Life-table Representations of Family Dynamics in the 21st Century

Presenter: Gunnar Andersson, University of Stockholm

Any sound investigation of a demographic phenomenon must originate from some knowledge about its very basic patterns: how common the demographic event of interest is, at what ages it typically occurs, and how such patterns in a country differ from those in other countries and periods” (Andersson and Philipov 2002). The Generations and Gender Surveys (http://www.ggp-i.org/) and other related country-specific surveys have since then provided updated data on birth and union histories. Many of these histories have been compiled in a single file known as the Harmonized Histories (http://www.nonmarital.org/HarmHist.htm). In our current project, we have generated the same estimates as reported by Andersson and Philipov (2002) from these new histories for the period around 2005. Estimates cover 19 countries: Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, USA, Spain, Italy, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Russian Federation, Romania, Bulgaria, and Georgia. The paper presents comparative analyses of three dimensions of family dynamics: First we present measures of women’s and men’s family formation, i.e., the cumulative percent of women or men who would experience a specific demographic event by single-year ages from 15 to 50. Second, we present measures of partnership dynamics; and thirdly we present comparative analyses of children’s experience of family disruption. These analyses demonstrate the degree of variation in family dynamics across countries. Our descriptive findings provide the basis for more in-depth research on the causes and consequences of differences in family dynamics across contexts.