Fertility and family ties in times of demographic changes

Résumé

This thesis investigates how big economic and demographic changes over the past century influence fertility dynamics with a particular focus on family ties.The first chapterinvestigates the role of type of partnership in shaping fertility behaviours. Comparing two orthogonally different countries like Norway and Spain, we analyse differences in fertility behaviours between cohabiting and married couples in both countries. For Norway, we find a significant association between selection into either partnership type and fertility, whereas for Spain, a newcomer to cohabitation, we find a significant association between fertility and selection into marriage. The second chapter analyses the role of the so called “bean-pole” family on fertility. It investigates whether would-be grandparents’ propensity to care for their grandchildren influences their transition into parenthood.Considering national context, I estimate distinct models for different groups of countries. Comparison across 11 countries from the first two waves of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe reveal that grandparental childcare propensity has a positive and significant effect on the transition into parenthood for both pronatalist (Belgium, France) and protraditional countries(Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland). The third chapter focuses on grandparental childcare provision. By using an instrumental variable approach, it explores the effect of grandparental childcare, during the first year of the first born, on the risk of a second birth transition among UK couples.The analysis is carried out using the first five waves of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). Results show a positive and significant effect of grandparental childcare on the risk of second birth. This effect is slightly weakened by level of income.