Tomas Frejka
Jean-Paul Sardon

http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol15/6/

doi:10.4054/DemRes.2006.15.6

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Abstract
Levels and trends of various facets concerning first births are continuously changing. The evidence confirms that the postponement of first births is an ongoing and persisting process which started in western countries among cohorts of the 1940s, but only in the 1960s cohorts in Central and Eastern Europe. The mean age of women having first births is universally rising. Fertility of older women was increasing. The decline in childbearing of young women is robust among the cohorts of the late 1960s and the 1970s; in Southern Europe as well as in central and Eastern Europe the rates of decline have accelerated. Childbearing behavior in the formerly socialist countries is in transition to a different regime.

Author's affiliation
Tomas Frejka
Independent researcher, International
Jean-Paul Sardon
Institut national d'études démographiques, France

Keywords
changing age patterns, childlessness, cohort analysis, developed countries, first birth, postponement, transition to different age patterns in Central and Eastern Europe

Word count (Main text)
5948

Other articles by the same author/authors (in Demographic Research)

	[19-7] Overview Chapter 5: Determinants of family formation and childbearing during the societal transition in Central and Eastern Europe
	[19-5] Overview Chapter 3: Birth regulation in Europe: Completing the contraceptive revolution
	[19-4] Overview Chapter 2: Parity distribution and completed family size in Europe: Incipient decline of the two-child family model
	[19-3] Overview Chapter 1: Fertility in Europe: Diverse, delayed and below replacement
	[19-2] Summary and general conclusions: Childbearing Trends and Policies in Europe
	[16-11] Cohort birth order, parity progression ratio and parity distribution trends in developed countries
	[5-5] Cohort Reproductive Patterns in the Nordic Countries

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