Abstract: BACKGROUND Within the context of significant migration flows, persisting low fertility settings, and population ageing in more developed areas, increased focus has been placed on the impact of migration on population change in receiving countries. OBJECTIVE This paper examines the contributions of migrants and natives to population change in 31 European countries for the 2014–2019 period. METHODS Based on a standardisation method, we provide evidence derived from births, deaths, and net migration for the size and diversity of the contributions to overall population change of the two population groups. RESULTS The results show that the foreign-born population has been the driving force behind overall population change in Europe, as this population has attenuated overall population decline; turned the expected population decline into population growth; or, less frequently, accelerated population growth. Additionally, the differences between countries in the indirect effect of the foreign-born population on population change have been driven more by the differences in the population age structure of migrants than by the timing and level of fertility or by the level of mortality among migrants. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that the contribution of the foreign-born population to overall population change in Europe has been pronounced and goes far beyond the contribution of net migration, the commonly used indicator for measuring the effect of the foreign-born population on population change.
Abstract: BACKGROUND Brazil's fertility transition was the result of multiple socioeconomic transformations that started during the second quarter of the 20th century. Education expansion played an important role in this process by promoting changes in social norms and in assortative mating profiles. OBJECTIVE The goal is to estimate cohort fertility rates (CFR) of women in union by educational pairing (different combinations of men’s and women’s educational levels) and whether changes observed in assortative mating profiles were associated to the Brazilian cohort fertility transition. METHODS First, we estimate CFR by educational pairings for women cohorts born between 1925 and 1969. Second, we decompose the difference in CFR between younger and older cohorts into two components, the effects of changes in the composition of educational pairings (structural changes) and the rate effects (other factors). RESULTS The CFR of couples in Brazil declined from levels higher than 6 children per women for cohorts born in 1925–1929, to less than 3 children for women born in 1965–1969. Changes in the composition of educational pairing corresponded to approximately one-third of these reductions in cohort fertility. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that changes in the composition of educational pairing related to the rising education levels of men and women corresponded to an important share of the cohort fertility decline of women in unions.
Abstract: BACKGROUND Contacts with the criminal legal system have consequences for a host of outcomes. Still, early life age patterns of system involvement remain to be better understood. OBJECTIVE We estimate cumulative risks of arrest, probation, and incarceration from childhood through early adulthood and assess disparities by race/ethnicity, gender, and parental education. METHODS Data come from the Transition to Adulthood Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (n = 2,736). We use Kaplan–Meier curves and Cox regression models to estimate cumulative risks of arrest, probation, and incarceration across the early life course and document disparities by race/ethnicity, gender, and parental education, as well as at their intersections. RESULTS Criminal legal system involvement is common among recent cohorts, but Black and Latinx boys and young men face especially high risks. Among Black men whose highest-educated parent completed high school or less, an estimated six in ten had been arrested, four in ten had experienced probation, and four in ten had been incarcerated by age 26. Among Latinx men whose highest-educated parent completed high school or less, an estimated four in ten had been arrested and one in four had been incarcerated by age 26. Black women also experienced high risks, with an estimated one in four arrested by age 26.
Abstract: BACKGROUND Continued rapid population growth in sub-Saharan Africa is driven predominantly by high fertility. Contraceptive use was a key determinant of past fertility transitions. An analysis of this relationship in sub-Saharan Africa can yield a better understanding of the region’s prospects for fertility decline. METHODS Using global estimates and projections, we describe trends in contraceptive use and fertility and analyse the relationship between the two. Timing, pace, and level parameters derived from Bayesian hierarchical models of historic contraceptive and fertility transitions are used to investigate how the experience of sub-Saharan Africa may be distinctive. RESULTS Fertility in sub-Saharan Africa fell from 6.4 births per woman in 1990 to 4.6 in 2020, the highest among regions today. Contraceptive use among married/in-union women in sub-Saharan Africa increased from 13% to 33% over the same period, and remains the region with lowest use. At all levels of contraceptive use, countries of sub-Saharan Africa tend towards higher fertility compared to other regions. Transitions in contraceptive use and fertility have occurred later in sub-Saharan Africa, and have been slower in Middle and Western Africa (but not Eastern and Southern Africa), compared to the experience of Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Abstract: BACKGROUND Children who experience parental divorce have worse long-term educational attainment than children living in intact families. Less clear is the extent to which heterogeneity in the divorce penalty depends on parents’ socioeconomic background and contextual characteristics. OBJECTIVE This study focuses on the negative consequences of parental divorce for children’s tertiary education attainment, their heterogeneity by parental socioeconomic background, and variation across time and space. METHODS Single-level and multi-level linear probability models are estimated on several data sources in a comparative analysis of European countries and US regions. Different operationalizations of parental divorce are employed, including both marital and non-marital dissolutions. RESULTS Results show a stronger negative association between parental divorce and the probability of obtaining a university degree for children of highly educated parents. This holds across different birth cohorts in both Europe and the United States, largely irrespective of the country or region of residence, the dataset, and the operationalization of divorce and parental education. Higher divorce and university enrollment rates increase the absolute size of the divorce penalty, but do not substantially alter its pattern of heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS Children of high-SES families have more to lose in terms of the family resources relevant to achieving a university degree and are thus more negatively affected by parental divorce.
Abstract: BACKGROUND While recent decades have seen gradual convergence in ethno-racial disparities in completed fertility in the United States, differences in the age pattern of first births remain. The role of nativity has not been fully understood. OBJECTIVE This paper examines how first births vary by nativity, and how this variation contributes to more significant racial and ethnic differentials. METHODS Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth (1997–2017), we jointly estimate the correlates of the timing of first births and childlessness. We assess differences between immigrants and US-born and child-migrant women across ethno-racial groups. RESULTS The unique first-birth patterns among foreign-born women have a notable impact on Hispanics, reducing differences from Whites in the average age at first birth and contributing to more significant differentials in childlessness. The impact of immigrant women on White and Black first births is more modest in scope.
Abstract: BACKGROUND Existing research has emphasized immigration policy and social capital as two crucial elements of reception that influence immigrant labor market outcomes. While much attention has been paid to these two factors in isolation, a limited body of empirical work has examined how they intersect, specifically how social capital influences the economic integration of immigrants legally precluded from the formal labor market. OBJECTIVE Our goal is to examine the extent to which immigrant legal status conditions economic integration in the United States and whether neighborhood social capital moderates this relationship. METHODS This study relies on a large probability sample of individuals residing in Los Angeles County that directly ascertains the legal status of immigrants. We employ inverse probability of treatment-weighted linear regressions to compare the labor market outcomes of undocumented immigrants to those of immigrants with varying forms of legal status and to examine how neighborhood social capital moderates the link between legal status and economic attainment. CONCLUSIONS We find two distinct modes of economic incorporation: one of steady work and higher wages among immigrants with citizenship status, and one of lower earnings and greater reliance on self-employment among immigrants in the country without documentation. Our results suggest that neighborhood social capital does not improve the labor market prospects of undocumented immigrants and in some cases may penalize them.
Abstract: BACKGROUND Germany experienced one of the lowest COVID-19 case-fatality rates (CFRs) in Western Europe in the first pandemic wave, and further CFR decreases in the spring and summer of 2020. However, Germany’s CFR increased markedly during the second wave, becoming one of the highest in Western Europe. Furthermore, CFRs varied considerably across German federal states. The drivers of this CFR time trend and the state differences remain unclear. OBJECTIVE We aim to identify the contribution to the CFR differences across and within German states of (1) the population age structure, (2) the age structure of confirmed infection rates, and (3) the age-specific fatality. METHODS We use data documenting COVID-19 cases and deaths from the COVerAGE-DB, applying demographic decomposition methods proposed by Kitagawa and Horiuchi. RESULTS The CFR decrease between spring and autumn 2020 in Germany resulted from a shift toward younger ages in confirmed infection rates and decreasing age-specific fatality. The CFR increase that followed was predominantly driven by a shift toward older ages in the age composition of confirmed infection rates. Although most of the CFR variation across German states resulted from differences in the population age distribution, differences in the age structure of detected infection rates contributed substantially to this variation. CONCLUSIONS Differences in German CFRs depended mainly on the age structure of the population and the confirmed infection rates. Age-specific fatality played a noteworthy role only in CFR changes over time.
Abstract: BACKGROUND Migration has become one of the most salient policy areas in the European Union. In response, the European Commission established a research team with the task of investigating a range of possible demographic futures. OBJECTIVE This paper explores the demographic effects of migration on eastern, southern, and western EU regions, using different scenarios to see the extent population size, working-age population, education composition, and total age dependency can be influenced. METHODS We use a deterministic cohort-component projection model that (a) incorporates improving levels of educational attainment in the population and (b) explicit consideration of migration between EU member states (MS) and migration between EU MS and the rest of the world. Eight stylised what-if scenarios are developed around a medium assumption projection. RESULTS Although migration can have a large effect on total and working-age population size, the EU population will continue to age and see a rise in age dependency regardless. Despite depopulation occurring in many eastern MS, the region is and should remain in a better position than the south and on par with the west in terms of age dependency. CONCLUSIONS While both the south and east provide large demographic subsidies of working-age people to the EU’s west, the south is less prepared to cope with the losses due to an already older population, lower labour force participation, and lower education levels.
Abstract: BACKGROUND First evidence shows that lockdown and confinement measures were associated with a more egalitarian gender division of housework in the United Kingdom. However, we know little about how the gender division of housework adjusted in different phases of the pandemic. OBJECTIVE We ask: (1) How did the gender division of housework change with the first national lockdown in March 2020' (2) Did observed changes persist when the lockdown measures were lifted or did couples revert to the gender division of housework observed before lockdown' METHODS We describe changes in the share of housework done by women before, during, and after the first lockdown using data from the Understanding Society COVID-19 study and employing fixed effects regression for couples with pre-school or school age children and couples without children living at home. RESULTS The lockdown measures affected the gender division of housework with differential effects by the age of the youngest child in the household. After the initial shock, couples with younger children and couples with school-age children reverted to their pre-pandemic gender division of housework. However, couples without children living at home sustained a more equal share of housework. CONCLUSIONS Like other shocks to the division of labor, couples tend to adapt to new circumstances, sustaining previous patterns of within household inequality. Initial signs of increasing gender equality at the start of the pandemic had already started to vanish for some by September 2020.
Abstract: BACKGROUND Between 1964 and 2019, the percentage of people in the United States who had moved in the previous year decreased from 20.3% to 9.8%. It is unclear whether this trend was driven by period-specific factors that gradually diminished the prospects of moving for the population as a whole or whether distinct features of birth cohorts differentially contributed to the migration slowdown. OBJECTIVE The present study assesses whether the migration slowdown in the United States was primarily driven by period effects or by cohort effects. METHODS Using 46 waves of data across the 1964–2019 Annual Social and Economic Supplements to the Current Population Survey, I estimate a series of mixed-effects models predicting the probability of moving and a linear model with age x period interaction terms predicting the probability of moving. RESULTS Cohort effects are more salient in slowing the rates of migration than are period effects. The migration slowdown occurred in part because members of the Silent and Baby Boom generations, who had a higher probability of moving at all ages, matured out of their prime years of geographic mobility in young adulthood and were replaced successively by members of Generation X, the Millennial generation, and Generation Z, who comparatively have a lower probability of moving. CONCLUSIONS The findings suggest that migration measures and subnational population projections that rely on period-level inputs might potentially mischaracterize current and future demographic trends in the United States.
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