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Until 2008, Germany’s vital statistics did not include information on the biological order of each birth. This resulted in a dearth of important demographic indicators, such as the mean age at fi rst birth and the level of childlessness. Researchers have tried to fill this gap by generating order-specifi c birth rates from survey data, and by combining survey data with vital statistics. This paper takes a different approach by using Perinatal Statistics to generate birth order-specific fertility rates for the period 2001 to 2008. Perinatal Statistics includes information on births that took place in German hospitals. Out-of-hospital births, which account for about 2 % of all births, are not included in the Perinatal Statistics. In a sensitivity analysis, we show how robust our estimates are to the inclusion of out-of-hospital births. Our general assessment is that the Perinatal Statistics is a valuable source for generating order-specific fertility rates, regardless of whether out-of-hospital births are included.
Nearly every European Country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in eight countries across europe. In all countries studied, birth risks within cohabitation demonstrated a negative educational gradient. When directly comparing cohabiting fertility with marital fertility, the negative educational gradient persists in all countries except Italy, although differences were not significant in Austria, France, and West Germany. To explain these findings, we present an alternative explanation for the increase in childbearing within cohabitation that goes beyond the explanation of the Second Demographic Transition and provides a new interpretation of the underlying mechanisms that may influence childbearing within cohabitation.
This article investigates whether the increase in the labour force participation of mothers in western Germany has been accompanied by growing social inequalities in maternal employment. The focus is on education-related differences in full-time, part-time and marginal employment, and, in particular, changes therein over time. It is assumed that worsening labour market opportunities for the less educated and a ‘familialistic’ social policy context have resulted in growing differentials in mothers’ employment by education. Data from the scientific use files of the German micro-censuses for the years 1976 to 2004 show that the part-time and marginal employment rates of mothers have increased, while full-time employment rates have declined. Reductions in full-time employment are most pronounced among less educated mothers, resulting in growing educational differences in the employment of mothers.
This paper investigates whether uncertainties in female employment careers result in a postponement of family formation. Data for this analysis comes from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which provides longitudinal information on economic uncertainty and fertility for the period 1984 to 2006. We employ objective measures of uncertainty (unemployment) as well as subjective measures (whether the respondent is worried about her economic situation, whether she is worried about the security of her job). We find little evidence that uncertainties in female employment careers generally lead to a postponement of parenthood. Hence, the relationship between economic uncertainty and first birth varies by level of education. While more highly educated postpone parenthood when subject to employment uncertainties, women with low levels of education often respond to these situations by becoming mothers.
Die Debatte um den Wandel von Familie und Lebensformen in Ost- und Westdeutschland konzentriert sich vor allem auf Veränderungen, die während der letzten 20 Jahre erfolgt sind. Jedoch sind diese Entwicklungen in Westdeutschland genauso wie in Ostdeutschland in grundlegendere Tendenzen des demografischen Wandels seit den sechziger Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts eingebettet, die als Europas "zweiter demografischer Übergang" bezeichnet werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund erfolgt die vorliegende Betrachtung des Wandels in Ost- und Westdeutschland in einem breiteren europäischen Kontext. Durch einen Vergleich von Deutschland Ost und West mit Frankreich und Russland werden sowohl die Spezifika der westdeutschen Situation als auch die Besonderheiten des Wandels im Osten in Folge der Systemtransformation herausgearbeitet. Der Beitrag ist wie folgt aufgebaut: Nach der Einleitung wird im zweiten Abschnitt ein Überblick über grundlegende familiendemografische Entwicklungen sowie institutionelle Kontexte des familialen Wandels in Frankreich, Russland und Deutschland gegeben. Im dritten Abschnitt werden die zu Grunde liegenden Daten vorgestellt, und im vierten Teil wird die wirtschaftliche Lage von Müttern in den drei Ländern beschrieben. Im letzten Abschnitt wird die Frage behandelt, welche Rolle Familienformen und insbesondere die Erwerbsbeteiligung von Müttern in den untersuchten Ländern für die sozioökonomische Lage von Familien spielen
In recent years, considerable progress has been made in improving the data infrastructure for fertility and morality researchers in Germany. Several large scale data sets have been made available through the research data centers: the micro-censuses of the 1970s and 1980s, the censuses of the GDR and FRG, the micro-census panel, data from the pension registers, individual level data from the vital statistics, and the central foreigner registers have become available for scientific usage. Vital statistics have been reformed, and the micro-census now includes information on number of children ever born. Despite these improvements, there are still some “weak spots” in Germany’s data infrastructure. Germany is lacking official counts of reconstituted families. We know little about the mortality risks of immigrants. In addition, the data infrastructure for studying the socio-economic differences in mortality risks could be improved, thus enabling Germany to catch up with international developments in this area. This paper concludes by making some suggestions for improving the data available.
The Human Fertility Database (HFD) is a joint project of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany and the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) in Vienna, Austria, based at MPIDR. We seek to provide free and user-friendly access to detailed and high-quality data on period and cohort fertility and thus to facilitate research on changes and inter-country differences in fertility in the past and in the modern era. The HFD is entirely based on official vital statistics and places a great emphasis on data checking and documentation and on warranting data comparability across time and countries by means of uniform methodology
Harmonized histories : Manual for the preparation of comparative fertility and union histories
(2010)
This document describes the standardization process of the Harmonized Histories. The Harmonized Histories is a comparative database of rich reproductive and union histories from surveys conducted in a number of countries in Europe. Given that birth and union data has been collected in a number of ways in different surveys, it has been very difficult to conduct cross-national analyses of recent union and fertility behavior over time. A team of researchers called the Nonmarital Childbearing Network has cleaned and standardized the surveys according to guidelines set out in this manual. Currently, the database includes data from the Generations and Gender Surveys (GGSs) in Italy, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Russia; the 2003 Dutch Fertility and Family Survey; and the British Household Panel Survey.