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We test in how far women’s economic participation can be associated with physical and/or sexual domestic violence against women in Turkey, by mobilizing the Survey “National Research on Domestic Violence against Women in Turkey” (wave 2014). Several studies found that economically active women have a similar, if not a higher risk of experiencing domestic violence than inactive women in Turkey, as well as in other emerging countries. We challenge these findings for Turkey by distinguishing between formal and informal labor market activities as well as between women who do not work because their partner does not allow them to and women who are inactive for other reasons. To increase the control for endogeneity in this cross-sectional setting, we apply an IV-approach based on cluster averages. We find that, while overall employment for women cannot be associated with a lower risk of experiencing domestic violence for women in Turkey, those women who participate in the formal labor market and those women who contribute at least the same as their partner to household income are less exposed to physical and/or sexual domestic violence than their counterparts. Distinguishing between formal and informal employment is thus important when it comes to investigate the association between women’s economic activity and domestic violence. This is especially the case in a country like Turkey, which currently undergoes important socio-economic changes and where women in formal and informal employment have therefore very different socioeconomic backgrounds.

BACKGROUND Measures of fertility by level of female education are currently only available for cohorts that have already completed childbearing age. The focus on cohorts whose fertility decisions were made in the past is problematic when the objective is to better understand which specific groups within European countries are currently the most affected by low and/or declining fertility. OBJECTIVE In this article we provide more timely measures of the educational gradient of fertility for Europe by quantifying it for those cohorts that are currently of childbearing age (ages 15 to 49) for most European countries. METHODS To measure period fertility by education for 24 EU and 4 non-EU countries in Europe, we use data from the European Union's Survey of Income and Living Conditions, EUSILC (Eurostat 2020). A semi-retrospective approach is used to observe the parityspecific fertility behavior of cohorts that are of childbearing age, while at the same time recording the educational level correctly. Bayesian statistics allow us to obtain credible intervals for the age-, education-, and parity-specific birth probabilities for each country. These birth probabilities are then combined into a multi-state life table in order to obtain parity-specific and total birth intensities by education. A post-stratification of birth probabilities allows consistency with national fertility estimates, enabling international comparisons of specific groups (e.g., highly educated women) or of particular dimensions of fertility behavior (e.g., childlessness). RESULTS Our analytical set-up reveals whether there are significant differences in fertility behavior between education groups in each European country and how these differentials vary between European countries. More precisely, we answer the question of whether, when all birth orders are combined, heterogeneity in period fertility behavior is greater among the higher- or the lower-educated across Europe. In addition, we show for which parity the heterogeneity between education groups is the largest. CONCLUSIONS Even if low-educated women have the highest period fertility levels in almost all covered European countries, the educational gradient is not always negative. In one-third of European countries, period fertility levels in 2010 exhibit a U-shaped pattern, with the middle-educated having the lowest fertility. The diversity in period fertility levels among highly educated women in Europe is due to the transitions to first and second childbirth of highly educated women being higher in some countries than in others, while higherorder childbirths exhibit a more negative educational gradient across Europe. CONTRIBUTION By delivering a new method for measuring the educational gradient of fertility for women who are of childbearing age rather than for women who have already completed their reproductive years, our research enables a timely analysis of within-country differentials of period fertility behavior.

In the light of the recent reversal of fertility trends in several highly developed countries, we investigate the impact of economic development and its components on fertility in OECD countries from 1960 to 2007. We find that the strong negative correlation between GDP per capita does no longer hold for high levels of per capita economic output; the relation and fertility instead seems to turn into positive from a certain threshold level of economic development on. Survival of an inverse J-shaped association between GDP per capita and fertility is found when controlling for birth postponement, omitted variable bias, non-stationarity and endogeneity. However, gaps between actual and predicted fertility rates show implicitly the importance of factors influencing fertility above and over per capita income. By decomposing GDP per capita into several components, we identify female employment as co-varying factor for the fertility rebound that can be observed in several highly developed countries. Pointing out to important differences with regard to the compatibility between childbearing and female employment, our results suggest that fertility increases are likely to be small if economic development is not accompanied by institutional changes that improve parents' opportunities to combine work and family life.

This paper explores, theoretically and empirically, the role of the declining gender gap in education in the demographic transition and the emergence of modern economic growth. Specifically, the paper develops a model in the tradition of the unified growth theory that captures and interconnects the key empirical features of the demographic transition, the decline in gender gap in education, and the transition to sustained growth across less-developed economies. The mechanism on which the model relies comprises several interplaying components. First, technological progress reduces housework time through the creation and diffusion of labor-saving home appliances, which frees women’s time for childrearing, resulting in an initial increase in fertility, as well as in labor-force participation. Second, due to the possibly higher female labor-force participation as housework time decreases, households invest relatively more in their daughters’ education, given its higher return following the initial imbalance. This improves gender equality in education and increases the opportunity cost of childrearing, which leads to a subsequent decrease in fertility. Third and finally, the decrease in the education gender gap through higher investment in daughters’ education increases average human capital, thus accelerating technological progress in turn. This reinforcing loop results in the transition to a new fertility regime and accelerated economic growth. We provide the empirical confirmation of the model’s predictions using data from developing countries in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

We examine how strongly fertility trends respond to family policies in OECD countries. In the light of the recent fertility rebound observed in several OECD countries, we empirically test the impact of different family policy instruments on fertility, using macro panel data from 18 OECD countries that spans the years 1982–2007. Our results confirm that each instrument of the family policy package (paid leave, childcare services and financial transfers) has a positive influence on average, suggesting that the combination of these forms of support for working parents during their children’s early years is likely to facilitate parents’ choice to have children. Policy levers do not all have the same weight, however: in-cash benefits covering childhood after the year of childbirth and the provision of childcare services for children under age three have a larger potential influence on fertility than leave entitlements and benefits granted around childbirth. Moreover, we find that the influence of each policy measure varies across different family policy contexts. Our findings are robust after controlling for birth postponement, endogeneity, time-lagged fertility reactions and for different aspects of national contexts, such as female labour market participation, unemployment, labour market protection and the proportion of children born out of marriage.

Background: This article questions the demographic consequences of birth postponement in Europe. Objective: Starting from the fact that there is no obvious link between the timing of first births and fertility levels in Europe, we find that under certain circumstances, birth postponement potentially facilitates rather than impedes starting a family. Methods: We apply a synthetic cohort approach and distinguish between different socioeconomic determinants of the timing of first births by using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Data is compiled specifically to reduce endogeneity and to eliminate structure effects. Results: We find that the probability of becoming a mother is higher for women who postpone first childbirth due to education and career investment than for women who postpone due to unrealized labour market integration. Conclusions: Educated and economically active women certainly postpone first childbirth in comparison to women who are less educated and who are not working, but they end up with a higher probability of starting a family. Contribution: The article contributes to the academic discussion of circumstances that may lead to birth postponement resulting in higher fertility for younger cohorts in European countries.

BACKGROUND The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) are increasingly used in demographic analysis, due to their large country coverage, the availability of harmonized socioeconomic measures, and the possibility to merge partners. However, so far there exists no comprehensive analysis of the representativeness of the fertility behavior reported by EU-SILC. OBJECTIVE This paper quantifies the quality of periodic fertility measures in EU-SILC. METHODS We compare periodic fertility measures obtained with EU-SILC to unbiased measures from the Human Fertility Database (HFD) for several European countries, by applying a cross-sectional perspective. RESULTS We show that EU-SILC measures of periodic fertility are biased downward, mainly due to attrition, while births of order one for ages 20‒29 are particularly underreported. However, we find no evidence of socioeconomic differentials in attrition. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that for the majority of European countries, EU-SILC can be used for the analysis of childbearing behavior when respecting the measures of precaution mentioned in this article.

In this study, we ask whether the U-shaped relationship between life satisfaction and age is flatter for individuals who are partnered. An analysis of cross-sectional EU-SILC data indicates that the decline in life satisfaction from the teens to the fifties is almost four times larger for non-partnered than for partnered individuals, whose life satisfaction essentially follows a slight downward trajectory with age. However, the same analysis applied to three panel datasets (BHPS, SOEP and HILDA) reveals a U-shape for both groups, albeit somewhat flatter for the partnered than for the non-partnered individuals. We suggest that the difference between the cross-sectional and the panel results reflects compositional effects: i.e., there is a significant shift of the relatively dissatisfied out of marriage in mid-life. These compositional effects tend to flatten the U-shape in age for the partnered individuals in the cross-sectional data.

This introduction to the 2021 special issue of the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research explores demographic perspectives on human wellbeing across time and space. While the idea of relating demographic parameters to wellbeing has been around for a while, a more concrete research agenda on this topic has only recently gained momentum. Reviewing the research presented in this volume, we show how existing theoretical concepts and methodological tools in demography can be used to make substantial advances in the study of wellbeing. We also touch upon the many challenges researchers face in defining and measuring wellbeing, with the most important debate being about whether the focus should be on objective or subjective measures. The studies discussed here define wellbeing as health and mortality; as income, education or other resources; as happiness or life satisfaction; or as a combination thereof. They cover wellbeing in historical and contemporary populations in high- and low-income countries, and also point out important barriers to research on wellbeing, including the lack of good quality data in many regions. Finally, we highlight the value of considering population heterogeneities when studying wellbeing in order to identify population subgroups who are likely to fall behind, which can have important policy implications.

A common problem when using panel data is that an individual's history is incompletely known at the first wave. We show that multiple imputation, the method commonly used for data that are missing due to non-response, may also be used to impute these data that are \"missing by design.\" Our application is to a woman's duration of fulltime employment as a predictor of her risk of first birth. We multiply-impute employment status two years earlier to \"incomplete\" cases for which employment status is observed only in the most recent year. We then pool these \"completed\" cases with the \"complete\" cases to derive regression estimates for the full sample. Relative to not being fulltime employed, having been fulltime-employed for two or more years is a positive and statistically significant predictor of childbearing whereas having just entered fulltime employment is not. The fulltime-employment duration parameter variances are about one third lower in the multiply-imputed sample than in the complete-data sample, and only in the multiply-imputed sample does the employment-duration coefficient attain statistical significance.A common problem when using panel data is that an individual's history is incompletely known at the first wave. We show that multiple imputation, the method commonly used for data that are missing due to non-response, may also be used to impute these data that are \"missing by design.\" Our application is to a woman's duration of fulltime employment as a predictor of her risk of first birth. We multiply-impute employment status two years earlier to \"incomplete\" cases for which employment status is observed only in the most recent year. We then pool these \"completed\" cases with the \"complete\" cases to derive regression estimates for the full sample. Relative to not being fulltime employed, having been fulltime-employed for two or more years is a positive and statistically significant predictor of childbearing whereas having just entered fulltime employment is not. The fulltime-employment duration parameter variances are about one third lower in the multiply-imputed sample than in the complete-data sample, and only in the multiply-imputed sample does the employment-duration coefficient attain statistical significance.