Fertility developments in Norway and Sweden since the early 1960s

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of recent trends in childbearing in neighboring Norway and Sweden. We use indexes produced by applying indirect standardization to register data of these two countries in order to describe and contrast their fertility developments over the last four decades. Our indexes enable us to decompose overall fertility trends into birth-order specific components, and by combining the same kind of data from two countries we get a very accurate picture of various cross-country differences in fertility levels. We demonstrate how Swedish fertility has fluctuated relatively strongly during the whole period while Norwegian fertility has evolved more gradually, at least during the last two decades. A turnaround from decreasing to increasing levels of childbearing is evident in 1977 in both countries while a sudden shift to shorter birth intervals is specific to Sweden in the 1980s and contributed to its more spectacular increase in fertility during that decade.fertility, Norway, Sweden

A study on policies and practices in selected countries that encourage childbirth: the case of Sweden

Swedish family policies are not directly aimed at encouraging childbirth. Their main goal has rather been to support women’s labour-force participation and to promote gender equality. The focus is to strengthen individuals so that they are able to pursue their family and occupational tracks without being too strongly dependent on other individuals. The reconciliation of family and working life of women has been facilitated by (i) individual taxation, which makes it less attractive for couples to pursue gendered segregation of work and care, (ii) an income-replacement based parental-leave system, which gives women incentives to establish themselves in the labour market before considering childbirth, and (iii) subsidized child-care, which allows women to return to work after parental leave. Fertility has fluctuated during recent decades but, as in the other Nordic countries with a similar welfare-state setup, it has stayed well above the European average. The Swedish context clearly is conducive to such “highest-low” fertility. In this study, I show that institutional factors seem to be far more decisive than cultural ones in shaping childbearing behaviour, and demonstrate some specific impacts of family policies on childbearing dynamics.Sweden, fertility

Children’s experience of family disruption and family formation: evidence from 16 FFS countries

In this paper, we present a number of descriptive measures on children’s experiences of family disruption and family formation. We use data from the Fertility and Family Surveys of 15 European countries and corresponding data from the USA in order to find out what kind of family circumstances children are born into and which experiences they subsequently have of various family-transformation events of their mothers. Our presentation reveals some similarities but also striking differences in the family-demographic experience of children in different countries. USA stands out as one extreme case with its very high fraction of children born to a lone mother, with a higher probability for children to experience a union disruption of their parents than anywhere else, and with many children having the experience of living in a stepfamily. Italy stands out at the other end of the scale. Practically all children are here born to a married mother and very few of them experience a dissolution of their parents’ union before they turn 15. (AUTHOR)

Children's experience of family disruption and family formation: Evidence from 16 FFS countries

In this paper, we present a number of descriptive measures on children’s experience of family disruption and family formation. We use data from the Fertility and Family Surveys of 15 European countries and corresponding data from the USA in order to find out what kind of family circumstances children are born into and what experience they subsequently have of various family-transformation events of their mothers. Our presentation reveals some similarities but also striking differences in the family-demographic experience of children in different countries. The USA stands out as one extreme case with its very high proportion of children born to a lone mother, with a higher probability of children who experience a union disruption of their parents than anywhere else, and with many children having the experience of living in a stepfamily. Italy stands out at the other end of the scale. Practically all children here are born to a married mother and very few of them experience the dissolution of their parents’ union before they turn 15.children, Europe, family dynamics, USA

Selectivity in higher-order childbearing in Sweden

In this note, we present relative risks of giving birth for mothers with different numbers of children. We use Swedish register data and study the propensity to continue the childbearing beyond child number two. We pay special attention to births of those higher orders that are studied only rarely in conventional demographic analyses. As the parity increases to higher numbers, we expect to find some kind of selection so that the group of mothers increasingly consists of very birth prone women. For births after a fourth child, we indeed find such an effect in that the relative risk of giving birth to an additional child then increases with the birth order. In our intensity-regression models, we also check whether this selection effect of increasing birth risks can be picked up by the inclusion of a specific factor for unobserved heterogeneity in the mothers’ propensity to give birth. We find that the positive gradient in the propensity to give birth indeed disappears when such a factor is included into our model.Sweden, fertility, fertility measurements, selective forces

Childbearing developments in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from the 1970s to the 1990s: a comparison

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative overview of recent trends and patterns in childbearing in the three Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. We use indexes pro-duced by applying event-history techniques to register data of the three countries in order to describe and contrast fertility developments by birth order over the last three decades of the 20th century. By combining the same kind of data from three countries, we get a very accurate picture of various cross-country differences in fertility levels. We can determine to what extent developments in one country are specific to that country and to what extent they are part of a more general Nordic pattern of childbearing. We demonstrate how Swedish fertility has fluctuated relatively strongly during the whole period while Danish and Norwegian fertility have evolved more gradually. Nevertheless, trends in Norway and Sweden appear fairly synchronized. A turnaround from decreasing to increasing levels of childbearing is, for example, evident in 1977 in both Norway and Sweden. In Denmark, a similar turnaround occurs considerably later, in 1983. A shift to shorter birth intervals in Sweden during the 1980s is specific to that country and contributed to its stronger increase in fertility during that decade.Scandinavia, fertility

Demographic trends in Sweden

In the present note, we present the main features of recent trends in vital family-demographic behavior in Sweden. For this purpose, published indices of marriage, divorce, and childbearing risks by calendar year are updated by adding another two or three years of observation to our series. We demonstrate that the latest trend reversal in Swedish birth rates, which occurred at the end of the 1990s, continued to manifest itself in increasing propensities for childbearing during the early years of the 21st century. The rise pertains to all birth orders. Marriage propensities showed an increase as well, however, to a large extent expressed in a short-term development that was prevalent at the turn of the millennium. The previous long-term trend of rising divorce risks leveled off during the first two years of the new century.fertility, fertility trends, nuptiality, nuptiality trends, Sweden

Childbearing patterns of foreign-born women in Sweden

In this paper, we present an investigation of patterns in childbearing among foreign-born women in Sweden from the early 1960s and onwards. It is performed in a similar way as a previous study by the author who analyzed childbearing patterns of Swedish-born women in that country by applying event-history techniques to population-register data. We base our study on the longitudinal information on childbearing and migration of 446.000 women born abroad who had ever lived in Sweden before the end of 1999. We display period trends in fertility by birth order for some aggregated groups of foreign-born women and find that developments over time have been quite similar for Swedish- and foreign-born women but that there exist important differences in levels of childbearing intensities between women stemming from different countries. When we examine patterns in childbearing by time since migration to Sweden, we find that such differences in most cases are due to the fact that immigrants tend to display higher levels of childbearing shortly after immigration. We conclude that migration and family building in many cases are interrelated processes and that it is always important to account for time since migration when fertility of immigrants is studied. (AUTHOR)Sweden

A review of policies and practices related to the 'highest-low' fertility of Sweden

This article reviews research on the role social and family policies play for fertility in Sweden. Swedish family policies are not directly aimed at encouraging childbirth. Their main goal has rather been to support women's participation in the labour force and to promote gender equality. They focus on enabling individuals to pursue their family and occupational pathways without being too dependent on other persons. The following measures have helped women to reconcile family and working life: individual taxation and individual-based socialsecurity systems, which make gendered segregation of work and care less attractive for couples; an income replacement-based parental-leave system, which gives women incentives to establish themselves on the labour market before considering childbirth; and subsidised child care, which allows women to return to work after parental leave. Fertility has fluctuated during recent decades but--as in the other Nordic countries with similar welfare state setups -it has remained well above the European average. The Swedish institutional context clearly is conducive to such 'highest-low' fertility. My review documents the importance of institutional factors in shaping childbearing behaviour and demonstrates some specific impacts of family policies on demographic behaviour.

Childbearing dynamics of couples in a universalistic welfare state

This article studies childbearing dynamics by labor-market status of co-residing parents in Sweden. We apply event-history techniques to longitudinal register data on the life histories of foreign-born mothers from ten different countries and the partners to these women, as well as to a sample of Swedish-born mothers and their partners. The context is a universalistic welfare state geared towards gender and social equality where formal social rights are largely independent of a person’s civil status, citizenship, and country of origin. We investigate the extent to which the associations of parents’ labor-market status with childbearing in Sweden differ between women and men and by country of origin. We find that the patterns of association are fairly similar on both of these individual dimensions. As measured by the way the labor-market activity of parents is related to their subsequent childbearing, we find evidence of equality by gender and at least some evidence of integration of immigrants into the dynamics of Swedish society.fertility, immigrants, labor-market status, Sweden