Regional social contexts and individual fertility decisions: a multilevel analysis of first and second births in Western Germany

Karsten Hank
Additional contact information
Karsten Hank: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2001-015, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: In this paper, a multilevel approach is used to investigate whether and how regional social contexts influence first and second birth probabilities of women living in western Germany during the 1980s and 1990s. In the theoretical part it is argued that regional opportunity structures as well as local patterns of social interaction and culture may translate into parameters that directly affect individual behaviour. Individual level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) are then linked with a set of regional indicators to estimate multilevel discrete-time logit models for the transition to the first and second child. The empirical analysis provides no evidence that the distinct fertility differences observed at the regional level are due to autonomous contextual effects. It is rather suggested that most of the observed regional variation may be due to differences in the spatial distribution of individual characteristics. (AUTHOR)

Keywords: Germany (Alte Bundesländer); fertility; geography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/Papers/Working/wp-2001-015.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-2001-015

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2001-015

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 ().