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Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Since 2010, the Nordic countries have experienced substantial fertility decline. This was unexpected, as these countries have well-established systems of family support policies and they did not experience a fertility shock in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 economic recession like many other European countries. Previous studies paid little attention to the spatial dimension of this unexpected fertility change, despite evidence of large spatial variation in fertility. This paper aims to close this gap through a spatial perspective and deepen our understanding of how Nordic fertility change varies by economic and social contexts. We apply advanced spatial panel models on data for 1,099 municipalities covering Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Next to analyzing total fertility rates, we also compare the relevance of economic and social contexts for spatial fertility variation at younger or older ages. We note distinct differences by levels of urbanization and differing trends between the age groups. We also find that measures of unemployment and union stability are associated with lower levels of fertility across space and time, while support for conservative parties is related to higher fertility. Age-specific analyses highlighted that economic conditions are more relevant for fertility variation under age thirty than over age thirty. Overall, our analysis provides support for the view that both economic and social factors are highly relevant for understanding spatial variation in the Nordic fertility decline. Given the strong spatial component in Nordic fertility change, policy initiatives would also benefit from a spatial dimension to effectively address fertility change. Publisher PDF

Untersucht wurden die räumlichen Einkommensunterschiede in Bayern im Kontext des in der bayerischen Verfassung und der Landesplanung verankerten Ziels gleichwertiger Lebensverhältnisse und Arbeitsbedingungen. Disparitäten der Einkommensverteilung spielen, unter Berücksichtigung räumlicher Kaufkraftunterschiede, als Messgröße gleichwertiger Lebensverhältnisse eine zentrale Rolle. Die in diesem Beitrag vorgestellte Analyse räumlicher Einkommensunterschiede nutzt konsistente Zeitreihendaten für die bayerischen Kreise im Zeitraum von 1991 bis 2018, die im Rahmen der volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnung ermittelt wurden. Anhand des Theil-Index kann für Bayern gezeigt werden, dass räumliche Disparitäten beim Primäreinkommen der Kreise durch Steuern und Sozialleistungen deutlich reduziert werden und allgemein in den letzten Jahrzehnten abgenommen haben. Dies gilt sowohl für Unterschiede zwischen und innerhalb von Regierungsbezirken wie auch für Unterschiede zwischen und innerhalb der nach dem siedlungsstrukturellen Kreistyp gruppierten Kreise, die den Urbanisierungsgrad abbilden. Eine Bereinigung um das regionale Mietpreisniveau reduziert die räumlichen Disparitäten des materiellen Lebensstandards weiter, wodurch großräumige interregionale Unterschiede an Bedeutung verlieren.

Population ageing is sometimes perceived as a threat. Demographic change, however, is not all doom and gloom, but is very diverse and can therefore also be shaped in many ways. Our look into the inner diversity of the changing population pyramids makes this clear. The depiction of the past 30 years in the selected pyramids impressively shows how the situation of different generations has changed with regard to important areas of life such as family, education, employment and mobility. The presentation of small-grained data for individual years of age allows a detailed insight into these developments.

Die Publikation beschäftigt sich mit ausgewählten Aspekten des demografischen Wandels. Am Beispiel von 13 Bevölkerungspyramiden, die nach unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Bildung, Erwerbstarbeit, Haushaltsform etc. aufgeschlüsselt sind, werden wesentliche demografische und gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen der letzten drei Jahrzehnte dargestellt.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic poses the risk of overburdening health care systems, and in particular intensive care units (ICUs). Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), ranging from wearing masks to (partial) lockdowns have been implemented as mitigation measures around the globe. However, especially severe NPIs are used with great caution due to their negative effects on the economy, social life and mental well-being. Thus, understanding the impact of the pandemic on ICU demand under alternative scenarios reflecting different levels of NPIs is vital for political decision-making on NPIs.ObjectiveThe aim is to support political decision-making by forecasting COVID-19-related ICU demand under alternative scenarios of COVID-19 progression reflecting different levels of NPIs. Substantial sub-national variation in COVID-19-related ICU demand requires a spatially disaggregated approach. This should not only take sub-national variation in ICU-relevant disease dynamics into account, but also variation in the population at risk including COVID-19-relevant risk characteristics (e.g. age), and factors mitigating the pandemic. The forecast provides indications for policy makers and health care stakeholders as to whether mitigation measures have to be maintained or even strengthened to prevent ICU demand from exceeding supply, or whether there is leeway to relax them.MethodsWe implement a spatial age-structured microsimulation model of the COVID-19 pandemic by extending the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) framework. The model accounts for regional variation in population age structure and in spatial diffusion pathways. In a first step, we calibrate the model by applying a genetic optimization algorithm against hospital data on ICU patients with COVID-19. In a second step, we forecast COVID-19-related ICU demand under alternative scenarios of COVID 19 progression reflecting different levels of NPIs. We apply the model to Germany and provide state-level forecasts over a 2-month period, which can be updated daily based on latest data on the progression of the pandemic.ResultsTo illustrate the merits of our model, we present here “forecasts” of ICU demand for different stages of the pandemic during 2020. Our forecasts for a quiet summer phase with low infection rates identified quite some variation in potential for relaxing NPIs across the federal states. By contrast, our forecasts during a phase of quickly rising infection numbers in autumn (second wave) suggested that all federal states should implement additional NPIs. However, the identified needs for additional NPIs varied again across federal states. In addition, our model suggests that during large infection waves ICU demand would quickly exceed supply, if there were no NPIs in place to contain the virus.ConclusionOur results provide evidence for substantial spatial variation in (1) the effect of the pandemic on ICU demand, and (2) the potential and need for NPI adjustments at different stages of the pandemic. Forecasts with our spatial age-structured microsimulation model allow to take this spatial variation into account. The model is programmed in R and can be applied to other countries, provided that reliable data on the number of ICU patients infected with COVID-19 are available at sub-national level.

Since 2010, some of the Nordic countries have experienced fertility declines down to unprecedented levels. Fertility decline in the Nordic countries was unexpected for most experts, considering that these countries were not heavily affected by the 2008 economic recession which was related to fertility declines in other European countries. Researchers have sought to understand why fertility is declining in these countries but have so far paid little attention to the spatial dimension of this process, despite evidence of large spatial variation of fertility. This paper contributes new understanding to the role of space in Nordic fertility changa and how the uncertainty perspective is related to spatial patterns of fertility. We apply advanced spatial panel models to data covering 1,099 municipalities in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden to separate out spatial variation and temporal variation. Our models use both economic (employment, income) and social (partnership dissolution, voting) measures of uncertainty to explore how uncertainty is related to fertility. Results show that fertility levels and trends by age vary substantially by level of urbanization. Differences in uncertainty by age appear essential to spatial variation – while social contexts are related to variation at all ages, economic measures are more related to fertility under age thirty than over age thirty. In addition, stability in fertility over age thirty seems to be an important buffer for the overall rate of total fertility decline, especially in rural municipalities.

During the German division, two culturally very similar populations were exposed to very disparate socioeconomic conditions, which converged again after 1989. The impact of healthcare and life circumstances on mortality differences can better be estimated when cultural explanations are widely neglectable.For the first time, we analyse harmonised cause-of-death data explicitly by age. Hereby, we can show which ages or birth cohorts were particularly affected by German division and reunification in their mortality and to which causes of death this is attributable.We harmonised the German cause-of-death statistics by applying an internationally standardised harmonisation process to account for differences and breaks in cause-of-death coding practices. We analysed the data using decomposition methods.During the 1980s, east-west disparities were increasing as progress in the reduction of cardiovascular mortality was much stronger in West Germany, notably at older ages. After 1989, East Germany was able to catch up to the west in many areas. This is especially true for elderly persons and women, while east-west disparities are still visible today, particularly among male adult cohorts (1950-1970) strongly affected by the East German transition crisis.The lower life expectancy of the East German population in the late 1980s was primarily caused by a slower pace of the cardiovascular revolution. The remaining present-day disparities are rather an aftermath of the East German transition crisis than direct aftereffects of the division.HINTERGRUND: Durch die deutsche Teilung wurden 2 kulturell sehr ähnliche Bevölkerungen sehr unterschiedlichen sozioökonomischen Bedingungen ausgesetzt, die sich nach 1989 wieder anglichen. Der Einfluss von Gesundheitsversorgung und Lebensumständen auf Sterblichkeitsunterschiede kann besser erfasst werden, wenn kulturelle Erklärungen weitgehend ausgeblendet werden können.Die Arbeit wertet harmonisierte Todesursachendaten erstmals detailliert nach Alter aus. Hierdurch kann aufgezeigt werden, welche Alter bzw. Geburtsjahrgänge besonders stark durch die deutsche Teilung und Wiedervereinigung in ihrer Mortalität beeinflusst wurden und auf welche Todesursachen dies zurückzuführen ist.Die deutschen Todesursachenstatistiken wurden einem international standardisierten Harmonisierungsverfahren unterzogen, um Unterschieden und Brüchen in der Todesursachencodierung Rechnung zu tragen. Die Daten wurden mit Dekompositionsmethoden analysiert.In den 1980er-Jahren stiegen die Ost-West-Unterschiede stark an, da Westdeutschland gerade in höheren Altern deutlich höhere Rückgänge bei der kardiovaskulären Mortalität erzielen konnte. Nach 1989 konnte Ostdeutschland in vielen Bereichen zum Westen aufholen. Dies gilt besonders für ältere Personen und Frauen, während gerade bei den stark von der ostdeutschen Transformationskrise betroffenen männlichen Geburtsjahrgängen (1950–1970) noch heute Ost-West-Unterschiede sichtbar sind.Die geringere Lebenserwartung der ostdeutschen Bevölkerung Ende der 1980er-Jahre war primär durch Rückstände bei der kardiovaskulären Revolution bedingt. Die noch heute bestehenden Unterschiede sind eher Spätfolgen der ostdeutschen Transformationskrise als direkte Spätfolgen der Teilung.

Educational differences in female cohort fertility vary strongly across high-income countries and over time, but knowledge about how educational fertility differentials play out at the sub-national regional level is limited. Examining these sub-national regional patterns might improve our understanding of national patterns, as regionally varying contextual conditions may affect fertility. This study provides for the first time for a large number of European countries a comprehensive account of educational differences in the cohort fertility rate (CFR) at the sub-national regional level. We harmonise data from population registers, censuses, and large-sample surveys for 15 countries to measure women's completed fertility by educational level and region of residence at the end of the reproductive lifespan. In order to explore associations between educational differences in CFRs and levels of economic development, we link our data to regional GDP per capita. Empirical Bayesian estimation is used to reduce uncertainty in the regional fertility estimates. We document an overall negative gradient between the CFR and level of education, and notable regional variation in the gradient. The steepness of the gradient is inversely related to the economic development level. It is steepest in the least developed regions and close to zero in the most developed regions. This tendency is observed within countries as well as across all regions of all countries. Our findings underline the variability of educational gradients in women's fertility, suggest that higher levels of development may be associated with less negative gradients, and call for more in-depth sub-national-level fertility analyses by education. ispartof: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POPULATION-REVUE EUROPEENNE DE DEMOGRAPHIE vol:37 issue:1 pages:263-295 ispartof: location:Netherlands status: published

Background Subnational regional mortality inequalities are large and appear to be mostly increasing within industrialized countries, although comparative studies across high-income countries are scarce. Germany is an important country to examine because it continues to experience considerable economic disparities between its federal states, in part resulting from its former division. Methods We analyse state-level mortality in Germany utilizing data from a newly constructed regional database based on the methodology of the Human Mortality Database. We compare time trends (1991–2015) in the German state-level standard deviation in life expectancy to that of other large, wealthy countries and examine the association between mortality and economic inequalities at the regional level. Finally, using contour-decomposition methods, we investigate the degree to which age patterns of mortality are converging across German federal states. Results Regional inequalities in life expectancy in Germany are comparatively low internationally, particularly among women, despite high state-level inequalities in economic conditions. These low regional mortality inequalities emerged 5–10 years after reunification. Mortality is converging over most ages between the longest- and shortest-living German state populations and across the former East–West political border, with the exception of an emerging East–West divergence in mortality among working-aged men. Conclusions The German example shows that large regional economic inequalities are not necessarily paralleled with large regional mortality disparities. Future research should investigate the factors that fostered the emergence of this unusual pattern in Germany.

This study investigates spatial variation in fertility in Europe. We analyze spatial variation in total fertility rates using small-scale geographical data from twenty-one European countries for 2010, and investigate the role economic, sociocultural, and spatial factors play in regional fertility levels. We compare the performance of conventional OLS regression and multilevel modeling with that of different spatial regression models and show that the spatial approach is superior for modeling regional fertility variation. The analysis shows that fertility levels in a region are strongly related to GDP per capita and the share of divorced individuals in the region, and fertility levels in neighboring regions, supporting that all three realms of fertility determinants – economic sociocultural, and spatial – are relevant for understanding modern fertility variation. Postprint

Background Subnational regional mortality inequalities are large and appear to be mostly increasing within industrialized countries, although comparative studies across high-income countries are scarce. Germany is an important country to examine because it continues to experience considerable economic disparities between its federal states, in part resulting from its former division. Methods We analyse state-level mortality in Germany utilizing data from a newly constructed regional database based on the methodology of the Human Mortality Database. We compare time trends (1991–2015) in the German state-level standard deviation in life expectancy to that of other large, wealthy countries and examine the association between mortality and economic inequalities at the regional level. Finally, using contour-decomposition methods, we investigate the degree to which age patterns of mortality are converging across German federal states. Results Regional inequalities in life expectancy in Germany are comparatively low internationally, particularly among women, despite high state-level inequalities in economic conditions. These low regional mortality inequalities emerged 5–10 years after reunification. Mortality is converging over most ages between the longest- and shortest-living German state populations and across the former East–West political border, with the exception of an emerging East–West divergence in mortality among working-aged men. Conclusions The German example shows that large regional economic inequalities are not necessarily paralleled with large regional mortality disparities. Future research should investigate the factors that fostered the emergence of this unusual pattern in Germany.

For a long time, high‐income countries tended to report a negative association between female educational attainment and childbearing. Belgium was among the first countries that seemed to witness the emergence of a positive educational gradient in female fertility. It has been argued that—alongside other contextual correlates—this trend reflects the increasing availability of work–family reconciliation policies from which especially highly educated people benefit. In contrast to the sizable body of literature assessing varying educational gradients in female fertility across countries, subnational regional variation has hitherto received little attention. As a result, we study the Belgian case using unique microdata covering all residents in 2002–2005. The main focus is on the relevance of between‐municipality variation in economic conditions and childcare services for understanding variation in second birth hazards by educational attainment. We show that a considerable part of the municipal variation in the educational gradient in second birth hazards reflects a positive link between fertility and childcare provisions as well as wealth for highly educated women, contrasting with lower educated groups. Our findings suggest that institutional support for families is relevant but also incurs the risk of increased social polarisation.

Evidence for nation-states suggests that the long-standing negative relationship between fertility and economic development might turn positive at high levels of development. The robustness of the reversal continues to be debated. We add to this discussion from a novel angle by considering whether such a reversal could also occur at the sub-national level within highly developed countries. Our contributions are both theoretical and empirical. We first discuss important trends which might foster the emergence of a positive fertility–development relationship across regions of highly developed countries. These include shifts in family policies, changes in the spatial organisation of the economic sphere, and selective international and internal migration processes. In order to explore whether we observe tendencies towards a reversal, we investigate data covering 20 European countries subdivided in 256 regions between 1990 and 2012. We document a weakening of the negative relationship between fertility and economic development within many countries, and among some countries the emergence of a positive relationship. These findings do not seem to be driven by postponement effects alone. However, there is substantial variation in the fertility and the economic development levels at which such tendencies towards a reversal are observed. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10680-018-9485-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This article presents a new measure of family-driven age- and gender-related inequalities. This composite measure, which we call the Patriarchy Index, combines a range of variables related to familial behavior that reflect varying degrees of sex- and age-related social inequality across different family settings. We demonstrate the comparative advantages of the index by showing how 266 historical populations from the Atlantic coast of Europe to Moscow scored on the patriarchy scale. We then compare the index with contemporary measures of gender discrimination, and find a strong correlation between historical and current inequality patterns. Finally, we explore how variation in patriarchy levels across Europe is related to the socioeconomic and institutional characteristics of the regional populations, and to variation across these regions in their degree of demographic centrality and environmental conditions. The results confirm previous findings that family organization is a crucial generator of social inequality, and point to the importance of considering the historical context when analyzing the current global contours of inequality.

Obtaining cross-country comparative perspectives on male fertility has long been difficult, as male fertility is usually less well registered than female fertility. Recent methodological advancements in imputing missing paternal ages at childbirth enable us to provide a new database on male fertility. This new resource covers more than 330 million live births and is based on a consistent and well-tested set of methods. These methods allow us to handle missing information on the paternal age, which is missing for roughly 10% of births. The data resource is made available in the Human Fertility Collection and allows for the first time a comparative perspective on male fertility in high-income countries using high-quality birth register data. We analyze trends in male–female fertility quantum and tempo differentials across 17 high-income countries, dating as back as far as the late 1960s for some countries, and with data available for the majority of countries from the 1980s onward. Using descriptive and counterfactual analysis methods, we find substantial variation both across countries and over time. Related to the quantum we demonstrate that disparities between male and female period fertility rates are driven to a large degree by the interplay of parental age and cohort size differences. For parental age differences at childbirth, we observe a development toward smaller disparities, except in Eastern Europe. This observation fits with expectations based on gender theories. However, variation across countries also seems to be driven by factors other than gender equality. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10680-020-09575-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Obtaining cross-country comparative perspectives on male fertility has long been difficult, as male fertility is usually less well registered than female fertility. This paper presents analyses based on a new male fertility database providing data on more than 330 million live births. This new resource, made available in the Human Fertility Collection, allows for the first time a comparative perspective on male fertility in high-income countries using high-quality birth register data. Contrasting male and female fertility trends across 17 countries, we show that trends in disparities between male and female period fertility rates are driven to a large degree by the interplay of parental age and cohort size differences. For parental age differences at childbirth, we observe a tendency toward smaller disparities, except in Eastern Europe. This observation fits with expectations based on gender theories. However, variation across countries also seems to be driven by factors other than gender equality.

Over the last two decades, Belarus and Russia have witnessed substantial fertility increases that have catapulted their total fertility rates from lowest-low fertility to levels above 1.7 children per woman. While it is frequently argued that greater gender equality is an important mechanism for overcoming low fertility, these developments seem to have instead been accompanied by a retraditionalization of gender attitudes. This paper uses the 2017 Belarusian Generations and Gender Survey to investigate the characteristics and prospects of the Eastern European “baby boom.” We show that the fertility increases are driven by two main components: the recuperation of births postponed during the preceding post-communist transition crisis, and fertility increases among cohorts born in the 1980s. These cohorts also display very traditional gender attitudes. While the recuperation will not have a long-term impact, it is more uncertain whether or not the cohort fertility increases will be sustained.

Introduction and Aims. Eastern Europe is known to suffer from a large burden of alcohol-related mortality. However, persisting unfavourable conditions at the national level mask variation at the sub-national level. We aim to explore spatial patterns of cause-specific mortality across four post-communist countries: Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and Russia (European part). Design and Methods. We use official mortality data routinely collected over 1179 districts and cities. The analysis refers to males aged 20–64 years and covers the period 2006–2014. Mortality variation is mainly assessed by means of the standardised mortality ratio. Getis-Ord Gi* statistic is employed to detect hot and cold spots of alcohol-related mortality. Results. Alcohol-related mortality exhibits a gradient from very high levels in northwestern Russia to low levels in southern Poland. Spatial transitions from higher to lower mortality are not explicitly demarcated by national boundaries. Within these countries, hot spots of alcohol-related mortality dominate the territories of northwestern and western Russia, eastern and northwestern Belarus, southeastern Lithuania, and eastern and central Poland. Discussion and Conclusions. The observed mortality gradient is likely associated with the spread of alcohol epidemics from the European part of Russia to the other countries, which appears to have started more than a century ago. Contemporary socioeconomic and demographic factors should be taken into account when developing anti-alcohol policies. The same is true for the peculiarities of culture, norms, traditions and behavioural patterns observed in specific geographical areas of the four countries. Reducing alcohol-related harm in the areas identified as hot spots should be prioritised.

Most studies on the fertility transition have focused either on macro-level trends or on micro-level patterns with limited geographic scope. Much less attention has been given to the interplay between individual characteristics and contextual conditions, including geographic location. Here we investigate the relevance of geography and socioeconomic status for understanding fertility variation in the initial phase of the Swedish fertility transition. We conduct spatially sensitive multilevel analyses on full-count individual-level census data. Our results show that the elite constituted the vanguard group in the fertility decline and that the shift in fertility behavior occurred quickly among them in virtually all parts of Sweden. Other socioeconomic status groups experienced the decline with some delay, and their decline patterns were more clustered around early centers of the decline. Long-distance migrants initially had higher fertility than people living close to their birthplace. However, as the fertility decline unfolded, this advantage was either reduced or reversed. This supports the view that migration and fertility are linked in this process. Our results confirm that socioeconomic status differences were of considerable relevance in structuring the fertility transition. The degree to which spatial distance fostered spatial variation in the fertility decline seems to have been negatively correlated with socioeconomic status, with the pattern of decline among the elite showing the lowest degree of spatial variation. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s13524-018-0737-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Human population renewal starts with births. Since births can happen at any time in the year and over a wide range of ages, demographers typically imagine the birth series as a continuous flow. Taking this construct literally, we visualize the Swedish birth series as a flow. A long birth series allows us to juxtapose the children born in a particular year with the children that they in turn had over the course of their lives, yielding a crude notion of cohort replacement. Macro patterns in generational growth define the meandering path of the flow, while temporal booms and busts echo through the flow with the regularity of a pulse.

There has been a growing interest in the question of whether variation in family systems is a factor in the disparities in growth, development, and human capital formation. Studies by proponents of the field of new institutional economics have suggested that differences in family organisation could have considerable influence on regional developmental inequalities in today’s world, while a number of economic historians have argued that certain systems of marriage and household structure in the European past might have been more conducive than others to economic growth. Despite recent criticism of these ideas by Dennison and Ogilvie, who argued that the family has no exogenous effects on growth, the debate over this potential relationship continues. However, we believe that this discussion has suffered from a lack of historical data that would give a fuller picture of the rich diversity of family settings and from methodological shortcomings that have so far hindered the proper operationalisation of historical family systems and their potential effects on developmental outcomes. In this chapter, we apply a recently developed multidimensional measure of historical familial organisation, the Patriarchy Index (PI), and use spatially sensitive multivariate analyses to investigate its relationship with human capital levels, as approximated by numeracy across 115 populations of historical Europe. We find a strong negative association between the Patriarchy Index and regional numeracy patterns that remains significant even after controlling for a broad range of other important factors. Our observation that family-driven age- and gender-related inequalities, as captured by the index, are relevant for understanding variation in basic numeracy patterns in the past suggests that there are indeed important links between family organisation and human capital accumulation that merit further investigation.

"This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [Dommermuth, L, Klüsener, S. Formation and realisation of moving intentions across the adult life course. Popul Space Place. 2018;e2212. ], which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2212. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions." Residential and migratory moves are frequently regarded as instruments to attain other life goals. Thus, empirical studies increasingly link moves to other life course events. However, to fully understand moving decisions, it is also necessary to consider prior plans in various life domains, as not all life course plans and potentially related moves are realised. On the basis of representative data for Norway, these aspects are analysed for four life phases: the young adult phase, the family phase, the middle age phase, and the retirement phase. For all four life phases, highly significant associations between intentions and events in various life domains and moving intentions and actual moves are obtained. The relevance of specific domains for the formulation of moving intentions and actual moves is subject to variation across the life course and dependent on whether all moves or only moves over longer distances are considered.

Comparative perspectives on men's fertility are still rare, in part because vital registration data are often missing paternal age information for a substantial number of births. We compare two imputation approaches that attempt to estimate men's age-specific fertility rates and related measures for data in which paternal age information is missing for a non-negligible number of cases. Taking births with paternal age information as a reference, the first approach uses the unconditional paternal age distribution, while the second approach considers the paternal age distribution conditional on the maternal age. To assess the performance of these two methods, we conduct simulations that mimic vital registration data for Sweden, the United States, Spain, and Estonia. In these simulations, we vary the overall proportion and the age selectivity of missing values. We find that the conditional approach outperforms the unconditional approach in the majority of simulations and therefore should be generally preferred.

This article investigates spatiotemporal variation in non-marital fertility across Europe over the last 100 years. In the first 50 years of this period, non-marital fertility was generally declining, reaching very low levels in the mid-twentieth century. But starting in the 1960s, non-marital fertility increased strongly. The main aim of this paper is to investigate to what degree the persistence of the past might be relevant for understanding spatial aspects of the recent rise. A secondary aim is to explore how spatial non-marital fertility variation is likely to develop in the future, both between and within countries. The outcomes support the view that historical patterns are relevant for understanding current non-marital fertility variation in most parts of Europe. However, the persistence of the past varies spatially, and seems to fade over time. The analysis of current trends in spatial variation between countries suggests that an east–west dichotomy is currently emerging: i.e., countries that are n...

Lithuania represents one of the rare cases in which a state with relatively high standards for maintaining population statistics is experiencing mass emigration. In light of the policy initiatives undertaken by the Lithuanian government to address the issue of emigration, this study aims to improve our understanding of how, in this mass emigration context, emigration events are connected to specific socio-economic characteristics of individuals and variation in local socio-economic conditions. We analyse census and vital registration data covering the whole working-age population of Lithuania during the period 2011-2012. Our findings indicate that when assessing the likelihood of emigration events, individual-level characteristics such as employment status, educational attainment, and prior migration experience are highly relevant. However, the importance of these characteristics differs by gender. We also detect considerable spatial variation in emigration rates across Lithuanian municipalities. Our outcomes provide new insights for the development of cohesive migration policies in Lithuania.

While regional mortality inequalities in Germany tend to be relatively stable in the short run, over the course of the past century marked changes have occurred in the country's regional mortality patterns. These changes include not only the re-emergence of stark differences between eastern and western Germany after 1970, which have almost disappeared again in the decades after the reunification of Germany in 1990; but also substantial changes in the disparities between northern and southern Germany. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the northern regions in Germany had the highest life expectancy levels, while the southern regions had the lowest. Today, this mortality pattern is reversed. In this paper, we study these long-term trends in spatial mortality disparities in Germany since 1910, and link them with theoretical considerations and existing research on the possible determinants of these patterns. Our findings support the view that the factors which contributed to shape spatial mortality variation have changed substantially over time, and suggest that the link between regional socioeconomic conditions and recorded mortality levels strengthened over the last 100 years.Regionale Unterschiede in der Sterblichkeit in Deutschland erweisen sich kurzfristig betrachtet als relativ stabil. Im Laufe des letzten Jahrhunderts wurden allerdings deutliche Veränderungen in den regionalen Sterblichkeitsmustern verzeichnet. Hierzu zählt nicht nur das Wiederauftreten ausgeprägter Ost-West-Unterschiede ab 1970, die in den Jahrzehnten nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung 1990 fast wieder verschwunden sind. Vielmehr haben sich auch substanzielle Verschiebungen zwischen Nord- und Süddeutschland ergeben. Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts registrierten die norddeutschen Regionen die höchsten Lebenserwartungsniveaus, während die süddeutschen Landesteile die niedrigsten verzeichneten. Über die letzten 100 Jahre hat sich dieses räumliche Muster weitgehend umgekehrt. In diesem Beitrag analysieren wir die langfristigen Entwicklungen der räumlichen Mortalitätsunterschiede in Deutschland seit 1910. Die beobachteten Veränderungen setzen wir in Bezug zu theoretischen Überlegungen und existierenden Forschungsergebnissen zu möglichen Ursachen für regionale Mortalitätstrends. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen auf, dass sich die Zusammensetzung der maßgeblich zur Entwicklung der regionalen Sterblichkeitsmuster beitragenden Faktoren über die Zeit erheblich verändert hat. Außerdem scheint sich der Zusammenhang zwischen regionalen sozioökonomischen Bedingungen und den registrierten Sterblichkeitsniveaus in den letzten 100 Jahren verstärkt zu haben.

Since Germany's unification in 1990, the former communist eastern part has experienced substantial out-migration toward western Germany. This article explores whether this is predominantly a temporary phenomenon related to the post-communist transition crisis, or whether longstanding geographic disparities in economic development also play a role. In particular, we are interested in whether long-term trends are shaped by the fact that parts of western Germany belong to the so-called European dorsal that has long been the most important center of economic activity in Europe. We address the question by investigating spatial population trends over the last two centuries. Findings suggest that longstanding geographical disparities are relevant. However, prior to 1945, population concentration in western Germany was not focused on the European dorsal region.

This article contributes to the geographic analysis of fertility decline in the demographic transition in Europe. We reanalyze Galloway Hammel and Lees (1994) Prussian data with spatial analysis methods. Our multivariate analysis provides evidence of the predictive effect of both economic and cultural variables. Furthermore even after all of the observable economic social and cultural variables have been controlled for our findings show that a significant unexplained geographic clustering of fertility decline remains. We then specify spatial econometric models which show that in addition to economic and cultural factors socio-geographic factors such as being adjacent to areas of sharp fertility decline are also needed to understand the pattern of fertility decline. These results provide new support for the role of social diffusion in the process while allowing for the direct structural effects of economic change.

Over the last 25 years, a large number of studies have looked at the demographic differences between the previously divided eastern and western parts of Germany. The two regions have converged with respect to mortality and overall fertility levels. But in terms of family formation behaviour, differences remain. Non-marital births are the norm in eastern Germany, whereas they are still the exception in western Germany. Various explanations for these differences have been offered, with the most persuasive linking policy and socio-economic conditions in eastern and western Germany after 1945 with the persistence of regional patterns. Here, we show that the non-marital fertility divide pre-dates the 1945 division of Germany. Indeed, already in the early 20th century, the areas of eastern Germany that made up the German Democratic Republic had, on average, roughly twice the non-marital fertility levels of western Germany. In the first part of our paper, we document the history of this long-standing pattern and provide a set of explanations for its emergence. In the second part, we apply multi-level models to birth register data to explore whether East–West differences in non-marital fertility would remain even under scenarios such as convergence in secularisation levels and economic conditions. The persistence of the past suggests that explanations for family formation differences between eastern and western Germany based solely on the most recent and current conditions are incomplete, and that convergence, if it occurs at all, will take longer than anticipated, perhaps lasting many decades or more. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

L’Allemagne du xixe siecle est un laboratoire particulierement interessant pour l’etude des differences demographiques entre regions, et pourtant les structures de la famille a cette epoque dans cette partie de l’Europe restent peu explorees. Cet article analyse la variabilite des situations domestiques avec une mesure agregee de la complexite des menages fondee sur les statistiques publiees du recensement allemand de 1885. Des methodes descriptives et des techniques de modelisation spatiale permettent d’examiner les hypotheses existantes sur les determinants de la complexite des menages. Les variations regionales de la structure des menages sont-elles associees aux variations concernant l’emploi agricole, les pratiques d’heritage, l’appartenance ethnique et d’autres caracteristiques socio-economiques ? Les regions ou la complexite des menages etait faible se concentrent dans le sud-ouest et le sud de l’Allemagne, et celles ou la complexite etait forte dans le nord et le nord-est. Quant aux differences macro-regionales socio-economiques et culturelles, dont on sait qu’elles existaient en Allemagne a la fin du xixe siecle et qu’on pensait decisives, elles ne s’averent que faiblement associees aux schemas spatiaux de complexite des menages. Ces resultats sont coherents avec l’hypothese de Ruggles (2009), selon laquelle les variations spatiales des structures de menage sont essentiellement liees au degre d’emploi dans l’agriculture et aux caracteristiques demographiques.

Historical Germany represents a perfect laboratory for studying interregional demographic differences, yet the historical family structures in this part of the European continent remain largely unexplored. This study documents the variability of living arrangements using an aggregate measure of household complexity based on published statistics of the German census of 1885. Descriptive methods and spatially sensitive modelling techniques are applied to these data in order to examine existing hypotheses on the determinants of household complexity in historical Europe. We investigate how regional variation in agricultural structures and employment, inheritance practices, ethnic background, and other sociodemographic characteristics relate to regional variation in household structures. Our results show that areas with low levels of household complexity were concentrated in south-western and southern Germany, while areas with high levels of complexity were mostly situated in the north and north-east. The supposedly decisive socioeconomic and cultural macro-regional differences that are known to have existed in late nineteenth-century Germany were at most only weakly associated with existing spatial patterns of household complexity. These results tend to support Ruggles’ (2009) view that spatial variation in household structures is mostly linked to the degree of employment in agriculture and demographic characteristics.

Most existing studies on the fertility transition focus either on macro-level trends or on micro-level patterns with limited geographic scope. Much less attention has been given to the interplay between individual characteristics and contextual conditions, including geographic location. This paper contributes to closing this research gap. We investigate the relevance of geography and socioeconomic status (SES) for understanding fertility variation in the initial phase of the fertility decline in Sweden. Spatially-sensitive multi-level analyses are applied to study fertility trends by SES and parish, using full-count individual-level census data for 1880, 1890, and 1900. Our results show that the elite not only constituted the vanguard group in the fertility decline, but that the shift in fertility behavior occurred quickly among this social class in virtually all parts of Sweden. Other social classes experienced the decline with some delay in both central and peripheral areas, and their patterns of decline were more clustered in and around the early centers of the decline compared to the pattern of the elite. Long-distance migrants, who were disproportionately represented among the elite and who initially had higher fertility, were among the pioneers in the process. This suggests that factors such as social connectedness through space and local social embeddedness were important in determining the early adoption of changes in fertility behavior. Our results confirm the view that social status and social class boundaries were of considerable relevance in structuring the fertility transition. The importance of space for understanding variation in the fertility decline seems to be negatively correlated with social status, with the pattern of decline among the elite showing the lowest degree of spatial variation.