Volume III, Issue 1, 2009

This article elaborates on the ideas presented at a scientific reunion held in Cluj-Napoca in September 2008. Its major aim is to dismiss the attempt to attribute the decrease of fertility below the replacement level to cultural factors, particularly to the value system change that governs various behaviour patterns, the reproductive included.
This cultural determinism, most clearly stated in the theory of the so-called “second demographic transition”, is a most convenient explanatory attempt, which has the great (dis)advantage that, by the very nature of the factors mentioned, cannot be submitted to a decisive test. We will bring logical and factual counter-arguments that we expect to accumulate in time, so that this theory (fashionable at present) will come to occupy its due place among the numerous constructs that account for human fertile behaviour.
Factual arguments have been derived from recent demographic developments in Romania, a country different in several cultural and structural aspects from the “hard nucleus” of modern and postmodern Western civilisation but which, nevertheless, has experienced sub fertile behaviour.

Keywords: fertility, Romania, culturalist theories, second demographic transition

Abstract

By European standards, consensual first unions have been rare in Romania, and they remain so even though their incidence has increased by a factor of almost five since the early 1960s. Rates of conversion of consensual unions into marriages have been cut in half over the same four decades or so, and marriage rates have declined by a similar factor since the fall of state socialism, which is more dramatic because this period is so much shorter. There have been strong ethnic differentials in union-entry rates in the country.

Keywords: first-union formation, cohabitation, marriage, conversion of cohabitation to marriage, Romania

Abstract

Before 1989, transition to adulthood in Romania was occurring at early ages, marriage was universal and fertility was above the replacement level. In 1990, the mean age of first marriage was 22.0, the mean age of the first birth was 22.4, the total fertility rate was 1.8, and the proportion of non-marital birth was 4%. After 1990, many sharp and rapid changes have taken place in the demographic behaviours: postponement of marriages, postponement of first birth, decline of total fertility rate. However, marriage postponement has not translated entirely into postponement of the first birth. The interval between marriage and the first birth has declined, because of the very high and rapid increase of the proportions of non-marital births. This increase is really surprising, for age of marriage and age of first birth are still very low. In 2000, the mean age of first marriage was 23.4, the mean age of first birth was 23.6, the total fertility rate was 1.3, and the proportion of non-marital birth was 25.5%. In order to underline variables associated with changing behaviours, we want to perform different analyses on the several steps of marital and reproductive behaviour (first sexual intercourse, use of contraception, type of union, marital and non-marital birth), using new survey data.

Keywords: non-marital births, cohabitation, contraception, Romania

Abstract

Together with the political and economic changes in the 1990s in all Eastern European countries are observed also drastic demographic changes. The most prominent ones, regarding the fertility in Bulgaria is the rise of postponement of births, the emergence of new family forms and a high rise in the out-of-wedlock births. In our study, we analyse the increase of cohabitation, the delay of first birth and the interrelation between these events. We pay a special attention to the influence of education level of women on the preferences of family formation and childbearing. The data we use comes from the Social Capital Survey conducted in 2002 in Bulgaria. Our results show that when a conception occurs, women tend more to marry directly than form a consensual union. Yet, the increase in the share of non-marital births is due to the spread of cohabitation. We also found out that first birth in Bulgaria is a universal process and is not influenced by the education level of the women. But, higher educated women prefer to marry directly, than start their union formation with cohabitation. Also, enrollment in education delays woman’s transition to adulthood.

Keywords: cohabitation, childbearing, Bulgaria

Krystof Zeman* – The Link between Women’s Education and Non-marital Childbearing in the Czech Republic

*Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Wohllebengasse 12-14, 1040 Vienna, Austria, 00-43151581772, krystof.zeman@oeaw.ac.at

Abstract

Since the 1990s the fertility and nuptiality behaviour of Czech women has changed substantially. Both the sharp decline in fertility and nuptiality levels and the postponement of family formation until higher ages have been extensively analysed. One of the most noticeable trends was the increase in the proportion of non-marital childbirths. It is however still not clear what proportion of unmarried mothers is cohabiting and how many of them are living alone. Until recently, there has not been conducted any systematic research on family situation of new mothers in the Czech Republic. In an attempt to estimate the extent of cohabitation and lone motherhood, their increase during last two decades, and the relationship to woman’s education, we use statistic records of births and marriages of the Czech Statistical Office, linked according to the unique ID# of woman, to analyse the behaviour of mothers before and after first childbirth and to estimate the prevalence of mother’s family status during childbirth (childbirth in marriage – with/without premarital conception, birth in cohabitation – premarital or permanent, and lone motherhood) and its change over two periods (1991-96 vs. 2001-06).
The increase of proportion of non-marital births in last two decades was counterbalanced especially by the decrease of premarital conceptions: Contrary to the past, when pregnancy was a strong impetus to marry promptly before birth delivery, pregnant single women now tend to stay single. About half of these mothers then experience neither marriage nor second childbirth until next six years, and they are considered as lone mothers. Other quarter marry after childbirth, while last quarter bear also second child without entering marriage. The main finding of this paper is that wide differences exist between educational categories of women. While primary educated mothers tend to be lone or to cohabit even after second childbirth, higher educated women mostly conceive and even concept their first child traditionally after marriage.

Keywords: Cohabitation, lone motherhood, family formation, first childbirth, first marriage, educational attainment, Czech Republic

Abstract

The social, political and economic transformations experienced by the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe since the beginning of the 1990s have resulted in rapid changes in demographic trends the consequences of which, with regard to marriage and fertility, are highly significant. The period since 1990 has witnessed far-reaching changes in the occurrence and timing of family life transitions among young adults in the Czech Republic.
This study investigates the determinants of having a second child in Czech society during two distinctive political periods characterised by differing demographic behaviour. The study is set against the background of a society in which the most characteristic trend in reproductive patterns during the socialist era was a strong orientation towards the two-child family and where the ideal of a two-child family still persists.

Keywords: Czech Republic, fertility, transformation, two-child family model, second child

Abstract

Besides other factors, age norms enter the process of decision making on transition to motherhood. Chronological age proved relevant to urban women in Slovakia with respect to the postponement of childbearing. The paper discusses the concept of early, optimal and late childbearing and the relevant age deadlines, and reveals the social meanings attributed to the chronological age in the urban context in Slovakia in the early 21st century. The concept of the biological clock identifies the age after which to stop postponing motherhood. The study is based on in-depth and semi-structured interviews with women who lived in the Slovak capital Bratislava.

Keywords: postponement of motherhood, age norms, life course, fertility