Household Transitions in Low Fertility Countries: A European Perspective

Simona Bignami, Université de Montréal
Philipp Ueffing, European Commission - Joint Research Centre
Marek Endrich, European Commission, Joint Research Centre
Fabrizio Natale, European Commission - Joint Research Centre

The vast literature on the second demographic transition in modern societies, particularly in Europe, has considered household change during the 20th century mainly as the result of declining fertility. In this paper, we reassess the direction of this relationship by exploiting longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions database (EU-SILC). Specifically, we adopt a life course framework, and we compare household transitions before and after the birth of a child to understand how the changing dynamics of households’ living arrangements are intertwined with ongoing shifts in fertility behaviours. Our results suggest that addressing low fertility towards the end of the second demographic transition, and its key feature of postponement of parenthood, needs to be framed within a better understanding of individuals’ preferences for forming specific types of households.

Keywords: Families, Unions and Households, Fertility, Longitudinal studies

See extended abstract.