28 th International Population Conference of the International Union - PDF document

28 th International Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) THE IMPACT OF CURRENT ECONOMIC RECESSION ON FERTILITY IN GREECE, ITALY AND SPAIN Maria Carella Department of Political Sciences, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy. email: maria.carella1@uniba.it Daniel Devolder Centre for Demographic Studies (CED), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. Email: ddevolder@ced.uab.es Byron Kotzamanis, Laboratory of demographic and social analyses, University of Thessaly, Greece. email: bkotz@prd.uth.gr Julián López Colás Centre for Demographic Studies (CED), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. email: jlopez@ced.uab.es THEME 7 : Fertility 706 : Future fertility in low-fertility societies Extended abstract Theoretical background In the last decades, Southern European countries have experimented significant demographic changes, with a transition from a long tradition of rigid family life courses, toward a new regime of delayed marriage, increasing cohabitation, postponement of childbearing, divorce or separation. Nowadays individual's family life courses are often much more complex than in the past, without any real clear and simple model. In that context, the economic crisis, which started in year 2008, led in most of these countries to a profound deterioration of the labour market, with an unprecedented loss of jobs and acute effects on the economic situation, the conditions of life of families and the demographic behaviours. One of the expected effects of the economic crisis on the demographic dynamics of these countries is the fall in fertility levels (Sobotka et al., 2011; Goldstein et al., 2013). A systematic review of past economic recessions, which occurred in developed countries, confirms that social and economic crises often have serious effects on fertility, with country specific characteristics, but common patterns: a weak effect on cohort fertility;   a postponement of the timing of first birth, closely related to a delay in marriage or union formation;  a close relationship in time between unemployment and age-specific fertility. In general, the literature mentions that fertility follows the cycles of the economy, while in times of economic downturn and uncertainty in the labour market, people are mainly led to postpone childbearing, with fewer changes in their family objectives (Pison, 2013 ; Pailhé, 2010). In addition, the sensitivity of fertility behaviours to economic crises is less marked in countries with longstanding family policies and strong social security systems. The Great Recession, the popular name of the contemporary economic crisis (Grusky et al 2011), took place in the South of Europe under significantly different socio-economic conditions than past economic downturns: The recent situation is marked by a permanent reduction of economic growth related to - the process of population aging which entails high social costs; Women labour participation rates are higher than ever, when most couples nowadays use - reliable contraception that enables them to delay childbearing almost as will, increasing the reactiveness of behaviours to economic change. These factors can affect reproductive decisions and potentially aggravate the negative effects of the recession on fertility. In the light of this evidence, the present proposal intends to investigate the impact

of the current economic crisis on fertility levels, as well as the evolution of these levels through time, in three very low fertility countries in Southern Europe: Greece, Italy and Spain. Specific objectives We aim to establish the effects of economic uncertainty on fertility in contemporary Greece Italy and Spain using various demographic indicators and several measures of uncertainty. Specific objectives are: To verify whether adverse economic circumstances led individuals to postpone - childbearing. We will explicitly consider not only the progression to the first child, but also to higher order births. To evaluate how different sources of labour market uncertainty, individual circumstances - (e.g., duration and type of contract, as well as the income level) and other contextual factors affect fertility behaviours. We will focus mainly on three dimensions of change: i) In ages at childbearing; ii) By birth order; iii) On how the context affect the relationship between economic uncertainty and fertility levels. European countries have different kind of welfare provisions. Diverse public policies may influence demographic outcomes during an economic recession in different ways. We aim to conduct systematic cross-comparative analyses to check in what ways the findings concern to these three countries. Importantly, Italy, Spain and Greece themselves represent a laboratory for our analyses: geographical differences embody profound demographic and socio-economic differences. Data and methods To look for patterns of response in fertility change, we will utilize the latest available official data. We will use empirical data provided by the Human Fertility Database (HFD) the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) for Greece, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for Italy and the National Statistical Institute (INE) for Spain:  Births by age of mother and order of birth; Female population by age;  GDP and Unemployment Rate, detailed by sex and by age, from Labour Force Surveys.  Using the empirical data listed above, simple and complex classical demographic indicators will be calculated Change in time of the demographic or economic series;   Fertility rates by age of mother and order of birth; Total annual fertility rate (synchronic analysis);  Mean age of mothers of childbearing (for all births and by order).  First findings 0. Comparison between the three countries Figure 1 presents the relationship between the yearly variations in the unemployment rate and the variations of the conceptions (births shifted backward 9 months) for each quarter, starting in year 2000, for our three countries. We observe that the effects of the economic crisis were devastating in Greece over the whole period, with quarterly increase in the unemployment rate of up to 6% of the active population and sustained growth over a period of almost 6 years. In Spain, the increase was faster at start, with a reprieve in year 2010 followed by a second burst around year 2012. On the contrary, the deterioration of the labour market situation in Italy after year 2008 was not so strong. The relationship with the evolution of the variation in the growth rate of conceptions is clear for both Greece and Spain, with a strong association between the two curves which appear almost as a mirrored version of each other. Conceptions started also to decrease in Italy after year 2008, but comparatively at a rhythm that does not suggest a situation of urgency and crisis.

Figure 1. Relationship between variation of unemployment rate by quarter (related to the same quarter in the previous year) and yearly growth rate of conceptions (live births nine month later) by quarter (related to the same quarter in the previous year), Greece, Italy and Spain 2000-2015 NOTES: Unemployment rates for active population aged 15-39 from the Labour Force Surveys (source Eurostat). Quarterly changes in unemployment and in live births are compared with the same quarter one year earlier to eliminate the influence of seasonality. Births growth rates by quarter are shifted backwards 3 quarters (9 months) to estimate conception growth rates. 1. Application to Spanish Data Figure 2 presents the relationship between variations in the unemployment rate and conceptions (live births shifted 9 months earlier) by birth order, for judging the effects of the Great Recession. The growth rate of conceptions turns negative from the very beginning of the crisis, in the 2nd quarter of 2008, for all birth orders, when the unemployment started to increase.