The effect of delaying motherhood on the second childbirth in Europe

We examine the effect of delaying motherhood on the transition to the second childbirth across European countries. There exist two opposite forces of delaying the first birth: biological and socio-cultural factors producing a postponement effect and career-related factors leading to a catch-up effect. Estimating a multistate duration model that addresses the endogeneity of age at first birth, we find a catch-up effect in countries where the career effect is large and a postponement effect in countries where the opportunity cost of childbearing is relatively high due to the lack of family friendly institutions and cultural influences, which may discourage late childbearing.     

The effect of delaying motherhood on the second childbirth in Europe

We examine the effect of delaying motherhood on the transition to the second childbirth across European countries. There exist two opposite forces of delaying the first birth: biological and socio-cultural factors producing a postponement effect and career-related factors leading to a catch-up effect. Estimating a multistate duration model that addresses the endogeneity of age at first birth, we find a catch-up effect in countries where the career effect is large and a postponement effect in countries where the opportunity cost of childbearing is relatively high due to the lack of family friendly institutions and cultural influences, which may discourage late childbearing.     

Private versus public old-age security

We directly compare two institutions, a family compact—a parent makes a transfer to her parent in anticipation of a possible future gift from her children—with a pay-as-you-go, public pension system, in a life cycle model with endogenous fertility wherein children are valued both as consumption and investment goods. Absent intragenerational heterogeneity, we show that a benevolent government has no welfare justification for introducing public pensions alongside thriving family compacts since the former is associated with inefficiently low fertility. This result hinges critically on a fiscal externality—the inability of middle age agents to internalize the impact of their fertility decisions on old-age transfers under a public pension system. With homogeneous agents, a strong-enough negative aggregate shock to middle-age incomes destroys all family compacts, and in such a setting, an optimal public pension system cannot enter. This suggests the raison d’être for social security must lie outside of its function as a pension system—specifically its redistributive function which emerges with heterogeneous agents. In a simple modification of our benchmark model—one that allows for idiosyncratic frictions to compact formation such as differences in infertility/mating status—a welfare-enhancing role for a public pension system emerges; such systems may flourish even when family compacts cannot.     

Parenting in On/Off Relationships: The Link Between Relationship Churning and Father Involvement

Family systems theory points to the interconnected nature of dyadic relationships within the family unit, arguing for attention to how the parental relationship shapes their ties to and interactions with their children. Grounded in family systems theory, we consider how relationship churning—defined as being in an on-again/off-again relationship with the same partner—is associated with father involvement. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how father involvement among relationship churners compares with father involvement among those in three other relationship types (measured during the first five years of the focal child’s life): stably together relationships, stably broken-up relationships, and repartnered relationships. First, we find that churning fathers remain more involved with their 9-year-old children than do parents who stably break up or repartner, but they are less involved than those who are stably together. Second, lower relationship quality among churners—and, to a lesser extent, repartnering and childbearing with a new partner—explains some of the differences in father involvement between churners and the stably together. Third, these differences are most apparent among parents not living together when father involvement is measured. Taken together, the focus on relationship churning extends prior research on the association between relationship transitions and father involvement by separating relationship instability from partner change.     

Environmental defensive expenditures,expectations and growth

Nowadays many agents meet defensive expenditures to protect themselves against environmental deterioration. Such expenditures may contribute to support economic growth. Environmental degradation, in fact, may induce agents to work harder to replace depleted environmental goods with substitute goods. The consequent rise in the activity level may further deplete the environment, worsening the agents’ expectations on the future environmental quality and increasing their demand for substitute goods. To examine this issue, we adopt a simple model in which agents formulate expectations on the future environment that can be right or wrong and examine how such expectations influence capital accumulation and growth.

The effect of women’s participation in the labour market on the postponement of first childbirth: a comparison of Italy and Hungary

This paper analyses the effect of increasing female participation in the labour market on the transition to first childbirth. Regional perspectives are considered to help us understand how postponement behaviour is changing over time and at different paces in each region. The analysis is based on the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey of Italy and Hungary. We use a multilevel event history random intercept model to examine the effect of individuals’ positions in the labour market on the transition to motherhood, controlling for differences in macrolevel factors related to regional backgrounds in the two countries. The regional data for Italy came from the Italian National Statistical Institute, and for Hungary from our imputation developed from the time series available at the national and the regional levels (Hungarian Central Statistical Office, KSH). The postponement of first childbirth is strongly linked to the increasing involvement of women in paid work, but with opposite effects in the two countries. Even if we control for changes in women’s levels of education over time and for shifts in women’s aspirations and levels of attainment in the labour market, we find that being employed remains a risk factor for the postponement of the first birth among Italian women, and a strong protective factor among Hungarian women. At the contextual level, the variables that take into account the regional socio-economic changes provides evidence of important effects on individual behaviour among Italian women, and of only minor effects among Hungarian women. All of the regional breakdowns in both Italy and Hungary show that the postponement of motherhood goes hand-in-hand with the acceptance of deep cultural and socio-economic changes.     

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in a model of fertility choice

We examine the relationship between assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and the microeconomics of fertility choice. Along the way, we develop a model consistent with between-country differences in overall fertility and fertility timing. Our analysis of ART centers around the distinction between biomedical and behavioral effects. While improvements in ART have the biomedical effect of raising fertility, they may cause some women who would otherwise have tried to have children earlier on in life to postpone childbirth to later in life when the conception success probability is lower. This behavioral effect of postponement may reduce the fertility rate.     

A turning point in Italian fertility

The second half of the 1990s was a turning point in Italian fertility: the postponement of births slowed and there was an increasing tendency to recover fertility after the age of 30. To study the determinants of this change, we employ individual-level data from the 2003 survey Family and Social Subjects, held by the Italian National Institute of Statistics. We focus on first births, analyzing the key role of education as a driving force both of postponement and then recovery, controlling also for relevant characteristics such as women’s employment status and family background. We estimate a probit model for postponement and an event history analysis model for recovery, thus offering a picture of both processes. Our findings indicate that the postponement of first order fertility in Italy involved mostly women holding a university degree in younger cohorts. Moreover, in the early 2000s a recovery process at later ages was just beginning, even if limited in magnitude. Finally, significant differences at a regional level were found: specifically, until recently, southern Italy still displayed a limited birth postponement and no recovery.     

Variety expansion and fertility rates

To investigate how fertility rates interrelate with the modern economy, we construct a simple model in which variety expansion of consumption goods reduces fertility rates. In our model, variety expansion reduces the relative price of a composite of differentiated goods compared to child-rearing costs. Thus, parents raise the expenditure share for differentiated goods and lower the number of children. We show that this model can be applied to a growth model in which economic growth progresses with variety expansion of consumption goods and fertility rates decrease with economic growth. Thus, we show a new mechanism for fertility decline, and this mechanism can be applied to a growth model.     

Endogenous division rules as a family constitution: strategic altruistic transfers and sibling competition

Based on the notions of parental altruism, sibling competition, and family constitution, we present a self-enforcing model where heterogeneous children have economic incentives to supply family-specific merit goods (e.g., companionship) to their parents for securing inheritable wealth and the altruistic parents decide on division rules according to an optimizing behavior. In our analysis of intergenerational cooperation and intragenerational competition, the altruistic parents care about the efficiency of the children-provided merit goods and the equity of the children’s incomes. For an optimal allocation of wealth, the parents strategically partition it into two pools: one to be distributed equally whereas the other unequally according to their children’s supply of merit goods. We look at motivation of the parents in allocating their wealth to the two different pools. The analysis of endogenous division rules has implications for the compatibility between equal postmortem transfers and unequal inter vivos gifts, both of which are consistent with parental altruism.     

Growing Up Together: Cohort Composition and Child Investment

In sub-Saharan Africa, 60 % of child deaths are preventable by investments in child health as simple as immunizations, bed nets, or water purification. This article investigates how a household’s decisions regarding such investments are affected by the size and gender composition of a child’s cohort. I focus on a previously overlooked type of investment: nonrival, child-specific goods (club goods). I empirically estimate the response of immunization status to cohort characteristics. I carefully address the problem of endogenous fertility, which is common in cohort studies. Because most rural Senegalese households are composed of multiple nuclear families, a child’s cohort is composed of both siblings and nonsibling children. Estimating within households, I instrument cohort characteristics with those of the nonsibling (exogenous) portion. I find that children with larger (or more predominantly male) cohorts of vaccine-eligible age are significantly more likely to receive immunization. These findings suggest that children with larger cohorts may be better off in terms of club investments; this is a significant finding for child health given that many illness prevention methods are of a club good nature.     

The cost of children: May the collective approach to household behavior help?

The collective approach to household consumption behavior tries to infer from variables supposed to affect the general bargaining position of household members information on the allocation of consumptions goods and tasks among them. This paper investigates the extension of previous work to the case where children may be considered as a public consumption good by the two adult members of a household. The main question being asked is whether it is possible to retrieve from the aggregate consumption behaviour of the household and the relative earnings of the parents information on the allocation of goods between them and children. This alternative approach to the estimation of the ‘cost of children’ is contrasted with the conventional approach based on a ‘unitary’ representation of and demographic separability assumptions on household consumption behaviour. Received: 29 August 1997/Accepted: 26 November 1998     

The Importance of Fairness and Equity for the Marital Satisfaction of Older Women

ABSTRACT

In all societies, people are concerned with social justice. “It's just not right” is a fairly common lament. In these two studies, we interviewed 240 older women, who ranged in age from 50 to 82. We found that most older women (85%) considered their marriages to be fair and equitable. Older women were less concerned about existing inequities than their younger peers. Nonetheless, they were somewhat concerned with how rewarding and how fair and equitable their relationships were perceived to be. Those who felt over-benefited, for example, felt more guilty than did their less advantaged peers; those who felt under-benefited felt far more angry than did their privileged peers. Stressful life events—such as the arrival of children, retirement, serious illness, or the awareness impending death—often brought to awareness long simmering resentments over issues of fairness.     

Masculinity,Money, and the Postponement of Parenthood in Nigeria

In southeastern Nigeria, several interconnected processes of social change are combining to delay parenthood. Most of the demographic and social sciences literature examining the postponement of parenthood has paid primary attention to women. To address this gap, this article foregrounds the changing social landscape of masculinity as a significant context within which to situate these demographic changes. At the core of Nigerian men's perceptions, decisions, and behaviors with regard to delaying fatherhood is a fundamental contradiction, one that seems to be common in many settings—at least many African settings—of contemporary demographic transition. The contradiction is that while the postponement of parenthood is associated historically with positive social and economic indicators, when Nigerian men articulate their rationales for delaying fatherhood (and marriage) they commonly describe feelings of uncertainty connected to a sense of struggle and deprivation. This article connects men's anxieties about—and delays embarking on—marriage and parenthood to their experiences of economic uncertainty, and specifically to the perceived need for money as the foundation for successful reproduction.     

Impact of population changes on education cost

This paper has two principal aims: (1) to analyze and measure how the demographic variables—mortality, fertility, and im migration — affect the cost of education; (2) to evaluate what possibilities developing countries, such as those of Latin America, have for a rapid educational improvement. The paper relates demographic and educational variables of three different populations: Sweden, 1840–1965; the United States, 1850–1960; and Latin America, 1930–2000. Three educational variables are also considered: (a) school attendance rates by sex and age; (b) distribution of students of same age by grade; and (c) cost of student by grade. Demographic changes in countries such as Sweden and the United States were favorable for the development of education. For the future, unless an increase of fertility occurs, mortality and fertility changes will not have a significant effect on the cost of education in these countries. In current less developed countries the demographic changes during the past were less favorable to educational development. A future reduction of fertility will significantly help them to achieve a higher educational level.     

A Cohort Model of Fertility Postponement

We introduce a new formal model in which demographic behavior such as fertility is postponed by differing amounts depending only on cohort membership. The cohort-based model shows the effects of cohort shifts on period fertility measures and provides an accompanying tempo adjustment to determine the period fertility that would have occurred without postponement. Cohort-based postponement spans multiple periods and produces “fertility momentum,” with implications for future fertility rates. We illustrate several methods for model estimation and apply the model to fertility in several countries. We also compare the fit of period-based and cohort-based shift models to the recent Dutch fertility surface, showing how cohort- and period-based postponement can occur simultaneously.     

Knowing how to help: Grandmothers’ experiences of providing and receiving support following their child’s pregnancy loss

ProblemPregnancy loss is a distressing experience for parents, however no research has addressed grandmothers’ experiences of grief and support following a child’s pregnancy loss.BackgroundNo research has specifically addressed grandmothers’ experiences of support and bereavement care following pregnancy loss.AimThis study seeks to understand three key areas: (1) the support grandmothers provide to their child; (2) the support they received themselves following pregnancy loss, and; (3) supports desired by grandmothers. The study aims to contribute insights into actions midwives could take to support grandmothers following pregnancy loss.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 grandmothers to understand their support experiences. Interviews were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s approach to thematic analysis.FindingsThemes related directly to the three research questions: one: providing support, comprising two themes — being strong, protecting their family and the challenges of knowing how to help. Two, receiving support, also comprised two themes — lack of professional support offered to grandmothers and informal support and self-support strategies. Three, desired support, comprised three themes — I had no idea: increasing knowledge of pregnancy loss, peer support helps: they know how it feels, and honouring our grandchildren, making meaning.DiscussionGrandmothers may give extensive support to their child following pregnancy loss but lack confidence and face challenges in doing so. Few formal supports are available to grandmothers themselves, with grandmothers relying on their social networks for their own support.ConclusionsGrandmothers need early access to information and guidance from midwives and hospital bereavement services, as well as ongoing peer support with flexible delivery options.     

What Does Non-standard Employment Look Like in the United States? An Empirical Typology of Employment Quality

Despite significant interest in the changing nature of employment as a critical social and economic challenge facing society—especially the decline in the so-called Standard Employment Relationship (SER) and rise in more insecure, precarious forms of employment—scholars have struggled to operationalize the multifaceted and heterogeneous nature of contemporary worker-employer relationships within empirical analyses. Here we investigate the character and distribution of employment relationships in the U.S., drawing on a representative sample of wage-earners and self-employed from the General Social Survey (2002–2018). We use the multidimensional construct of employment quality, which includes both contractual (e.g., wages, contract type) and relational (e.g., employee representation and participation) aspects of employment. We further employ a typological measurement approach, using latent class analysis, to explicitly examine how the multiple aspects of employment cluster together in modern labor markets. We present eight distinct employment types in the U.S., including one resembling the historical conception of the SER model (24% of the total workforce), and others representing various constellations of favorable and adverse employment features. These employment types are unevenly distributed across society, in terms of who works these jobs and where they are found in the labor market. Importantly, women, those with lower education, and younger workers are more likely to be in precarious forms of employment. More generally, our typology reveals limitations associated with binary conceptions of standard vs. non-standard employment, or insider–outsider dichotomies envisioned within dual labor market theories.

     

Fertility and union formation during crisis and societal consolidation in the Western Balkans

Fertility decline in central and eastern Europe (CEE) since the fall of the communist regimes has been driven by both stopping and postponement of childbearing: two processes that have been related to crisis and economic development, respectively. In the Western Balkans these economic and political contexts followed each other in the form of a biphasic transition. I examine whether this sequence triggered fertility responses like those observed elsewhere. Relying on three independent data sources, I cross-validate the levels of, and describe the trends in, union formation and fertility (by birth order) between 1980 and 2010. Results do not reveal widespread declines in fertility to lowest-low levels during the most acute period of crisis. The subsequent postponement of marriage and first birth was also limited, and the two-child family remains the norm. This relative resilience of childbearing patterns compared with other CEE countries is discussed with reference to the institutional context.     

Maternal Smoking and Infant Low Birth Weight: Exploring the Biological Mechanism Through the Mother’s Pre-pregnancy Weight Status

Maternal smoking has been found to adversely affect birth outcomes, such as increasing the odds of having low birth weight infants. However, the mechanisms explaining how a mother’s smoking is linked to a child’s low birth weight status are underexplored. This study merged two nationally representative datasets in the United States (US)—the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Child and Young Adult (NLSYCYA)—to examine whether maternal weight status before pregnancy serves as a biological mechanism. We applied a recently developed mediation analysis technique to a data sample of 6550 mother–child pairs, and we compared the estimated coefficients across nested probability models. We found that maternal body mass index (BMI) (in kg/m²), a widely used measure of weight status, reduces the odds of delivering a low birth weight infant, and this mechanism explains about 10.2% of the adverse impact of maternal smoking on having a low birth weight child. Moreover, when categorizing maternal pre-pregnancy BMI into four weight statuses (i.e., underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese), we found that, in contrast to mothers with normal weight status, underweight mothers are 70% more likely to have a low birth weight child. Our findings suggest that maternal weight status plays a role in understanding how maternal smoking affects low birth weight outcome, indicating that maintaining a proper weight status for women who plan to give birth may be a possible policy to promote infant health.