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Rising Dispersion in Age at First Birth in Europe: Is it related to Fertility Postponement?

    Dimiter Philipov

VID Working Papers, pp. 1-28, 2021/09/17

doi: 10.1553/0x003ccff6


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doi:10.1553/0x003ccff6

Abstract

This paper examines the dispersion of fertility across age and time which has rarely beenstudied. Using data from the Human Fertility Database, we examine fertility age schedulesby looking at standard deviations in age at first births in European countries at differentstages of fertility postponement. The standard deviation at first birth remained overallconstant during the start of fertility postponement in the early 1970s, then it increasedduring the second stage marking the progression of postponement. It remained againconstant at a higher level during recent years. The paper discusses the structural changesthat might have caused these changes.

Keywords: Variance in fertility schedules, standard deviation of fertility, variance and stages in fertility postponement, fertility schedules