An increasing number of studies have examined fertility variation at the regional level within countries, but this research has largely focused on women. As a result, our knowledge of regional variation in male fertility remains limited. The current study addresses this research gap by examining how the timing and chances of parenthood vary regionally for women and men in four countries in Northern and Western Europe. We hypothesize that gender differences in first-time parenthood may be less pronounced in urban centers, such as the capital regions, and especially among groups with higher levels of education. The study is based on data collected from female and male cohorts born between 1963 and 1970 in Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The results largely support our hypotheses, indicating that differences in the age at first birth and in the share of parents between capital and other regions are less pronounced among men than among women in all countries except the Netherlands. Consequently, there are smaller gender differences in first-time parenthood in capital regions across three of the four countries. Furthermore, highly educated women and men living in capital regions are most similar in terms of their age at first birth and the share of parents.

There is a longstanding interest in the link between economic conditions and fertility levels. Most research measuring economic development has focused on national-level patterns and period total fertility levels. We aim to extend existing knowledge by carrying out a sub-national regional analysis of the link between economic conditions and parity-specific cohort fertility, while taking into account heterogeneity by educational level. We study three fertility outcomes by women's education: the share of women who remain childless, the mean number of children per mother and the mean number of children per woman. For this analysis, we harmonised register, census and large-scale survey data from 15 European countries, with a focus on women born in the late 1960s. Women's fertility was measured at the end of their reproductive careers and combined with contextual information, including information on the regional GDP (per capita). In our multiple regression models that controlled for country-level factors, we found that GDP was positively associated with childlessness among women with medium and high levels of education. However, GDP was negatively associated with the number of children per mother among women with low levels of education. These findings show that the relationship between economic conditions and fertility varies depending on the level of education of the women, and it differs between childlessness and continued childbearing. High-income contexts may be less supportive of continued childbearing for women with lower levels of education.

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.

Macro-level studies have shown that rapid increases in mortality can affect fertility rates. Parental death has also been linked to negative psychological and physical outcomes, reduced relationship quality, and making bereaved children attach more importance to their families. No prior study has examined whether parental death influences adult children’s fertility at the microlevel. This study applies event history techniques to Swedish multigeneration registers listing 1.5 million individuals with micro data on mortality and fertility to investigate short-term (first birth risk) and long-term (childlessness at age 45) effects of parental death on adult children’s fertility. The principal finding is that parental death during reproductive age affects children’s fertility and this effect is mainly short term. The effects differ to some degree between men and women and depend on the stage of the life course in which the bereavement occurs. Younger individuals experiencing a parental death have a significantly higher first birth risk after the parental death compared with peers who did not experience a parental death. Individuals older than 23 who experience a parental death have no or lower first birth risk after the parental death compared with baseline. Men, compared with women, are more likely to end childless if they experience a parental death.

Systematic comparisons of fertility developments based on education, gender and country context are rare. Using harmonized register data, we compare cohort total fertility and ultimate childlessness by gender and educational attainment for cohorts born beginning in 1940 in four Nordic countries. Cohort fertility (CTF) initially declined in all four countries, although for cohorts born in the 1950s and later, the CTF remained stable or declined only modestly. Childlessness, which had been increasing, has plateaued in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Women’s negative educational gradient in relation to total fertility has vanished, except in Finland, while men’s positive gradient has persisted. The highest level of men’s childlessness appears among the least educated. In the oldest female cohorts, childlessness was highest among the highly educated, but these patterns have changed over the cohorts as childlessness has increased among the low educated and remained relatively stable among higher educated women. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden, childlessness is now highest among the least educated women. We witness both a new gender similarity and persistent (among men) and new (among women) educational disparities in childbearing outcomes in the Nordic region. Overall, the number of low educated has decreased remarkably over time. These population segments face increasing social and economic disadvantages that are reflected as well in their patterns of family formation.

Background: It is well-established that couples' fecundities vary widely. Each couple has a relatively constant monthly probability of conceiving, which can vary from zero to quite high. This underlying probability is usually expressed as the time (number of menstrual cycles) the couple requires to conceive. Couples with high fecundity will, on average, need fewer cycles than couples with low fecundity. It is also well-documented that almost all human populations exhibit seasonal variation in births. Most European countries show seasonal variation that usually peak in the spring and are the lowest during the last quarter of the year. The increasingly strong pattern of depressed birth rates in November and December is likely explained by the December-January cut-off threshold for Swedish pupils' school entry and their parents increasing awareness of the negative effects on school outcomes for children who are juniors in the school-entry cohort they belong to. To actively plan births for a specific time of the year, couples need to have some knowledge of the time required for them to conceive.

Methods: We use the duration between marriage of childless couples and first birth as a proxy measure of couples' fecundity. Based on this time-to-pregnancy measure we study to what extent couples' capacity to conceive affects the seasonality of their second births. We hypothesize that in a society with highly controlled fertility and a strong norm of having at least two children, sub-fertile couples will on average show less seasonal variation in second births. Sub-fertile couples, requiring more time to conceive the first time, will be less likely to try to target a desired birth month for their second child because doing so could jeopardize fulfilling their desired family size. We apply multinomial logistic regressions on 81,998 Swedish couples who married while being childless and subsequently gave birth to at least two children between 1990 and 2012, to investigate fecundity's role in seasonal variation in second births.

Results: We found that seasonal variation in second births was strongly associated with couples' observed fecundity, measured as the duration between marriage formation and first birth. Our results support the hypothesis that sub-fertile couples, requiring more time to conceive the first time, show less seasonal variation in second births. The seasonal variations in second order births among couples with normal fecundity shows some similarities to traditional patterns as seen in agricultural and industrial societies of the past, with high numbers of births during the spring, and low numbers during the last quarter of the year. However, two important differences are notable. The characteristic Christmas peak in September has vanished, and the low birth rates in November and December come out much stronger than in the past.

Conclusions: The birth seasonality among couples with normal fecundity are what we would expect if couples actively plan their births according to the cut-off date for Swedish pupils' school entry. We argue that our findings support the notion that scheduled childbirth is a reality in contemporary sociality.

STUDY QUESTION: Have seasonal variations in births by factors related to maternal education, age, parity and re-partnering changedover a 72-year period? SUMMARY ANSWER: Seasonal variation in births has been reduced overall but also changed its pattern over the last seven decades. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: The number of births varies markedly by season, but the causes of this variation are not fully understood.Seasonality of births is, in some populations, strongly influenced by sociodemographic factors. STUDY DESIGN SIZE, DURATION: A longitudinal study design was used by analysing the seasonal variation in live births between 1940and 2012, and relating it to mothers’ sociodemographic characteristics at the time of childbirth (maternal education, age, parity and repartnering). PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: Register data on 6 768 810 live births in Sweden between 1940 and 2012were used. Information on biological parents are available for more than 95% of all births. Multinomial logistic regressions were used to calculatepredicted probabilities of giving birth for each calendar month. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: Between 1940 and 1999, Swedish birth rates showed the typical seasonal variationwith high numbers of births during the spring, and low numbers of births during the last quarter of the year. However, during the 21st century,the seasonal variation in fertility declined so that only minor variation in birth rates between February and September now remains. Still, thepattern of low birth rates at the end of the year remains and has even become more pronounced from the 1980s onwards. The characteristic‘Christmas effect’ that used to be visible in September has vanished over the last 30 years. The roles in seasonal variation of maternal education,the mother’s age, parity and instances where the mother has re-partnered between subsequent births changed during the second half ofthe 20th century. From 1980s onwards, the decline in birth rates during the last quarter of the year became particularly pronounced amonghighly educated mothers. Over the 72 years studied, the seasonal variation among first-time mothers declined steadily and has almost disappearedat the end of the study period. Using data that cover ~180 000 births in each month, all meaningful results are statistically significant. LIMITATIONS REASONS FOR CAUTION: The study uses data from one Nordic country only, making it difficult to draw conclusionsthat may hold for other countries. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: The typical seasonal variation reported for Sweden between 1940 and 1999, with highnumbers of births during the spring and low numbers of births during the last quarter of the year, is in line with results from most otherEuropean countries during the same time period. However, the significant decline in seasonal variation in the early 21st century is a noveldevelopment. The study underlines that in a society with low fertility and efficient birth control, active choices and behaviours associated withan individual’s sociodemographic characteristics tend to matter more for the seasonal timing of childbearing than environmental factorsrelated to the physiological ability to reproduce and cultural–behavioural factors related to the frequency of intercourse.

Objective: The aim of this descriptive study is to determine which of the family-specific factors, parental fertility behavior or social background, matters most for the intergenerational transmission of fertility.

Methods: Brother and sister correlations in age at first birth and final family size were estimated using multilevel linear regression on data covering 242,976 Swedish men and women born between 1958 and 1967. To explore how much of siblings’ similarity in fertility can be explained by parental fertility behavior (age at parenthood and number of children) and social background, we analyzed the decrease in sibling correlation when these family-specific factors were added to the unconditional models.

Results: We found that most of siblings’ similarity in fertility could not be explained by parental fertility behavior and social background, but that they explained a substantive part of siblings’ similarities in age at first birth and a smaller but non-negligible part of siblings’ similarities in completed fertility. Parental fertility behavior and social background explain as much (about 36%) of brothers’ and sisters’ similarities in age at first birth. Parental fertility behavior matters more than social background for sisters’ similarities in completed family size. Parental fertility behavior and social background explain about the same (5%) for brothers’ similarities in completed family size.

Contribution: This study contributes to the existing understanding of intergenerational transmission of fertility; both methodologically, by introducing a new method to estimate the impact of specific factors shared by siblings, and by determining how much of siblings’ resemblance in fertility can be explained by parental fertility behavior and social background.

It has been argued that preferences for the sex of children would be small or nonaEuroexisting in relatively gender equal societies. However, previous studies have suggested that a stronger preference for having daughter exists in Scandinavian countries, which are frequently noted for being among the most gender equal societies in the world. Combining new register data on birth rates by sex of the previous children and recent survey data on couples' stated preferences for the sex of children, we show that the preference for daughters has increased in Sweden over the last decade. In addition to the stronger preference for having daughters among twoaEurochild mothers documented in previous research, our findings show that during the previous decade this preference was noticeable also among oneaEurochild parents. Despite Swedish society being known for holding gender equal social norms, interviewed parents openly expressed some degree of preference for having daughters over sons.

Even though fertility and mortality are two of demography’s most researched topics, no prior study has examined at the micro level whether parental death influencesadult children’s fertility. Macro-level studies have shown that rapid increases in mortality can affect fertility rates. Parental death has also been linked to negative psychological and physical outcomes, reduced relationship quality, and making a bereaved child attach more importance to his/her family. This study applies event history techniques to Swedish multi-generation registers containing 1.5 million individuals with to micro data on mortality and fertility to investigate short-term (first birth risk) and long-term (childlessness at age 45) effects of parental death on adult children's fertility. The principal finding is that parental death during reproductive age affects children’s fertility and this effect is mainly short-term. The effects differ to some degree between men and women and depend on when in the life course the bereavement happens.