher uniformity. The fertility desire exists generation influence.
Key words: only children parents, fertility desire, transition research