We evaluate men's retrospective fertility histories from the British Household Panel Survey and the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Further, we analyze the PSID men's panel-updated fertility histories for their possible superiority over retrospective collection. One third to one half of men's nonmarital births and births within previous marriages are missed in estimates from retrospective histories. Differential survey underrepresentation of previously married men compared with previously married women accounts for a substantial proportion of the deficits in previous-marriage fertility. More recent retrospective histories and panel-updated fertility histories improve reporting completeness, primarily by reducing the proportion of marital births from unions that are no longer intact at the survey date.

Family-policy regimes unfavourable to combining employment with motherhood have been claimed to increase socio-economic differentials in fertility as combining employment and motherhood has become more normative. This claim has to date been explored mainly in reference to 'liberal' AngloAmerican regimes. Comparing education differentials in age at first birth among native-born women of 1950s and 1960s birth cohorts in seven countries representing three regime types, we find persistence in early first births among low-educated women not only in Britain and the United States but also in Greece, Italy, and Spain. Shifts towards later first births, however, were more extreme in Southern Europe and involved to some extent women at all education levels. The educationallyheterogeneous changes in age patterns of first births seen in the Southern European and AngloAmerican family-policy regimes contrast with educationally-homogeneous changes across birth cohorts seen in the study's two 'universalistic' countries, Norway and France.

In the context of the prospective increase in the numbers of older adults in Europe and of conflicting findings regarding recent disability trends, the present study uses cross-sectional data from four waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), covering the period 2004–2013, and aims at the assessment of trends in disability by sex and broad age group (50–64 and 65 and over) for the ten countries participating in all waves, based on four different measures: limitations in activities of daily living (ADLs), limitations in instrumental ADLs, mobility difficulties and the Global Activity Limitation Indicator. The analysis uses logistic regression models adjusted for age and, subsequently, also for chronic conditions. The findings indicate improvements both in mild/moderate activity restrictions and in functional limitations for several countries, especially among men and women aged 65 and over. Regarding severe disability (ADLs) there is mostly a lack of any significant trend and only a few declines. In several instances, the observed trends are linked to changes in chronic conditions; significant improvements net of chronic conditions are found mainly in Sweden but also in the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Italy and France. Overall, the estimated trends often differentiate by country, age group and sex while they depend upon the specificities of the measures used in the analysis.

Self-rated health (SRH) is a multidimensional measure, predictive of morbidity and mortality. Comparative studies of determinants, however, are rare due to a lack of comparable cross-national data. This paper contributes towards filling in this gap, using data for persons aged 50 or higher in 11 European countries from the SHARE study (2004). The analysis aims at identifying key elements composing SRH using multinomial logistic regression models. In addition, the homogeneity of associations across populations is assessed. The findings indicate that education, depression, chronic conditions, mobility difficulties, somatic symptoms and levels of physical activity constitute important components of SRH; ADLs and obesity, on the other hand, are not significant and IADLs are important only in a few countries. All these associations point to the expected direction and are homogeneous across countries. However, demographic factors, age and gender, though significant in many countries have divergent associations. Effects of smoking also differentiate between southern and northern Europe.