This study offers an overview on changes in fertility plan during the COVID-19 crisis of a representative sample of the young population (18-34) in Italy, France, Germany, Spain and UK. Data were collected between March 27 and April 7, 2020. Our results show that fertility plans have been negatively revised in all countries, but not in the same way. In Germany and France fertility plans changed moderately, with many people still planning or postponing their decision to have a child during the 2020. In Italy, instead, the proportion of abandoners is much higher than in other countries, while comparatively it shows a lower proportion of those deciding to postpone their plans. Moreover, the demographic characteristics of the individuals seem to be associated with fertility plans in different ways across countries. In Italy, abandoners are common among individuals younger than 30 and those without a tertiary education. In Germany, abandoners are slightly more prevalent in the regions most affected by the COVID-19. In UK, fertility plans have been most frequently abandoned by individuals that expect the worse impact of the crisis on their future income. Finally, in France and Spain we did not observe a clear pattern for revision of fertility plans. These results suggest that different mechanisms are at work, due to the different economic, demographic and policy pre-crisis background and post-crisis prospects. Low-fertility contexts, in particular, appear to be more at risk of a fertility loss due to the crisis.
This study offers a descriptive overview of changes in fertility plans during the COVID-19 crisis in a sample of the young population (18-34) in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The data were collected between 27 March and 7 April 2020. RESULTS Our results show that fertility plans have been negatively revised in all countries, but not in the same way. In Germany and France fertility plans changed moderately, with many people still planning or postponing their decision to have a child. In Italy, however, the proportion of abandoners is much higher than in the other countries, and the proportion of those deciding to postpone their plans is lower. Moreover, across countries the demographic characteristics of individuals appear to be associated with fertility plans in different ways. In Italy, abandoners are common among individuals younger than 30 and those without a tertiary education. In Germany, abandoners are slightly more prevalent in the regions most affected by COVID-19. In the United Kingdom, the individuals that most frequently abandoned their fertility plans are those who expect the crisis to have a dramatic negative effect on their future income. Finally, in France and Spain we do not observe a clear pattern of revision of fertility plans. CONTRIBUTION These results suggest that different mechanisms are at work, possibly due to the different economic, demographic, and policy pre-crisis background and post-crisis prospects. Low-fertility contexts in particular appear to be more at risk of a fertility loss due to the crisis.
Parenthood has strong effects on people's life. Some of these effects are positive and some negative and may influence the decision of having other children after the first. Demographic research has only marginally addressed the relationship between subjective well-being and fertility, and even less attention has been reserved to investigate how the subjective experience of the first parenthood may influence the decision to have a second child. Performing log-logistic hazard models using HILDA panel data (2001-2012), changes in couples' objective life conditions and satisfaction within family and work domains after the first childbirth are related to the timing of the transition to the second parenthood. Results show that partners adopting traditional gender specialization in roles proceed quicker to the second child; however, experiencing dissatisfaction in reconciling, in the couple's relationship and in the work domain negatively affects mothers' probability of having a second child in the future. Keywords Fertility Á Second child Á Life satisfaction Á Work-family reconciliation Á Hazard models This paper uses unit record data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS) and is managed by the
BACKGROUND Recent studies have suggested a decline in subjective well-being after the birth of a first child. Yet parents' subjective well-being is, in general, linked positively to wanting and to having additional children. OBJECTIVE The paper addresses the question of whether new parents' satisfaction with their overall life and several specific life spheres modifies their expectations about having a second, or further, child. METHODS Relying on twelve waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia panel survey (2001-2012), we apply piecewise growth models to a sample of individuals in couples who experience parenthood for the first time. We model, separately by gender, the relationship between satisfaction in seventeen life domains, overall life satisfaction, and fertility expectations during the first three years following the birth of a first child. RESULTS Results suggest that a decline in new parents' life satisfaction, overall and in different life domains, is associated with a significant decline in fertility expectations. The most important domains are family, social relationship, and work, although with differences by gender. In fact, mothers' fertility expectations are positively associated with their satisfaction with career prospects and with their work-family balance, whereas, for fathers, fertility expectations are positively associated with their financial situation. CONTRIBUTION Our study provides strong evidence that several life domains-and new parents'
With the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Europe during the first months of 2020, most of the governments imposed restrictive measures to people mobility and physical distance (the lockdown), which severely impacted on the economic activities and performance of many countries. Thus, the health emergency turned rapidly into in an economic crisis. The COVID-19 crisis in Europe increased the uncertainty about the economic recovery and the end of health emergency. This situation is supposed to have conditioned individuals’ life course path with the effect of inducing people to postpone or to abandon many life plans.This paper aims to explore and describe whether the rise of health emergency due to the COVID-19 has delayed or vanished young people’s intention to leave the parental home, in order to establish their own household, during 2020 in five European countries: Italy, Germany, France, Spain and the UK. Using data from an international survey from the “Youth Project”, carried out by the Toniolo Institute of Advanced Studies, this paper implements generalized logistic models for ordinal dependent variables to investigate the factors associated with a possible revision of the choice of leaving the parental home for a representative sample of 6000 respondents aged 18 to 34, interviewed between March and April 2020. In particular, we compare the effect of the occupational condition and the perceived income and employment vulnerability on the chance of confirmation, postponement or abandonment of the pre-pandemic plan across the five selected European countries.Results show that Italy, Spain and the UK are the countries with the highest probability of a downward revision of the intentions of leaving the nest. Especially in these countries, having negative expectations about changes in the individual’s and family’s future income is associated with the choice of abandoning the purpose of leaving the parental home. However, the vulnerability of the category of temporary workers particularly arises in Southern European countries: young people with precarious jobs seem to be the most prone to negatively revise their intentions of leaving, even compared with those not working.
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