Nearly every European country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using...

This document describes the standardization process of the Harmonized Histories. The Harmonized Histories is a comparative database of rich reproductive and union histories from surveys conducted in a number of countries in Europe. Given that birth and union data has been collected in a number...

In non-experimental research, data on the same population process may be collected simultaneously by more than one instrument. For example, in the present application, two sample surveys and a population birth registration system all collect observations on first births by age and year, while...

The paper provides an extensive descriptive analysis and comparison of recent trends in union formation and fertility in Bulgaria and Russia. The analysis is based on data from the Generation and Gender Surveys (GGS) carried out in 2004. We generate a large number of single- and multi-decrement...

Using retrospective union, birth, and education histories that span 1980-2003, this study investigates nonmarital childbearing in post-Soviet Russia. We employ a combination of methods to decompose fertility rates by union status and analyze the processes that lead to a nonmarital birth. We find...

This paper investigates the role of states and regions in shaping spatial patterns of non-marital fertility in Europe since 1960 using a dataset of 497 European subnational regions and smaller countries. Almost all regions registered substantial nonmarital fertility increases over the last 50...

Maternity leave policies are designed to ease the tension between women’s employment and fertility, but whether they actually play such a role remains unclear. We analyze the individual-level effects of maternity leave on employment outcomes and on second conception rates among Russian...

Childbearing within cohabitation has gained considerable ground in recent decades, but existing explanations for this development are not coherent. Proponents of the Second Demographic Transition framework interpret it rather as a pattern of progress driven by processes such as emancipation from...

Studies that have investigated the role of unemployment in childbearing decisions have often provided conflicting results. We argue that many of the inconsistencies of prior research may be attributed to a neglect of group-specific differences in behavior. In this study, we examine how the...

This paper uses recently available data from linked pension and employment registers for Germany, which contain complete fertility histories of women as well as longitudinal information of firm-specific characteristics where these women have been employed. It is examined how occupational sex...