In this paper we investigate the changing impact of union formation on the transition to parenthood in West Germany and Italy using FFS data. We first draw attention to overall cohort patterns in union formation and first births and then describe the mutual relationships between union formation,...

Due to its manifold impact on the environment private car use represents an important dimension of en-vironmental behaviour in industrialized countries. Obviously, private car use is related to demographic characteris-tics of households such as the life-cycle stage and the living arrangement the...

Industrialization allowed the industrialized world of today to escape from a regime characterized by low economic and population growth and to enter a regime of hihg economic and population growth. To explain this transion of regime, we construct a two-sector growth model with endogenous...

This paper analyses the impact of economic resources on the likelihood of out-of-wedlock childbearing and the consequent family formation behaviour after such an event. The analysis is undertaken by specifying a multi-state, multi-spell duration model, with dynamic interactions. The results...

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The consequences of population ageing for the health care system and health care costs may be less severe than is commonly assumed. Hospital discharge data from Germany’s largest health insurer (AOK) show that the care of patients during their last year of life is less costly if they die at an...

Aspects of below-replacement fertility have long been debated among academics. Analyzing 437 popular newspaper and magazine articles from eleven developed countries during 1998-99, this study documents and investigates the corresponding public debate about low fertility. Despite the diversity in...

When German unification was accompanied by a rapid decline in aggregate fertility rates, researchers particularly assigned high unemployment rates a dominant role for changes in fertility behavior. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we investigate changes in the timing of first birth in...

This paper explores the implications of possible bias cancellation using Rubin-style matching methods with complete and incomplete data. After reviewing the naïve causal estimator and the approaches of Heckman and Rubin to the causal estimation problem, we show how missing data can complicate...

There is a general belief that female educational attainment has a delaying effect on the age at first birth. In this paper we argue that the validity of this hypothesis relies on at least three prerequisites. First, that child rearing and employment is incompatible. Second, that a withdrawal...