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Family-Level Continuities in Childbearing in Low-Fertility Societies

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Abstract

A number of studies of populations in earlier generations haveshown that fertility patterns of parents and children arepositively correlated, although the relationship is frequentlydesignated as `weak'. Models that may be used to investigate theways in which patterns of demographic behaviour persist betweengenerations are considered. The principal frameworks used arefitting of simulation and multi-level models. The data sourcesutilised are the 1986 ISSP co-ordinated series of surveys onsocial networks, the country files for Italy, Norway and Polandfrom the UNECE co-ordinated FFS programme, and the US NationalSurvey of Families and Households which contains particularlyrich information on the experience of demographic events acrossdifferent generations. We find that the relationship betweenfertility of successive generations is becoming stronger withtime, and that it is now of a comparable order of magnitude towidely-used conventional covariates such as educational level. This intergenerational relationship cannot be explained bydifferential fertility across socio-economic groups. Reasons whythe strength of the relationship has been understated and theimplications of results from such analyses are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Population Studies, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Michael Murphy

  2. Population Studies, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Duolao Wang

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  1. Michael Murphy
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  2. Duolao Wang
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Correspondence to Michael Murphy.

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Murphy, M., Wang, D. Family-Level Continuities in Childbearing in Low-Fertility Societies. European Journal of Population 17, 75–96 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010744314362

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