Social policies, separation, and second birth spacing in Western Europe

Michaela Kreyenfeld; Esther Geisler; Teresa Castro Martín; Tina Hannemann; Valerie Heintz-Martin; Marika Jalovaara; Hill Kulu; Silvia Meggiolaro; Dimitri Mortelmans; Inge Pasteels; Marta Seiz; Anne Solaz

doi:10.4054/DemRes.2017.37.37

Volume 37 - Article 37 | Pages 1245–1274

Social policies, separation, and second birth spacing in Western Europe

By Michaela Kreyenfeld, Esther Geisler, Teresa Castro Martín, Tina Hannemann, Valerie Heintz-Martin, Marika Jalovaara, Hill Kulu, Silvia Meggiolaro, Dimitri Mortelmans, Inge Pasteels, Marta Seiz, Anne Solaz

Date received:

6 Jan 2016

Date published:

19 Oct 2017

Word count:

6418

Keywords:

event history, fertility, multipartnered fertility, stepfamily fertility

DOI:

10.4054/DemRes.2017.37.37

Supplementary Material:

37-37_Code (Word file, 45 kB)

This article is part of the Special Collection 21 „Separation, Divorce, Repartnering, and Remarriage around the World“

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Abstract

Objective: This paper studies postseparation fertility behavior. The aim is to investigate whether, and if so how, separation affects second birth spacing in Western European countries.

Methods: This analysis makes use of rich survey data from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, as well as from Finnish register data. We thus cover the behavior of a large proportion of the population of Western Europe. We also use descriptive measures, such as Kaplan‒Meier survival functions and cumulative incidence curves. In the multivariate analysis, we employ event history modeling to show how education relates to postseparation fertility behavior.

Results: There are large differences in postseparation fertility behavior across European countries. For Spain and Italy, we find that only a negligibly small proportion of the population have a second child after separating from the other parent of the firstborn child. The countries with the highest proportion of second children with a new partner are the United Kingdom, Germany, and Finland. In all countries, separation after first birth leads to a sharp increase in the birth interval between first and second births.

Contribution: Our study is a contribution to the demographic literature that aims at understanding birth spacing patterns in Western Europe. Furthermore, we draw attention to the role of postseparation policies in explaining country differences in fertility behavior in contemporary societies.

Author’s Affiliation

Michaela Kreyenfeld - Hertie School of Governance, Germany EMAIL
Esther Geisler - Hertie School of Governance, Germany EMAIL
Teresa Castro Martín - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain EMAIL
Tina Hannemann - University of Manchester, United Kingdom EMAIL
Valerie Heintz-Martin - Deutsches Jugendinstitut (DJI), Germany EMAIL
Marika Jalovaara - Turun Yliopisto (University of Turku), Finland EMAIL
Hill Kulu - University of St Andrews, United Kingdom EMAIL
Silvia Meggiolaro - Università degli Studi di Padova (UNIPD), Italy EMAIL
Dimitri Mortelmans - Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium EMAIL
Inge Pasteels - Hogeschool PXL, Belgium EMAIL
Marta Seiz - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain EMAIL
Anne Solaz - Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED), France EMAIL