We study the aggregate gap between intended and actual fertility in 20 countries in Europe and the United States, adopting a cohort approach that differs from the period approach widely used in prior research. We compare the mean intended number of children and percentage intending to be...

During the last four decades, the two-child family ideal has become nearly universal across the low-fertility countries. The proportion of families with two children, which was growing during the baby boom, stopped increasing in the late 1940s and early 1950s birth cohorts, remaining far below...

The paper uses a time series of repeated rounds of the General Household Survey in Great Britain to study uncertainty in fertility intentions. We show that a substantial minority of women are uncertain in their expectations about future childbearing. A comparison of reported uncertainty in GHS...

As first births are increasingly postponed across Europe, a strong two-child family norm persists. Past research has examined educational differentials in progressions to second birth, testing various hypotheses but overlooking normative aspects. Comparing fertility surveys from France and...

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...

This study discusses fertility trends and variation in countries that have completed the transition from high to around-replacement fertility in the 1950s-1980s - especially in Europe, East Asia and North America - and summarises the key findings that are relevant for the countries with a more...

This study investigates how the changes in labour market conditions and economic growth affected fertility before and during the recent economic recession in Europe. To this end, we use data for 258 European regions in 28 European Union (EU) member states and Iceland. We apply three-level...