3.1. Fertility and marriage patterns
The average number of children per woman was about two to
three in the 1960s. At that time, the total period fertility rate (TFR = an
indicator corresponding to the mean number of children per woman) was below 2.5
only in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden; nowhere in Europe was
this number below 2.0. In several other EU Member States, the TFR was above
3.0: Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and the Slovak Republic.
Since 1970 fertility declined in most Member States,
sometimes quite substantially. In Ireland for example, the TFR even halved
between 1975 (3.75) and 1994 (1.85), in the Netherlands between 1964 (3.17) and
1977 (1.58), and in Portugal between 1968 (3.00) and 1993 (1.51). In Germany
fertility also dropped by about 50%: from 2.51 to 1.25 (1963- 1995). Fertility decline
was less abrupt in other Member States like France and Sweden. Generally
speaking, fertility decline is the common trend in the last quarter of the 20th
century, and each country has its own fertility history (Figure 3.1)
Figure 3.1. Total Period Fertility Rate in the Member States in
1960, 1980 and 2005 and the forecast for 2050
In the current millennium, no EU Member State has a TFR
above 2.0. This means that fertility is below the so-called replacement level of
2.2 children per woman everywhere in the EU. In 2005 Ireland (1.88) and France
(1.92) reported the highest fertility rates, while the Slovak Republic (1.25)
and Poland (1.24) had the lowest. As many as 16 out of the 27 EU Member States
had fertility rates below 1.5 in 2005.
The overall fertility decline resulted in a more
homogeneous fertility pattern over the past decades among the various EU Member
States. Northern and Western Europe were the first regions where the TFR
started to decline to (well) below the replacement level; currently, these
regions have slightly higher fertility rates than elsewhere in the EU, although
still below replacement; Southern and Eastern European fertility decline
occurred later.
Determinants of changing fertility patterns include female
labour force participation and education. However, closely related to both
there is also a demographic factor i.e. the rise in the mean age of mothers at
the birth of their first child. Postponement of having children1
triggers a decline in (period) fertility rates. As soon as the postponement
trend diminishes, the (period) fertility rates may stabilize or even rise. An
example is the Netherlands, where in the 1970s the age of the mother at first
birth started to increase sharply, whilst the TFR dropped considerably. During
the ’80s the TFR rose slightly due to the ‘catching up’ of women who had not
yet given birth to a first child. Since the ’90s the TFR has raised slightly
further due to the fact that the increase in the age at first birth has slowed
down. The rising levels of female education were especially important: if the
educational levels had not risen, the age at first birth would have been lower
than what it currently is. As higher educated women have their first child later
in life than less educated women, the mere increase in the number of women with
higher education explains about half of the general rise in the age at first
birth over the past decades, at least in the Netherlands (Beets et al, 2001).
The trend towards postponing the first child started in
the Scandinavian and Western European countries in the early 1970s; elsewhere
the age at first motherhood started to rise somewhat later. In Eastern Europe
this trend has been visible since the late 1980s or early 1990s. In the 1960s
the mean age at first birth was 23 to 24 years in many EU Member States,
although slightly lower in Eastern Europe. Currently the age is around 27 to 29 in most EU Member States in Northern, Western and Southern Europe, while Eastern Europe is lagging
behind with levels between 24 and 26 years of age.
Closer inspection of the TFR in a birth cohort perspective
shows that women born at the end or just after the Second World War were the
first to finish their fertility career with a number of children below
replacement. Women from birth cohort 1955, who turned 50 in 2005 (i.e. they are currently at the end of their reproductive life) finished below replacement
fertility in all countries except France (2.23), Ireland (2.67), Poland (2.29),
the Slovak Republic (2.85) and Romania (2.26). Cohorts born in the 1930s only
rarely had completed fertility below replacement. On average, women born in the
1930s had their first child earlier than women born later. Women born in 1955
still had their first child relatively early in many EU-countries, at ages
between 24 and 26. Only in younger cohorts steep rises in the age at first
birth occurred: women born in 1965 had their first child on average between
ages 25 and 28, although a bit earlier in Eastern Europe.
Currently, cohort TFRs are more elevated than period TFRs due to changes in
fertility timing. If women born in a certain year (birth cohort) postpone a
birth, the fertility rate for that particular year (period TFR) is lower, but
the ultimate number of children born to women of that particular cohort (cohort
TFR) may remain unchanged.2 This implies that period TFRs will
fluctuate much more than cohort TFRs (a cohort TFR may, more or less, be
interpreted as the moving average of the period TFR) The fact that period TFRs
currently are below cohort TFRs, suggests that some increase in period TFRs may
occur. As soon as the rise in the age at first birth levels off, period TFRs
may increase, at least as long as the ultimate number of children per woman
does not change. This is one of the main reasons that countries in Eastern and
Southern Europe with currently ‘lowest low fertility’ will most likely have
(somewhat) higher fertility in the future.
The drop in the TFR went together with a rise in the
proportion of women that remain childless. Data show that childlessness stood
at about 10% in birth cohort 1935 in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom,
and 12-13% in Italy and the Netherlands; in Ireland and Portugal the percentage
was about 5. In general, the percentages are higher in later birth cohorts; in
cohort 1955 for example, up to about 18% in Finland, the Netherlands and the
United Kingdom, but in Belgium, Italy and Spain they are more or less stable
(at about 10%) and even lower in France (8%). More recent cohorts show higher
levels, but women from these cohorts may still have a child. Whether
childlessness levels for women born in the 1960s, 1970s or later will really
top 20% remains to be seen.
Birth cohorts in which 25% of the women already have a
child at the age of 20 — thus 75% is still childless— finally end up with a
childlessness level of around 10%. This ‘pattern of early childbearing’ is
characteristic for Eastern European countries. Opposite is the ‘pattern of late
childbearing’, where the 25% border is not reached before the age of 25, which
leads to a childlessness level of 15% or over.
More men than women remain without children, due to lower
ever-marriage-rates for men than for women (Toulemon, 1995). Research shows
that having a partner or not is the most important reason for remaining without
children. Next to that, education is crucial (Bloom and Trussell, 1984; Prioux,
1993). Higher educated women are much more likely than lower educated women to
remain childless. This does not always imply that higher educated women opt
voluntarily for this situation. Difficulties in finding a partner to share
parenthood with may be a reason, as well as difficulties in becoming pregnant
at higher ages. However, there is evidence that higher educated women conceive
more easily, ceteris paribus, than lower educated women (Beets et al, 2001;
Esveldt et al, 2001).
Increasingly, children are born outside marriage. In 1960
only Austria, Estonia, Latvia and Sweden had over 10% of children born outside
marriage. Currently Cyprus and Greece have a level below 10%. More than 40% of
children are born outside marriage in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France,
Latvia, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Bulgaria. These levels may
even be slightly flattered as women may get married after discovering a
pregnancy, i.e. the conception rates outside marriage are higher than the birth
rates outside marriage.3
