First birth trends in developed countries

Tomas Frejka and Jean-Paul Sardon
Additional contact information
Tomas Frejka: Independent researcher
Jean-Paul Sardon: Institut national d'études démographiques

Demographic Research, 2006, vol. 15, issue 6, pages 147-180

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.

Keywords: changing age patterns; childlessness; cohort analysis; developed countries; first birth; postponement; transition to different age patterns in Central and Eastern Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
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