Didn’t Plan One but got One

Autor(en)

Zuzanna Brzozowska, Isabella Buber-Ennser, Bernhard Riederer

Abstrakt

The realisation rates of short-term childbearing intentions are known to be consistently lower in post-socialist countries than in the rest of Europe. However, the East–West differences in the outcomes of intentions to postpone or forego (further) childbearing have not been previously examined. We employ two panel waves of the Generations and Gender Survey in six countries (three from Eastern and three from Western Europe), and, based on the short- and long-term fertility intentions expressed by respondents at the first survey wave, we classify the births occurring between two waves as intended, sooner-than-intended, or unintended. We find that in our study population of non-teenage respondents who had the same partner at both survey waves and a child between the two survey waves, between around 10% (Western European countries) and 30% (Eastern European countries) experienced an unintended or a sooner-than-intended birth. The East–West divide is largely driven by the share of unintended parents which is clearly higher in the post-socialist countries. However, the geographical pattern fades away once we control for the anticipated costs of having a child. Our study gives insight into East–West differences in attitudes to childbearing and into how they affect reproductive behaviour. It also offers methodological improvements of cross-national panel surveys designed to examine childbearing intentions that would allow for a more accurate assessment of childbearing intendedness.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Soziologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW)

Journal

European Journal of Population

Band

37

Seiten

727–767

Anzahl der Seiten

41

ISSN

0168-6577

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-021-09584-2

Publikationsdatum

07-2021

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

504006 Demographie, 504011 Familienforschung

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Demography, Sociology and Political Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/e2323709-97ef-4f29-94c5-5b0bdb60c679