Volume 15 - Article 6 | Pages 147–180
First birth trends in developed countries: Persisting parenthood postponement
| Date received: | 11 May 2006 |
| Date published: | 22 Sep 2006 |
| Word count: | 5948 |
| Keywords: | changing age patterns, childlessness, cohort analysis, developed countries, first birth, postponement, transition to different age patterns in Central and Eastern Europe |
| DOI: | 10.4054/DemRes.2006.15.6 |
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 (INED), France
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