Laura Bernardi

Social Influences on Fertility: A Comparative Mixed Methods Study in Eastern and Western Germany.

This article uses a mixed methods design to investigate the effects of social influence on family formation in a sample of eastern and western German young adults at an early stage of their family formation. Theoretical propositions on the importance of informal interaction for fertility and family behavior are still rarely supported by systematic empirical evidence. Major problems are the correct identification of salient relationships and the comparability of social networks across population subgroups. This article addresses the two issues through a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. In-depth interviewing, network charts, and network grids are used to map individual personal relationships and their influence on family formation decisions. In addition, an analysis of friendship dyads is provided.

Job Insecurity and the Timing of Parenthood: A Comparison between Eastern and Western Germany Perceptions de l'instabilité de l'emploi et projet d'enfant: Une comparaison entre Allemagne de l'est et allemagne de l'ouest

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the economic determinants of fertility behavior by addressing the role of job insecurity in couples’ intentions concerning parenthood and its timing. It starts from the hypothesis that cultural values moderate individuals’ reactions to job insecurity and the way it is related to family formation. With a systematic thematic content analysis of a set of semi-structured interviews with childless men and women around the age of 30 in eastern and western Germany, we are able to show that there are substantial differences in the consequences of job insecurity on intentions to have a first child. In western Germany, a relatively secure job career is expected to precede family formation, and this sequence of transitions is rather rigid, whereas in eastern Germany job security and family formation are thought of and practiced as parallel investments. We suggest that the lack of convergence in family formation patterns between eastern and western Germany after the unification of the country in 1990 is partially related to different attitudes toward job insecurity in the two contexts.RésuméCet article contribue au débat en cours sur les déterminants économiques du comportement de fécondité, en questionnant le rôle de l’insécurité de l’emploi par rapport au projet d’enfant et à son calendrier. L’hypothèse posée est que les valeurs culturelles conditionnent en partie les réactions à l’insécurité de l’emploi et le lien aux processus de formation des familles. Par une analyse systématique des thèmes contenus dans un ensemble d’entretiens semi-directifs conduits auprès de personnes sans enfants âgées d’environ 30 ans en Allemagne de l’est et en Allemagne de l’ouest, nous avons démontré l’existence de réelles différences dans les répercussions de l’insécurité de l’emploi sur les projets de premier enfant. En Allemagne de l’ouest, un emploi stable doit obligatoirement précéder la venue d’un enfant, et la séquence est relativement rigide, alors qu’en Allemagne de l’est, l’obtention d’un emploi stable et la formation d’une famille sont conçus comme des investissements parallèles. Notre suggestion est que le manque de convergence dans les schémas de formation des familles entre les deux parties de l’Allemagne après l’unification du pays en 1990 pourrait être liée, au moins en partie, à des différences d’attitudes par rapport à l’insécurité de l’emploi.

Italy’s path to very low fertility: the adequacy of economic and second demographic transition theories

The deep drop of the fertility rate in Italy to among the lowest in the world challenges contemporary theories of childbearing and family building. Among high-income countries, Italy was presumed to have characteristics of family values and female labor force participation that would favor higher fertility than its European neighbors to the north. We test competing economic and cultural explanations, drawing on new nationally representative, longitudinal data to examine first union, first birth, and second birth. Our event history analysis finds some support for economic determinants of family formation and fertility, but the clear importance of regional differences and of secularization suggests that such an explanation is at best incomplete and that cultural and ideational factors must be considered.RésuméLa fécondité a baissé de façon très marquée en Italie, pour atteindre à présent un des niveaux les plus bas du monde, ce qui représente un défi pour les théories contemporaines de la procréation et de la formation des familles. Parmi les pays à revenus élevés, l’Italie disposait de caractéristiques en matière de valeurs familiales et de participation des femmes au marché du travail qui auraient dû lui permettre de bénéficier d’une fécondité plus élevée que celle des pays voisins vers le Nord. Nous testons des hypothèses économiques et culturelles, à l’aide de nouvelles données longitudinales représentatives à l’échelle nationale, nous permettant d’examiner la première union et les première et seconde naissances. L’analyse biographique que nous avons menée fournit des éléments en faveur des déterminants économiques de la formation des familles et de la fécondité, mais l’importance des différences régionales et de la sécularisation suggère que ce type d’explication est au mieux incomplet, et que des facteurs culturels et normatifs doivent être pris en considération.

Qualifying Social Influence on Fertility Intentions Composition, Structure and Meaning of Fertility-relevant Social Networks in Western Germany

Although the relevance of social interactions or social networks for fertility research has been increasingly acknowledged in recent years, little is known about the channels and mechanisms of social influences on individuals’ fertility decision-making. Drawing on problem-centred interviews and network data collected among young adults in western Germany, the authors show that qualitative methods broaden our understanding of social and contextual influences on couples’ fertility intentions, by exploring the phenomenon, taking subjective perceptions into account, analysing interactions within networks as well as the dynamics of networks. Qualitative methods allow for the collection and analysis of rich retrospective information on network dynamics in relation to life course events. This can also be helpful both to complement the still rare longitudinal data on social networks and to develop parsimonious and efficient survey instruments to collect such information in a standardized way.

Transition to Parenthood: The Role of Social Interaction and Endogenous Networks

Empirical studies indicate that the transition to parenthood is influenced by an individual’s peer group. To study the mechanisms creating interdependencies across individuals’ transition to parenthood and its timing, we apply an agent-based simulation model. We build a one-sex model and provide agents with three different characteristics: age, intended education, and parity. Agents endogenously form their network based on social closeness. Network members may then influence the agents’ transition to higher parity levels. Our numerical simulations indicate that accounting for social interactions can explain the shift of first-birth probabilities in Austria during the period 1984 to 2004. Moreover, we apply our model to forecast age-specific fertility rates up to 2016.

The demography of Europe

Over the past decades Europe has witnessed fundamental changes of its population dynamics and population structure. Fertility has fallen below replacement level in almost all European countries, while childbearing behavior and family formation have become more diverse. Life expectancy has increased in Western Europe for both females and males, but has been declining for men in some Eastern European countries. Immigration from non-European countries has increased substantially, as has mobility within Europe. These changes pose major challenges to population studies, as conventional theoretical assumptions regarding demographic behavior and demographic development seem unfit to provide convincing explanations of the recent demographic changes.This book, derived from the symposium on “The Demography of Europe” held at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany in November 2007 in honor of Professor Jan M. Hoem, brings together leading population researchers in the area of fertility, family, migration, life-expectancy, and mortality. The contributions present key issues of the new demography of Europe and discuss key research advances to understand the continent’s demographic development at the turn of the 21st century.

Toward a Life Course Framework for Studying Vulnerability

Interest in the study of vulnerability has experienced impressive growth across various disciplines. To contribute to this major but scattered development in the study of vulnerability, this article argues for a multidisciplinary life-course framework. This framework promotes a systemic and dynamic perspective focused on three complementary research directions: multidimensional, multilevel, and multidirectional. On the basis of this life course perspective, the authors also propose a definition of vulnerability as a dynamic process of stress and resources across various domains of life (i.e., work, family, health, migration, etc.), levels (i.e., person, group, collective), and time (i.e., long-term processes).

Uncertain, Changing and Situated Fertility Intentions

In this chapter, we examine the multiple dimensions of declarations of fertility intention in order to provide a critical reading of currently used indicators of the childbearing decision-making process. Using a qualitative approach, we pay attention to the complexity of the process through which individuals make (or fail to make) plans regarding their reproductive future. The data are a series of comparable in-depth interviews conducted in a number of European countries with varying fertility levels, and differing normative and institutional contexts. First, we analyse the meanings that respondents attribute to their childbearing intentions, paying particular attention to uncertain intentions that are often under-analysed. Second, we study the ways in which individuals vary in holding to their intentions over time, and consider why they might change their minds, even over relatively short periods of time. Third, we examine how several aspects of the larger social context (attitudes towards having children, family policy, norms related to the division of labour, norms about the timing of children) shape fertility intentions.

Freunde, Familie und das eigene Leben. Zum Einfluss sozialer Netzwerke auf die Lebens- und Familienplanung junger Erwachsener in Lübeck und Rostock

Der Lebenslauf von Individuen wird durch den unmittelbaren sozialen Kontext der Freunde, Verwandten, Bekannten und Kollegen entscheidend gepragt. Zwischen der Makroebene der Gesellschaft und der Mikroebene des einzelnen Akteurs gelegen, stellt die Ebene des Netzwerks personlicher Kontakte und Beziehungen eine besondere Herausforderung fur die empirische Lebenslaufforschung dar. Dabei ist davon auszugehen, dass gerade diese alltaglichen Kommunikations-, Unterstutzungs- oder Erlebnisnetzwerke eine wichtige Grundlage zum Verstandnis individueller Plane, Motive oder Entscheidungen bilden. Je nach sozialem Umfeld werden beispielsweise unterschiedliche Vorstellungen und Normen gelten, zu welchem Zeitpunkt, auf welche Weise und in welcher Abfolge bestimmte Lebensereignisse wie die Grundung einer Familie auftreten sollten. Diese fur den individuellen Lebenslauf so entscheidenden Orientierungen werden fur den Einzelnen durch den sozialen Kontakt mit seinen Mitmenschen erfahrbar, werden durch die soziale Interaktion reproduziert, aber auch verandert.

Vulnerability Across the Life Course

This issue defines vulnerability as a key interdisciplinary concept for understanding life trajectories. Moreover, it develops a life course framework to study vulnerability along three structuring axes of research: multidimensionality, multilevel, and multidirectionality.