It is generally thought that both the demand for children and the cost of fertility control are major forces in fertility decline. Most researchers find that family planning programs in developing countries, which lower the cost of fertility control, play a small role in the fertility transition...

This paper discusses the construction of fertility intentions in contemporary Bulgaria and Hungary. It presents empirical analyses of four types of fertility intentions: whether to have or not to have a first or a second child and if yes, whether to have this child within the next two years or...

Long-term consequences of childbearing postponement for the population size are considered. General relations are obtained, which imply that the cohort NRR, the final generation length, and dynamics of the number of genealogical lines determine the final population trend. The period fertility...

We analyse the effects of changes in parental leave regulations in Austria in 1990, 1996 and 2002 on second and third-birth rates. These changes determined both the length of parental leave and the possibility for its prolongation in case of subsequent pregnancy. We construct monthly duration...

Academic women in Austria and Germany have extraordinarily high final levels of childlessness of 45-60%, as documented by prior research. This study investigates how female scientists’ fertility behaviour relates to their childbearing ideals and intentions in Austria. It analyses whether high...

The "Generations and Gender Survey (GGS)" is an important data source for studying the dynamics of families and family relationships, it was carried out in Austria in 2008/09. Additionally, the Austrian Academy of Sciences financed data collection among female scientists in Austria. In total,...

Research on fertility has been mainly using quantitative methods, and it is only in the last few decades that qualitative research methods have become more common in demography. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods in a so-called triangulation is even more uncommon. Applying a...

Fertility intentions are the most proximate determinants of actual fertility (e.g., Barber 2001; Bongaarts 1992) and inform us about directional trends (Hin et al. 2011; Testa 2014). They are transmitted across generations from parents to children (Fernandez and Fogli 2006). However, the literature on...

How persistent and universal has the two child family ideal been in Europe during the last three decades? We analyse responses of women of reproductive age from 168 surveys conducted in 37 countries in 1979-2012. A two-child ideal has become nearly universal among women in all parts of Europe....

In the European context Austria's population has a tradition of low fertility. Between the world wars of the 20th century Austria had the lowest fertility in Europe. It recovered most notably during the 1950s and early 1960s, but has been declining ever since. Contemporary childbearing trends...