Couples’ transition to parenthood in Finland: A tale of two recessions.
Chiara Comolli
10.17045/sthlmuni.7611455.v1
https://su.figshare.com/articles/preprint/Couples_transition_to_parenthood_in_Finland_A_tale_of_two_recessions_/7611455
<b>Abstract:</b> The question of how fluctuations in the business cycles and
fertility are linked resurfaced in the aftermath of the Great Recession of
2008-09, when birth rates started declining in many countries. Finland,
although affected to a much lesser extent than other regions of Europe, is no
exception to this decline. However, previous macro-level research on the much
stronger recession in Finland in the 1990s shows that, contrary to other
developed countries, the typical pro-cyclical behavior of fertility in relation
to the business cycle was absent. The objective of this paper is to test how a
typical feature of both recessions at the individual level, labor market
uncertainty, is linked to childbearing risk in Finland. In particular, I focus
on the transition to first birth and on the explicit period comparison between
the 1990s and the 2000s. I use Finnish population registers (1988-2013) and
adopt a dyadic couple perspective to assess the association between each
partner’s employment status and the transition to parenthood. Finally, I
investigate how, differently in the two periods, the latter relationship
changes depending on aggregate labor market conditions to test whether there
was a change over time from counter- to pro-cyclicality of fertility in
Finland.
2019-01-21 17:03:10
parenthood
Finland
economic crisis
employment status
couples
‘Stockholm Reports in Demography’
Sociologiska institutionen
Department of Sociology
SUDA
Stockholm University Demography Unit
Stockholms universitets demografiska avdelning
Demography not elsewhere classified
Sociology