Livia Sz. Oláh

Gendering fertility: Second births in Sweden and Hungary

With the growing prevalence of the dual-earner family model in industrialized countries the gendered nature of the relationship between employment and parenting has become a key issue for childbearing decisions and behavior. In such a context taking into account the societal gender structure (public policies, family-level gender relations) explicitly can enhance our understanding of contemporary fertility trends. In this paper we study the second birth, given its increasing importance in the developed world as large proportions of women remain childless or bear only one child. We focus on Sweden where gender equality is pronounced at both the societal and the family level and on Hungary where the dual-earner model has been accompanied by traditional gender relations in the home sphere. Our analysis is based on data extracted from the Swedish and Hungarian Fertility and Family Surveys of 1992/93. We use the method of hazard regression. The results suggest that the second-birth intensity increases as the combination of parenthood and labor-force attachment of either parent is facilitated. We see this in the effect of family policies in Sweden and in the higher second-birth intensity of couples who share family responsibilities as compared to those with traditional gender-role behavior in both countries. Also, the lack of any visible impact of mens educational attainment in both Sweden and Hungary is probably linked to public policies as state support for families with children has reduced the importance of income for second childbearing. A positive educational gradient for Swedish women and an essentially zero gradient in Hungary reflects the success of policy measures in reducing fertility cost for more educated women in both countries.

Work and Childbearing Intentions from a Capability Perspective: Young Adult Women in Sweden

Since the late 1960s, female labour force participation increased substantially nearly everywhere in Europe. For women aged 20–44 years, the participation rate increased from an average of 50 per cent in 1970 to nearly 80 per cent in 2000, large cross-country differences notwithstanding (Ferrarini, 2006). High or increasing female employment rates have been seen, in turn, as the main reason for low fertility (Becker, 1991), based on the incompatibility of motherhood, that is childrearing and paid work, in industrialised societies (Brewster and Rindfuss, 2000). Indeed, the aggregate-level relationship between women’s labour force participation and fertility was negative until the mid- or late 1980s, although the causality is unclear (Bernhardt, 1993; Engelhardt et al., 2004). Then the relationship turned into a positive one (Castles, 2003; see also Hobson and Olah, 2006a, 2006b for an overview of relevant studies).

Introduction: Aspirations and Uncertainties. Childbearing Choices and Work-Life Realities in Europe

Europe is facing a demographic challenge based on the conjuncture of population ageing and a shrinking labour force that in the long run jeopardises economic growth and sustainable development. The current situation is the outcome of three trends: (i) long-term below-replacement level period fertility (that is less than 2.05 children per woman on average); (ii) increasing longevity; and (iii) a growing proportion of people in their late 50s and above in the labour force. While the latter two trends nearly equally apply to every society in Europe, cross-country variations in fertility levels are quite substantial, accelerating population ageing in societies where fertility rates have remained below the critical level of 1.5 children per woman for longer periods (McDonald, 2006; Myrskyla et al., 2009). In addressing country differences in fertility, the importance of the childbearing, female employment and work-life balance policy interplay has been increasingly recognised in contemporary scholarships of the welfare state, economics, gender and demography (see e.g. Castles, 2003; Gornick and Meyers, 2003; Engelhardt et al., 2004; Frejka et al., 2008a; Thevenon and Gauthier, 2011).

The New Roles of Men and Women and Implications for Families and Societies

This keynote chapter presents main research findings on new gender roles and their implications for families and societies. It first depicts the development of family forms in Europe over the past fifty years, with a focus on increasingly diverse family biographies and the changes in the roles of women and men. It highlights that changes in women’s role have been more comprehensive, whereas in most countries the transformation of the male role has barely started. Next, views in contemporary scholarship on the interplay between the increasing family complexity and gender role changes are addressed. A detailed discussion of new challenges of transitions in and organization of family life follows, with a focus on four main topics: women’s new role and the implications for family dynamics, the gendered transition to parenthood, new gender roles in doing families, and coping strategies in family and work reconciliation under conditions of uncertainty and precariousness and impacts on fertility. A brief conclusion ends this chapter.

‘Doing gender and gender equality’ through emotional expressions during a research interview. Views of highly educated Swedish young adults

Abstract The aim of this article is to contribute to the knowledge on how concepts of gender and gender equality are constructed within research interviews, deepening our understanding of the underlying gender system in society. We focus on emotions and emotional processes expressed during interviews on work and family when specific questions originating in the World Value Survey were asked. Our study is based on interviews with highly educated women and men, in two metropolitan areas of Sweden. In this article, we seek to shed more light on how incorporating emotional expressions and the evaluation of these emotions can grasp the construction of gender and gender equality. We highlight the range of emotional expressions that appear during the interviews, differences in their usage by women and men and the links to the construction of gender and gender equality. We explore how the specific situation of the interview influences ‘doing gender and gender equality’ through emotions. Our results reveal that men and women use similar but also different emotional expressions in conforming to the gender equality norm. Men and women, interviewers and interviewees agreed on this norm, but the ways they ’performed’ the norm are gender based.

Economic uncertainty and first-birth intentions in Europe

Background: Cold-related conditions represent one of the most common causes of neonatal death in many developing countries. The effects of cold external temperatures on neonatal mortality at the onset of demographic transition recently have attracted scholarly interest. Objective: First, we aim to study the effects of cold temperatures on neonatal mortality at the onset of demographic transition, focusing on two Italian rural parishes between 1820 and 1900. Second, we aim to assess whether the effects vary according to socioeconomic status (SES), especially among the most vulnerable social groups. Methods: We apply logistic regression and discrete-time event history analysis using micro-data from parish registers and daily records of external temperature. Results: The risk of death during the first month of life varied according to external temperature’s variation and to socioeconomic status, demonstrating that neonates born to landless rural labourers generally suffered a higher neonatal mortality risk during winter and, more specifically; in case of low temperature at the childbirth during coldest months. Conclusions: The risk of neonatal death increased as external temperatures decreased. The clear influence of temperature on the day of birth suggests that low temperatures on the day of birth exerted a fundamental scarring effect on children’s survival. We also find significant differences in neonatal mortality by SES, resulting in more pronounced effects from season and temperature in rural proletarian families. The results show that during the second half of the 19th century characterised by intense socioeconomic transformations, rural proletarians experienced a clear worsening of living conditions. Contribution: The results show that during the second half of the nineteenth century characterised by intense socio-economic transformations, rural proletarians experienced a clear worsening of living conditions.

Concluding Thoughts on Childbearing, Women’s Work and Work-Life Balance Policy Nexus in Europe in the Dawn of the 21st Century

This book has addressed the interplay between childbearing and work and welfare, more specifically female employment and work-life balance policies, in contemporary Europe. Along with increasing scholarly interest in the topic, demographic and economic sustainability has been high on the agenda in European policymaking given substantial cross-country variations in fertility levels in the past decades, (well) below what is necessary for the replacement of the population (that is 2.05 children per woman) and not speeding up societal ageing. Focusing on childbearing choices (intentions mainly, but even desires), considered as influential predictors of future fertility, our research team has examined the importance of labour force participation on young women’s fertility plans in the context of increasing labour market flexibility in various work-life balance policy settings. We have studied five countries, two high-fertility and three low-fertility societies representing different welfare regime/policy configuration types. Our two high-fertility societies, Sweden and France, belong to different policy regimes, the former being the prime case of the Dual-Earner, and the latter belonging to the General Family Support policy configuration type to which even Germany, a low-fertility regime country belongs. The other two low-fertility societies we have studied, Poland and Hungary, represent the Transition Post-Socialist cluster.