The Swedish baby boom and bust of 1985-1996 revisited: the role of tempo, quantum and variance effects

Hans-Peter Kohler
Additional contact information
Hans-Peter Kohler: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-1999-007, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: Variance effects, i.e., increases in the standard deviation of the fertility schedule over time, constitute a systematic and interesting aspect of recent fertility patterns in Europe. In this paper we investigate the relevance of these variance change for the evaluationof Swedish baby boom and bust in terms of tempo and quantum effects. Using an extension of the adjusted TFR that incorporates variance changes, we show that there was no reduction in the pace of postponement of first births in Sweden during the period 1980-1995. Thus, the baby boom was overwhelmingly due to quantum effects, and did not have a relevant tempo component as suggested by the TFR-adjustment without variance effects. Moreover, the tempo changes duringthis period clearly reflect the implications of the policy changes in the 1980s: while the tempo for first births remained relatively constant, the tempo at higher orders was reduced substantially after the extension of policies that favor short interbirth intervals. However, this pattern is not visible in the tempo effects without adjestment for variance effects. We therefore argue that variance effects deserve further attention in the investigation of recent fertility patterens and in the adjustment of total fertility rate. (AUTHOR)

JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/Papers/Working/wp-1999-007.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-1999-007

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-1999-007

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().