1 / 22

The Impact of the Great Recession on Fertility in Europe

The Impact of the Great Recession on Fertility in Europe. Anna Matysiak 1 – Tomáš Sobotka 1 – Daniele Vignoli 2 1 Wittgenstein Centre (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography/Austrian Academy of Sciences

gjoe
Download Presentation

The Impact of the Great Recession on Fertility in Europe

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. The Impact of the Great Recessionon Fertility in Europe Anna Matysiak1 – Tomáš Sobotka1– Daniele Vignoli2 1Wittgenstein Centre (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography/Austrian Academy of Sciences 2University of Florence, DiSIA – Department of Statistics, Informatics, Applications

  2. Changes in TFR in 2000-12(13),main European regions Source: Own computations based on Eurostat 2013 & national statistical offices

  3. Birth timing: accelerated postponement? Changes in age-specific fertility three years before (2005-8) and three years into the recession (2008-11) Source: Own computations based on Eurostat 2013 & national statistical offices

  4. Why and how is the recent recession likely to have affected fertility? • Massive unemployment in some countries • Strongly affects young adults, further exacerbates the previous trend of their rising economic and employment uncertainty • Delayed home leaving, econ. independence (Aassve et al. 2012) • Rise in the share of NEETS & workless households • Falling incomes, rise in negative equity on housing (mortgages “under water”), foreclosures (US) • Massive cuts in government budgets, also for family support (double-dip effect on fertility?) • Prolonged duration of the recession; loss of hope in the future (Southern Europe) Source: OECD 2014: Society at a Glance 2014. The crisis and its aftermath

  5. Past research • The effect of unemployment is unclear and depends on whether unemployment is measured at individual level or aggregate level • Aggregate level unemployment usually depresses fertility (Simó Noguera et al. 2005, Berkowitz King 2005, Aaberge et al. 2005: 150, Adsera 2005, 2011, Neels et al. 2012, Currie and Schwandt 2014), the effects of individual unemployment are less clear • The effects are sex- and age-specific and differentiated by social status / education (Kreyenfeld 2009, Pailhe and Solaz 2012, Neels et al. 2012, Currie and Schwandt 2014) • Other aggregate-level factors found important in some studies: GDP change, consumer confidence, housing foreclosure rate, self-employment rate, fixed-term contracts

  6. Limits of previous research • Only few studies on the effects of the recent recession on fertility in Europe (Goldstein et al. 2011, overview by Eurostat / Lanzieri 2013) • Lack of suitable (panel) data for sound multi-country studies • Little or no use of regional data • US: wider range of suitable surveys & research underway to study wide-ranging effect of the Great Recession on families (e.g., Guzzo 2012, Cherlin et al. 2013)

  7. Aims, data, methods

  8. Goals Initial aim: Studying the impact of age, parity, education and aggregate-level conditions on first and second births NUTS-2 regions; EU-SILC • Data problems, especially in the recession period (2011)

  9. Goals Initial aim: Studying the impact of age, parity, education and aggregate-level conditions on first and second births NUTS-2 regions; EU-SILC • Data problems, especially in the recession period (2011) Revised aim: Using “macro” data in 2000-12 for NUTS-2 regions to study the impact of aggregate-level employment conditions on fertility change • Main contribution: using recent data covering extended period of the recession, using regions as a main unit • Main drawback: losing individual-level dimension.

  10. Data • Coverage: 2000-12: EU, Switzerland, Norway; 276 NUTS-2 units • Fertility: Age-specific fertility rates, cumulated into age groups (15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-49) and Total Fertility Rates • Employment conditions: • Unemployment rates (ages 15-24, 25-64, 20-64), • long-term unemployment (% of unemployed), • % self-employed, • young adults NEETs (not in employment, education, training, age 18-24) • Other variables considered: Regional GDP change (not available > 2010), % with higher education (non-stationary), indicators on poverty, social exclusion (based on EU-SILC, high % missing, unstable);

  11. Method • Time series tested for stationarity: • Unemployment rates (UNMP), ASFR(20-24), ASFR(30-34) – first difference stationary • Remaining fertility indicators, Long-term unemployment (LTUNMP), NEETs, Self-employment (SELFEMPL) – level stationary • Random-effects linear regression (regions nested within countries) with a time trend (3 periods) • Dependent variable: ΔTFRt or ΔASFRt • Explanatory variables: • ΔUNMPt-1 for ages 20-64, 15-24 or 25+ • ΔLTUNMPt-1 • Δ NEETt-1 • Δ SELFEMPLt-1

  12. Main results

  13. All countries & regions combined How a 10 pp. annual increase in • unemployment rate • the share of long-term unemployed • in the % of young adult NEETs • in the % self-employed predicted to change fertility rates?

  14. All countries & regions combined Effects on TFR Effects on age-specific fertility Insignificant results (p>0.1) shown by patterned fill

  15. Country groups: effects ofunemployment and long-term unemployment Effects of 10pp increase on fertility (TFR & by age)

  16. Country groups: effects of NEETs and self-employment Effects of 10pp increase on fertility (TFR & by age)

  17. Effect of the period: 2009-12 Additional (unexplained) period effect on the observed TFR: 2009-12 compared with 2005-8

  18. “Predicting” TFR change since 2008 How much of the observed TFR change since 2008 “predicted” by our recession indicators?Unemployment + self-employment + NEETS Explaining the difference:Other important factors omitted? Need for an improved model fit?

  19. TFR change in Latvia 2007-13 How much of the observed annual TFR change “predicted” by our recession indicators?Unemloyment + self-employment + NEETS The model predicts well fertility reversals, but not the magnitude of changes

  20. Conclusions • Clear effect of the recession on fertility • Reflected both in unemployment and less standard proxies of economic uncertainty, also additional negative effect of the period 2009-12 • The role of uncertainty indicators varies by age, country groups / institutional settings (e.g. the importance of NEETs and self-employment in Southern Europe)

  21. Future plans • Extend the analysis by introducing country-level covariates and regional deviations from the country levels • Considering other indicators of uncertainty at regional level (e.g. temporaryemployment) • Elaborating the model, trying different specifications & interactions, conducting sensitivity tests

  22. A. Matysiak and T. Sobotka’s research was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC Grant agreement n° 284238 (EURREP). EURREP website: www.eurrep.org

More Related