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This article provides new measures allowing comparing within-country differences in current fertility behavior in Europe. By mobilizing data from the European Union’s Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we measure the educational gradient of female period fertility for a large set of European countries. A semi-retrospective approach serves to observe fertility behavior of cohorts that are currently at 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 leads us to be consistent with national fertility estimates, enabling international comparisons for specific groups (e.g. highly educated women) or for particular dimensions of fertility behavior (e.g. childlessness). This analytical set-up allows us to reveal if there are significant differences between education groups in fertility behavior within each European country and in how far these differentials vary between European countries. More precisely, we answer the question if –all birth orders combined– heterogeneity in period fertility behavior is larger among the higher or the lower educated across Europe. In addition, we show for which parity the heterogeneity between education groups is the largest. This study is based on data from Eurostat, EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions [2011,2012,2013]. The responsibility for all conclusions drawn from the data lies entirely with the authors.

December 2019. Revised August 2020, 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.

The literature on fertility in high-income countries indicates that employment has a more negative, or less positive, effect for women than for men, and that a country’s egalitarian gender norms and family-friendly policies, and a woman’s own higher-educational attainment, reduce these gender differences. We re-evaluate these findings for couples’ first births in 24 countries in the 2004-2017 waves of the European Union’s Statistics of Income and Living Conditions panel survey, incorporating predictor variables for annual employed hours up to three years before the year of exposure to first birth. We find a strongly positive female full-time employment effect that is pervasive across education and country-region groups. We find positive full-time employment effects for both women and their male partners, such that first-birth probabilities are highest when both are full-time employed, but that the magnitude of the full-time employment effect is greater for the woman. We attribute the novelty of our findings to the more recent period that we analyze, to the large set of countries that we include in our analysis, and to our observing women’s employment lagged to at least one year before the year of exposure to conception and over either one or two full years’ duration.

Le présent rapport se fixe un objectif pour le moins ambitieux. Il s’agit de donner un aperçu de ce que nous savons en tant que scientifiques au sujet des dimensions développementales qui, dans la petite enfance, sont particulièrement prédictrices de l’accomplissement académique et du bien-être futur, de l’effet des modes d’accueil formels sur le développement et des barrières à leur accès, ainsi que des interventions qui peuvent être faites auprès des parents pour accompagner leur développement, avec toujours une attention particulière aux impacts sur les inégalités de destin.

Le présent rapport se fixe un objectif pour le moins ambitieux. Il s’agit de donner un aperçu de ce que nous savons en tant que scientifiques au sujet des dimensions développementales qui, dans la petite enfance, sont particulièrement prédictrices de l’accomplissement académique et du bien-être futur, de l’effet des modes d’accueil formels sur le développement et des barrières à leur accès, ainsi que des interventions qui peuvent être faites auprès des parents pour accompagner leur développement, avec toujours une attention particulière aux impacts sur les inégalités de destin.

We propose a unified growth model linking technology, education investment across genders, and fertility to explain, for 20th century developing countries: (i) the demographic transition, (ii) the improvement in gender equality in education, and (iii) the transition to sustained growth. The mechanism comprises three components. First, technological progress reduces housework time - through the creation and diffusion of labor-saving home appliances - freeing women's time for childrearing and labor-force participation. Second, as housework time decreases, households invest relatively more in their daughters' education given its higher return - due to the initial imbalance - thus improving gender equality in education and increasing the opportunity cost of childrearing. Third, the narrowing of the education gender gap increases average human capital, accelerating technological progress. 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.

This article provides a comprehensive overview of how the funding of consumption at different ages is shared between the State, the individual and the family. By applying the National Transfer Accounts method for France, we developed a unique database to analyze how the funding of consumption is secured at each age, how its structure has changed over time, and how the consumption is financed in France compared to that of a set of other developed countries. We find that the elderly in France finance themselves increasingly by their own means, even though public funding of this age group remains significant in France in comparison to other countries. Conversely, the young rely more and more on the State to finance their consumption. Within our sample, France is the country where the young benefited most from public transfers.

Ouvrages recensés Kreyenfeld, Michaela, Konietzka Dirk (eds.), 2017, Childlessness in Europe: Contexts, Causes, and Consequences • Analysé par Angela Greulich, p. 156-158 A. Gotman : Pas d’enfant. La volonté de ne pas engendrer • Analysé par Laurent Toulemon, p. 159-161 A. Schmitz : The Structure of Digital Partner Choice. A Bourdieusian Perspective • Analysé par Milan Bouchet-Valat, p. 162-164 V. Aubourg, G.EID (dir.) : Famille et temps. Modification des liens conjugaux et parentaux • Analysé par Christophe Giraud, p. 165-166 F. Maillochon : La passion du mariage • Analysé par Gaëlle Meslay, p. 167-170 P. Razzell : Mortality, Marriage and Population Growth in England, 1550-1850 • Analysé par Jean-Marc Rohrbasser, p. 170

This article gives evidence that differences in completed fertility among European countries emerge mainly as a result of fewer women having a second child in low fertility countries and analyses the impact of women's employment on the probability of second child birth. With longitudinal data from the European Survey of Income and Living conditions (EU-SILC) and aggregated data from the OECD Family Database, we find that, on average within European countries, women in stable employment have a significantly higher probability of second childbirth than inactive or unemployed women. However, while female employment generally favours a transition to second childbirth in high-fertility countries, the impact is heterogenous in low-fertility countries. This points to a work-life balance conflict that is stronger in low-fertility countries. To address this issue, multilevel models are run to compare the role of various policies: not surprisingly, they show that childcare policies – which are the most effective policies to secure women's employment – are the most likely to encourage couples to enlarge their families and that the positive effect of stable employment on fertility is reinforced by this policy.