Several countries in Northern and Western Europe report cohort fertility rates of close to two children per woman, including Belgium, France, and Denmark. By contrast, most Central and Southern European countries have cohort fertility levels of only around 1.5-1.6 children. Germany is part of...

For studying both individual-level and small-scale contextual influences on the effects of family policies on fertility, Multilevel Event History methods are the state-of-the-art. But in many countries, these methods cannot be applied because the available individual-level data are inadequate....