Article

Fertility Patterns of Native and Migrant Muslims in Europe

Authors:
  • NIPH; Oslo University; Columbia University; Cracow University of Economics
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Abstract

This study focuses on Muslim fertility in Europe. Evidence from 25 countries suggests that the Muslim total fertility rate is on average 47% higher than the national level. However, we find a significant difference in the level of fertility of native-born Muslims and immigrant Muslims. The native-born have a 19% higher total fertility rate,while immigrants have 62% higher fertility. Our main research question is whether religion is an important determinant of fertility outcome, or whether the other characteristics that are specific for Muslims in Europe (e.g. socio-economics, migrant status, and religiosity) determine the observed difference in fertility. To answer this question, we focus on three case studies: Spain, where most Muslims are immigrants; Bulgaria, where most Muslims are native; and Greece, which has significant shares of both recent migrants and native Muslims. Our findings suggest that the immigrant status of Muslims and their socio-economic status are more important than religion in terms of explaining their high fertility.

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... Muslims living in Europe have higher fertility (but below the generations replacement level) than the national populations of the countries they live in (Stonawski, Potančoková, and Skirbekk 2016;Westoff and Frejka 2007;Goujon et al. 2007;PEW 2011). In Greek Thrace, after World War II, the Pomaks of Rhodopi underwent a rapid demographic transition, leading to their convergence with the other populations of Thrace in the 1990s (Zafeiris 2020). ...
... Any other recent direct estimates of Muslim fertility in Thrace are absent. Stonawski, Potančoková, and Skirbekk (2016) estimated TFR for the Muslims in Thrace with the indirect method of parity/fertility ratio because any data on religion (including population structure and the number of births) is not available in Greece. Their approximation is 1.96 children per woman for Muslims in Thrace, and 1.28 for the overall population in 2001. ...
... Their approximation is 1.96 children per woman for Muslims in Thrace, and 1.28 for the overall population in 2001. Stonawski, Potančoková, and Skirbekk (2016) suggest that if the Greek and native Muslim women, the latter being more religious than the former ones (ESS. 2012), attained at least secondary education, they had very similar completed fertility (1.7 children). ...
Article
Greece is currently characterized by its low fertility levels and a postponement of childbearing toward older ages. Greek Thrace, being a part of Greek territory since the second decade of the 20th century and the study area of this analysis, follows the same national trends, without forgetting the effects of local factors that cause some unique features in its fertility characteristics. Christian and Muslim populations inhabit this area; thus, a multicultural regime prevails. Besides that, Thrace’s ecological and environmental diversity, cultural and social variability, low socioeconomic development, high unemployment, and significant social and economic disparities affect the fertility decisions of the couples solely. This study explores the influence of several factors such as education, occupation, and religion on the fertility outcomes of the population by applying bivariate and multiple regression methods. The results confirm the complex nature of the couples’ fertility decisions under the agency of the cultural and socioeconomic environment. Such findings can outline policy guidelines in addressing population issues in this area. Additionally, they may serve in the interpretation of demographic phenomena of the whole country.
... Nonetheless, the aforementioned studies of religiosity and fertility focus primarily on fertility differences between practicing and nonpracticing Christians. Studies that examine Muslim fertility have shown that the total fertility rate of women from Muslim-majority countries in France is higher than that of nonmigrant-origin French women (Stonawski, Potančoková, and Skirbekk 2015;Toulemon 2004;Westoff and Frejka 2007), but limited research explores why Muslim women have higher fertility than other groups. ...
... First, higher levels of Muslim fertility could be related to socioeconomic disadvantage (Goldscheider 1971;Stonawski, Potančoková, and Skirbekk 2015). Migrants from predominantly Muslim countries generally arrive with lower educational attainment than nonmigrant French populations and thus face obstacles accessing employment and education necessary for social mobility (Alba and Foner 2015;Stonawski, Potančoková, and Skirbekk 2015). ...
... First, higher levels of Muslim fertility could be related to socioeconomic disadvantage (Goldscheider 1971;Stonawski, Potančoková, and Skirbekk 2015). Migrants from predominantly Muslim countries generally arrive with lower educational attainment than nonmigrant French populations and thus face obstacles accessing employment and education necessary for social mobility (Alba and Foner 2015;Stonawski, Potančoková, and Skirbekk 2015). Furthermore, second-generation migrants have on average lower education and higher unemployment than the native French population due primarily to the low socioeconomic status (SES) of their parents (Ichou and Hamilton 2013;Ichou et al. 2017;Meurs, Pailhé, and Simon 2006). ...
... The fertility of both migrants and non-migrants has long been a significant subject of study in the field of demography (Carlsson, 2022;Impicciatore et al., 2020;Mussino and Cantalini, 2022;Stonawski et al., 2016;Tønnessen, 2020). In the European context, this topic has gained renewed attention primarily due to the continuing prevalence of low fertility rates in most European nations since the 1990s (as noted by Kohler et al., 2002), which have persisted after the Great Recession (as discussed by Dantis and Rizzi, 2020 and;Matysiak et al., 2021). ...
... However, to the best of my knowledge, study on the role of perceived health on fertility intentions of Polish migrants is yet to be carried out. Secondly, this study utilizes data from the Families of Poles in the Netherlands survey, which exclusively targets Polish migrants, the largest immigrant group in the Netherlands (Statistics Netherlands, 2022). This dataset allows for a unique comparison of the fertility intentions of migrants and non-migrants of the same nationality at origin, based on their Self-rated health (SRH), wellbeing, and gender. ...
Article
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Aims This study aims, probably for the first time, to compare the fertility intentions of migrants and non-migrants of the same nationality at origin based on their self-rated health, wellbeing, and gender. Methods The study utilized data from the Families of Poles in the Netherlands (FPN) survey and the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS). This study used Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition models and generalized ordered logit models (gologit). Results The findings reveal that both migrants and non-migrants who have good self-rated health and wellbeing are more likely to express a desire to have children in the short-term. The impact of perceived health on the intention to have children is significant for both female and male irrespective of their migration status. Additionally, the average fertility intentions score is higher for Polish migrants residing in the Netherlands compared to Polish non-migrants residing in Poland across the models. The study emphasizes the role good perceived health plays in shaping fertility intentions.
... The most recent approach relies on new data and individual-level longitudinal analysis. Scholars have acknowledged the importance of several characteristics in shaping women's postmigration fertility, including the country of birth, cohabitation or marriage with a native, reason for and time since migration, migration pattern and religion (Mussino and Strozza 2012a, b;Ortensi 2015;Mussino et al. 2015;Stonawski et al. 2016). ...
... Country of citizenship seems to be associated with specific migration patterns and norms involving gender roles. Women who have moved for family-related reasons have elevated fertility levels after migrating, compared to those who migrated for employment-related reasons or were the first migrants in their family (Mussino and Strozza 2012b;Ortensi 2015;Stonawski et al. 2016). At the same time, a native partner can accelerate the adaptation process, increasing the risk of giving birth among migrants from lower-fertility countries than Italy and decreasing that risk among migrants from higher-fertility countries (Mussino and Strozza 2012a). ...
Article
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The body of literature on the fertility of migrants in Europe has grown significantly in recent decades. The focus has mostly been on analysing their actual behaviours, and reflection on other crucial aspects extensively analysed in studies on natives has been lacking. In particular, differences between migrants’ reproductive decision-making process and that of natives are currently understudied in the European context. We will focus on the association between demographic and socio-economic characteristics and fertility intentions, comparing native Italian and migrant women in Italy. We apply logistic regression models to analyse factors associated with strong intentions to have a child (or positive fertility intention) and strong intentions not to have a child (or negative fertility intention) in the short term. We use data from the Social Condition and Integration of Foreign Citizens survey on households with at least one foreign member and from the Italian Gender and Generation Survey, both carried out at the national level by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). Net of controlled covariates, migrant women have both higher positive and lower negative fertility intentions within a 3-year time frame than native women do. However, the patterns of fertility intentions are different for natives and migrants as a function of age, educational level, marital status, parity, homeownership and, notably, labour market status. Focusing only on migrant women, we observe that fertility intentions vary by age at arrival and time since migration and that there are significant differences by country and geographical area of birth.
... For the reasons discussed above, there is a large body of literature on the native-immigrant fertility differential in the context of advanced and economically prosperous countries. It is found that, on average, immigrant women in the United States have more children (Carter, 2000); foreign-born women in the United States have disproportionately more children than their native-born counterparts (Livingston & Cohn, 2012); immigrant Muslims to Europe have a higher fertility rate than second-generation Muslims (Stonawski, Potančoková, & Skirbekk, 2016); immigrants to Europe generally have a higher fertility rate than native Europeans (Coleman, 1994;Dubuc & Haskey, 2010;Sobotka, 2008); recent immigrants to Canada currently have a higher fertility rate than secondgeneration immigrants (Woldemicael & Roderic, 2010), and so on. In the United Kingdom, a few studies show that the fertility levels of descendants of immigrants from high-fertility countries are usually lower in the second generation, but that, for some ethnic groups, for example, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, fertility remains relatively high (Coleman & Dubuc, 2010;Sobotka, 2008). ...
... The religious determinant of fertility and its consequences for native-immigrant differentials emerging in our study agree with studies pertaining to European countries. For example, a recent study in Europe (Stonawski et al., 2016) concluded that the fertility rates of Muslims (both native and immigrant) are higher than those of non-Muslims. The authors also inferred that fertility rates are higher in countries where most of the Muslims were immigrants. ...
Article
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Little research has been conducted on the native-immigrant fertility differential in low-income settings. The objective of our paper is to examine the actual and ideal fertility differential of native and immigrant families in Assam. We used the data from a primary quantitative survey carried out in 52 villages in five districts of Assam during 2014-2015. We performed bivariate analysis and used a multilevel mixed-effects linear regression model to analyse the actual and ideal fertility differential by type of village. The average number of children ever-born is the lowest in native villages in contrast to the highest average number of children ever-born in immigrant villages. The likelihood of having more children is also the highest among women in immigrant villages. However, the effect of religion surpasses the effect of the type of village the women reside in.
... But there is a vast research gap pertinent to the context of sedente-migrant fertility study. For example, the majority of the studies either compared fertility of the migrants either with that of the native populations at the destination (Alderotti et al., 2019;Devolder & Bueno, 2011;Saikia et al., 2019;Stonawski et al., 2016) or have compared the fertility behaviour of different migrant groups living in the same destination (Kraus, 2019;Milewski & Mussino, 2018). But taking into consideration the fertility behaviour of the migrants with respect to their original population is sparse (Kraus & Gonz alez-Ferrer, 2021;Mussino & Cantalini, 2022;Wolf & Mulder, 2019); especially in the Indian context (Ghosh & Chakraborty, 1997). ...
Article
Within local socio-ecological context, the fertility determinants of a population are mediated through complex interrelated physiological and behavioural pathways. We aimed to find out the direct and indirect determinants of fertility of sedente and migrant Oraon populations using Structural Equation Model (SEM). Bivariate analysis showed significant (p ≤ 0.05) sedente-migrant differences in socio-demographic, reproductive, contraceptive, and reproductive and sexual decision-making variables. Results of SEM showed migration status, age at first conception, contraceptive preference and reproductive and sexual decision making have direct but negative association (p ≤ 0.05), and age of the participants, under-five mortality and preference for male child have direct but positive association with fertility (p ≤ 0.05). These variables are also associated with fertility through certain mediated pathways (p ≤ 0.05) like ages at first conception with contraceptive preferences, reproductive and sexual decision-making ability (positive), under-five mortality and desired family size (negative). Educational status of the spouses showed indirect association (p ≤ 0.05) with fertility through four pathways: (i) contraceptive preferences; (ii) reproductive and sexual decision-making ability; (iii) ages at first conception (positive); and (iv) desired family size (negative). Hence, sedente and migrant participants reflected a sharp difference in the determinants of fertility owing to differential local socio-ecological attributes.
... In terms of ethnic diversity, about 85% of the population in England and Wales identify as White, and the main ethnic minority groups include people of South Asian origin (close to 8%), and those who identify as Black African or Black Caribbean (about 3%; Office for National Statistics, 2021). According to previous studies, ethnic minority populations in Europe tend to be more religious than the majority group (Kaufmann et al., 2012;Stonawski et al., 2016), and hence, may have a less accepting view of non-marital sex than White British populations. ...
Article
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Previous studies on the relationship between religiosity and sexual behavior have yielded mixed results, partly due to variations by gender and marital status. Furthermore, less is known about this relationship in relatively secularized societies, as in the case of Britain. In this study, we used data from the third British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3) to explore the link between religiosity (11% of men and 16% of women stated that religion and religious beliefs were very important to them) and sex frequency and satisfaction among men and women in different types of relationships. Women and men who saw religion as more important in their lives reported having less sex on average, though this was mainly driven by the significantly lower sex frequency among non-cohabiting religious individuals compared to their less religious peers. At the same time, religiosity was linked with overall higher levels of sex life satisfaction. This relationship appeared to be largely mediated by attitudes on the appropriate context for sexual intercourse. These findings highlight the importance of sociocultural norms in shaping sexual behavior and sexual satisfaction.
... While the positive relationship between religious intensity, family size, and fertility has been well documented (and also holds among the Christians who are native to the country) (Baudin 2015, Berghammer 2012, Philipov and Berghammer 2007, Adsera 2006), belonging to a religious groups does not predict fertility outcomes. Other socio-cultural and socio-economic characteristics, such as nativity status (recent immigrants tend to have more children), educational attainment (less educated having larger families) or female labour force participation (full-time employed women having smaller families) may be underlying factors of high fertility in some religious groups, in particular in those with a predominantly immigrant background (for Muslims see Stonawski et al. 2015). Muslims in Austria are not an exception and the evidence from census 2001 shows a) that educational gradient in fertility also holds for Muslim women (Figure 48), b) that native-born Muslim women have a lower lifetime fertility compared to foreign-born ones (Figure 49), and c) that there is a large diversity in fertility outcomes of Muslim women of various origins (Figure 49). ...
... С одной стороны уровень доверия граждан к политическим институтам падает от года к году, а с другой стороны возни-кают все более радикальные политические силы, которые ставят своей целью пересмотр всего, что считалось фундаментом идеологической доктрины данных государств после окончания холодной войны. Если добавить к этому тот факт, что все это происходит на фоне растущих демографических показателей у мигрантов из мусульманских стран, которых, по разным оценкам [Stonawski, Potančoková, Skirbekk 2016], к 2050 г. должно стать уже больше, чем местного населения в наиболее крупных государствах Европы, после чего они станут политически и культурно в большей степени похожи на те страны, откуда прибыли данные граждане, являющиеся носителями иной политической культуры, то очевидно, что можно с уверенностью говорить об остром кризисе в данной сфере. ...
Article
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The current world order is undergoing a profound change in its structure, in the composition of the leading participants, and in the socio-cultural discourse that buttresses the political evolution of international relations. Two factors are essential to understand this process. First, several new states, or groups of states, entered the league of the leading world powers and began to exert a significant influence over global politics. Analysts often consider these players as civilizations, in that many such states aspire to proposing an alternative spiritual, cultural, political, and even economic developmental model. Second, the West and its followers began to experience a significant civilizational transformation at the socio-political and socio-cultural levels, placing such countries at a crossroad that could determine their existential future. Contextual transformations of this magnitude must always deploy ideology to legitimize ongoing political change because ideology can question the prevailing conventions of the age to reflect fundamental shifts in society. From this point of view, the arrival of civilizations in the contemporary narrative of international relations invariably involves ideological doctrines that legitimize this process. This paper examines the emergent ideology of civilizational discourse, focusing on its central tenets, and discusses the political shifts that such an ideology seeks to justify.
... Despite the convergence between religious groups, a gap between affiliated and nonaffiliated persons continues to persist in many European countries (Goujon et al., 2007;Goujon et al., 2017;Philipov & Berghammer, 2007). Fertility rates are also higher among some religious minority groups, such as Muslims (Westoff & Frejka, 2007), although a significant part of their higher fertility can be explained by their specific socio-economic profile and their immigrant status (Stonawski et al., 2016). Detailed studies have contributed to a more nuanced understanding of the link between religion and fertility. ...
Article
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Previous studies have consistently shown that religious persons both intend and have more children than their non‐religious peers. However, it is yet unknown whether their higher number of children entirely reflects their higher intentions or whether religious persons also realise their intentions more often than non‐religious individuals. By including different geographical regions—four countries from Western Europe and four countries from Central and Eastern Europe—this study focuses on short‐term fertility intentions and their realisation over 3 years. Our study, which is mainly informed by the Theory of Planned Behaviour, compares three groups, based on two panel waves from the Generations and Gender Survey (2002–2013 and 2006–2016): Christians who regularly attend church services, nominal Christians, and non‐affiliated persons. The results confirm that practising Christians generally intend and have more children than nominal Christians and non‐affiliated persons. Effects are much stronger in Western than in Central and Eastern Europe. However, we find only weak significant differences in realising childbearing intentions by religiosity. This is in line with the theoretical assumption that obstacles to childbearing are already considered in the formation of fertility intentions.
... Stonawski et al. 2016), the contrast in fertility timing between Muslim and118 non-Muslim post-Soviet countries suggests that differences in gender roles come 119 into play. 3 120 Therefore, the central hypothesis considered in this chapter is that the lack of 121 fertility postponement is related to retaining traditional family institutions and gender 122 asymmetries. ...
Chapter
This chapter deals with the influence of gender relations on transition to motherhood in Kyrgyzstan. Although a shift of fertility towards older age was dominant in the post-Soviet space during the recent decades, some post-Soviet countries with mainly Muslim population showed stability of age patterns, with the peak of women’s fertility remaining below 25. Kyrgyzstan is one of those countries, and the authors investigate whether the parameters of gender relations are at least partly “responsible” for the lack of fertility postponement there. It is shown that among the Muslim peoples of Kyrgyzstan, first marriage hazards are positively related to low education of a woman, approval of husband’s violence towards wife, and others and are declining from elder to younger birth cohorts. Meanwhile, first birth hazards among married women demonstrate no relation to gender asymmetries. The analysis has shown that the lowering of first marriage hazards for younger cohorts can be due to certain modernization of gender relations and loosening of the traditional norm that prescribes early marriage for women. This is accompanied by a low social acceptability of out-of-marriage fertility. Under these conditions, younger women are likely to enter the first marriage mainly after they have consciously chosen to have children. This supports the relatively early timing of first births in Kyrgyzstan.
... This compositional effect may be partly responsible for stronger negative or attenuated positive educational gradients in second births in urban areas. Although second-generation migrants typically attain higher levels of education than the previous generation and display lower fertility compared with their parents, a wide nativemigrant gap persists, particularly when considering non-European migrant groups (Baert et al., 2016;Stonawski, Potančoková, & Skirbekk, 2016;Timmerman, Vanderwaeren, & Crul, 2003). ...
Article
For a long time, high‐income countries tended to report a negative association between female educational attainment and childbearing. Belgium was among the first countries that seemed to witness the emergence of a positive educational gradient in female fertility. It has been argued that—alongside other contextual correlates—this trend reflects the increasing availability of work–family reconciliation policies from which especially highly educated people benefit. In contrast to the sizable body of literature assessing varying educational gradients in female fertility across countries, subnational regional variation has hitherto received little attention. As a result, we study the Belgian case using unique microdata covering all residents in 2002–2005. The main focus is on the relevance of between‐municipality variation in economic conditions and childcare services for understanding variation in second birth hazards by educational attainment. We show that a considerable part of the municipal variation in the educational gradient in second birth hazards reflects a positive link between fertility and childcare provisions as well as wealth for highly educated women, contrasting with lower educated groups. Our findings suggest that institutional support for families is relevant but also incurs the risk of increased social polarisation.
... The key argument is that the driver of migrant fertility is the cultural background and demographic trends in the region of origin (Milewski, 2010;Pew research center, 2015). Certain cultural characteristics, such as religious affiliation, is less likely to change and may continue to influence family formation patterns even in the longer term (Connor, 2012;Stonawski, Potančoková, & Skirbekk, 2015;Westoff & Frejka, 2007). Thus, more traditional attitudes and values may increase migrants' fertility, because they generally mean that individuals are more likely to enter relationships earlier, to marry, and to have more children (Coleman, 2006;Kaufmann & Skirbekk, 2012). ...
Article
The family formation consequences of refugee movements is of relevance to international demographic development and for countries accepting forced migrants. Finland provides a unique opportunity to understand the long term effects of involuntary migration on subsequent family formation patterns using population register data. We study individuals who were aged up to 17 years when they were forced to migrate from Finnish Karelia, following the Soviet annexation in the 1940s. There was no migrant selectivity that could affect fertility, and no one had the opportunity to eventually return migrate. For displaced women, but not displaced men, we find that the experience of forced migration in childhood lead to a slightly lower risk of finding a partner, whereas the influence on fertility was small and slightly positive only for men. Forced migrants were more likely to partner with other forced migrants, but we find no robust evidence that partnering behaviour of this kind promotes fertility.
... Similarly, family size may represent not only need but also identity, as immigrants -particularly those from non-EU countries -have, on average, higher fertility rates compared to natives (e.g. Stonawski et al., 2016). However, for the integrity and consistency of the experiment, we limited the operationalization of these deservingness criteria to potentially registered outcomes and actions. ...
Article
As the asylum crisis hit Europe in tandem with the Great Recession, concerns about declining support for equal welfare provision to immigrants grow. Although studies on welfare deservingness show that immigrants are deemed least entitled to welfare compared to other target groups, they have fallen short of isolating welfare claimants’ identity (i.e. foreign origin) with competing deservingness criteria that might explain the immigrant deservingness gap. This article studies the importance of welfare claimants’ foreign origins relative to other theoretically relevant deservingness criteria via a unique vignette experiment among 23,000 Dutch respondents about their preferred levels of unemployment benefits. We show that foreign origin is among the three most important conditions for reduced solidarity, after labour market reintegration behaviour (reciprocity) and culpability for unemployment (control). Furthermore, favourable criteria do not close the gap between immigrants and natives in perceived deservingness, emphasizing the difficulty of overcoming the immigrant penalty in perceived welfare deservingness. We conclude our findings in the light of ongoing theoretical and political debates.
... Cultural background and immigration status is associated with fertility behaviour and the likelihood of abortion (e.g. Adserà, Ferrer, Sigle-Rushton, & Wilson, 2012;Malin & Gissler, 2008;Stonawski, Potancokova, & Skirbekk, 2016). Not being able to account for this variation would have made the results regarding immigrant women difficult to interpret 3 . ...
Article
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Teen mothers often have lower socioeconomic position as adults than other women due to selection, opportunity costs of childbearing, or both. Few studies examine whether that is the case after an induced abortion as well. Also, few studies explore, whether the strength of the association between teen pregnancy and adulthood socioeconomic position differs by family background. This study uses Finnish register data of 53,252 women born in 1975-79 to examine with logistic regression whether the likelihood of having tertiary education depends differently on teen birth and abortion experiences by parental socioeconomic position. I also control for and report whether having a partner providing childcare help mitigates the negative association between teen motherhood and education. The results show teen mothers had lower odds than those who aborted to have tertiary education, and both groups were behind those with no teen pregnancy. Although teen mothers seemed to be farther behind those with no teen pregnancy among the highest (43%-point difference in predicted probability of having tertiary education) than the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds (27%-point difference), the interaction was not significant. Teen mothers with and without a partner had similar probabilities of having tertiary education (8-11%). Those who had an abortion and since separated from their partner, however, had similar probability to have tertiary education as teen mothers (13%), although others who had an abortion had a much higher probability (20%). Selection shapes these relationships. Survey and register data should be combined to study these associations using methods of causal inference.
... While the positive relationship between religious intensity, family size, and fertility has been well documented (and also holds among the Christians who are native to the country) (Baudin 2015, Berghammer 2012, Philipov and Berghammer 2007, Adsera 2006), belonging to a religious groups does not predict fertility outcomes. Other socio-cultural and socio-economic characteristics, such as nativity status (recent immigrants tend to have more children), educational attainment (less educated having larger families) or female labour force participation (full-time employed women having smaller families) may be underlying factors of high fertility in some religious groups, in particular in those with a predominantly immigrant background (for Muslims see Stonawski et al. 2015). Muslims in Austria are not an exception and the evidence from census 2001 shows a) that educational gradient in fertility also holds for Muslim women (Figure 48), b) that native-born Muslim women have a lower lifetime fertility compared to foreign-born ones (Figure 49), and c) that there is a large diversity in fertility outcomes of Muslim women of various origins (Figure 49). ...
Article
In low‐ and middle‐income countries, significant differences in fertility beliefs between rural and urban areas arise from the differential timing and pace of fertility declines. Demographers have long hypothesized about the diffusion of these beliefs and behaviors from urban to rural areas, potentially via temporary rural–urban labor migration. In this paper, we investigate the association between temporary internal migration from rural Senegal to the capital city, Dakar, and differences in the fertility and contraceptive beliefs and preferences of migrants and nonmigrants. We test socialization, selection, and adaptation hypotheses by comparing the fertility ideation of current and returning migrants with that of nonmigrants and future migrants from their place of origin. Our results support selection effects, explaining half of the differences between nonmigrants and migrants. Once selection effects are removed, significant differences remain between nonmigrants and current or returning migrants. These differences are largely explained by two complementary measures of adaptation: years lived in Dakar and the number of ties to residents of that city. The results indicate that adaptation is as important, if not more so than selection in explaining differences between migrants and nonmigrants. This holds true even for returned migrants five years after their last migration spell. Of the two potential adaptation mechanisms explored, the time spent in Dakar generally explained adaptation better than ties to nonmigrants in Dakar. However, our complementary analyses do not rule out the importance of urban networks on fertility, as they contribute to migrant selection.
Article
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We use longitudinal data on religious affiliation in Finland to examine childbearing behavior. All analyses are based on detailed fertility information from the Finnish national register of each person’s religious denomination for men and women born in 1956–1975. We identify higher fertility according to parity among members of the Evangelical Lutheran state church and other Protestant churches, and lower fertility among individuals with no religious affiliation. Most other religious groups—Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and adherents of Eastern religions—have intermediate levels of fertility. We also find that religious converts, that is, those observed with more than one religious denomination over their life course, typically are similar to the non-converts of the group they convert to, though with more distinct deviations from the Finnish population. Women show larger differences by religious affiliation than men. We find the largest differences across religions when we examine the proportion of childless men and women. Overall, differences between religious groups are rather modest, and childbearing patterns are quite similar. Our results provide, to our knowledge, the first examination of religion and fertility using national-level longitudinal data.
Article
This study contributes to the empirical research on the fertility decline registered in Europe in the aftermath of the Great Recession adopting a comparative perspective. We explore childbearing behavior during the crisis across three dimensions of vulnerability: migration background (measured as: country of origin and length of stay in the destination country), labor market uncertainty, and country of residence. We compare childbearing behavior by parity among native and migrant women with different employment statuses in Sweden and Italy. Using the Swedish population registers and the Italian Labor Force Survey, we investigate the change in childbearing probabilities between the pre-crisis (2006–2009) and the years following the onset of the crisis (2010–2015). We find that the chances of motherhood in the aftermath of the Great Recession decreased substantially among recently arrived migrant women, but also among unemployed natives and women with unstable careers. The migration and labor market vulnerabilities, however, do not accumulate: unemployment and career instability negatively affect only native women’s probability of motherhood. Finally, the country comparison demonstrates that while the duration of stay and the weaker labor market attachment reduces the chances of motherhood in both contexts, the negative effect of unemployment is particularly strong in Italy.
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The rapid expansion in the global demand for meat processed for consumption by people of faith has drawn the attention of policymakers, politicians, animal welfare advocates and mainstream retailers.This contribution covers the socio-political aspects of Halal meat production. It highlights the factors responsible for the continued growth of the global Halal market as well as the regulation and certification of Halal food production. The rise in anti-Halal political movements in some countries in the West is also discussed in this chapter, as well as the ethical aspects of Halal meat production.
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В статье рассматриваются христианские религиозно-культурные основы идей республиканизма посредством анализа классической и современной политической философии. Центральным вопросом является возможность читать республику универсальной формой правления, для реализации которой достаточно должного конституционно-правового регулирования политического процесса, либо же ее рассмотрение в призме зависимости от культурно-ценностных парадигм, порождаемых религиозным наследием. С этой целью проводится анализ сущностного содержания идейно-теоретических основ республики, сопоставляемых с христианской религиозно-культурной традицией. Отражены самые различные подходы к пониманию как целеполагания республики в целом, так и ее составных институтов. Ключевая задача – изучить место и роль идей и ценностей в формировании государственных институтов, проследив влияние религиозно-культурного фактора на формирование общественного консенсуса по вопросам конфигурации устройства государственной власти, рассмотрев, в итоге, какова роль христианства в становлении современного идейно-теоретического базиса республиканизма и его ключевой идеологемы – свободы. Автор приходит к выводу, что республика невозможна без осознания обществом своей субъектности, наличия общих интересов, которые могут превалировать над частными, и необходимости жертвовать индивидуальными благами во имя общего дела, определяемого общественной аксиологией. Все это составляет идеи христианства, что делает его возможным истинным источником современной республиканской модели. Ярким примером тому является центральная тема республиканизма – свобода, которая традиционно отождествляется в классических трудах с “нерабством”. Однако негативная концепция, т.е. восприятие свободы как “нерабства”, слишком расплывчата и не дает никакого понимания о сущности того, что представляет собой свобода как самостоятельная категория. Без цели, смысла и идейной сущности свобода как “нерабство” представляет собой рабовладение. Для преодоления этого противоречия необходимо выйти за рамки негативной концепции свободы и дихотомии рабовладелец/раб. Без христианства западная форма республиканской идеи прав человека лишена философского фундамента для аксиологии свободы. Планомерное же уничтожение христианского религиозно-культурного наследия способно привести к лишению республики ее идейно-теоретического базиса, а впоследствии и к дисфункциональности ее ключевых институтов.
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Natural disasters and ethno-political conflicts not only put people’s immediate physical and mental health at risk, but also their desire and opportunity to reproduce. Sometimes natural disasters and conflicts lead to earlier and higher fertility, and sometimes they delay and depress fertility. In this chapter, I review the research on how and why catastrophes such as natural disasters and ethno-political conflicts affect fertility. I discuss how catastrophes can affect fertility by changing fertility preferences, disrupting access to contraception, increasing the exploitation of women and girls, and increasing economic uncertainty. I also discuss the fertility of displaced persons and why climate change is making the effects of natural disasters on fertility ever more relevant.
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Religious institutions played a huge role in lowering Western fertility in the eighteenth century by delaying marriage, limiting extramarital fertility, and spreading education. But does religion still matter today? Although scholars have long predicted that religion would cease to meaningfully influence life outcomes, religion remains very relevant for understanding contemporary fertility—even in the secularized West. In this chapter, I discuss how family size differs across the world’s major religious groups (highest among Muslims and Christians) and by people’s religiosity (higher among the more religious—except for Buddhists). I summarize how religion affects fertility via ideas about gender and family, education, contraception, and abortion, how secularization affects fertility, and why the importance of religion is probably increasing over time.
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Although the literature on the association between religiosity and fertility in European countries is already quite extensive, studies exploring the mechanisms of action of religiosity are rare. The main aim of this article is to study whether grandparenting is an intermediate or modifying variable in the association between religiosity and the intention to have a second or third child. One assumption is that more religious grandparents might put more effort into establishing a positive family relation with adult children and grandchildren, thus more strongly influencing their adult children’s fertility intentions. Using Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) data for eleven European countries, we find evidence of a strong and positive effect of religiosity on fertility intentions. We also observe that receipt of regular or weekly help from grandparents positively modifies the association between religiosity and fertility intentions, albeit only the intention to have a second child.
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There is lack of studies of global variation in religious affiliation alongside environmental change worldwide. The aim of the current study is to help fill this gap by exploring variation in religious affiliation alongside environmental change worldwide. We study this relationship by analysing religious affiliation, a variety of environmental stressors and environmental outcomes.
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This article investigates the fertility of female immigrants to Europe in relation to the characteristics of individual women (n=1,667), their countries of origin in Africa, Asia and Latin-America (n=68) and the European country where they reside (n=22), using the European Social Survey ( ESS ) collected between 2010 and 2017 (rounds 5 to 8). Many immigrants have fertility outcomes that converge towards the native fertility of their country of residence in Europe, a surprisingly strong factor. Immigrants from Muslim countries have higher fertility, though, and they compress their fertility over fewer years than immigrants from Christian countries. Multivariate estimates indicate that the effects of fertility rates and religious composition of countries of origin and individual religiousness are of similar magnitude for post-migration fertility rates. The highest fertility outcomes are found among highly religious immigrants from Muslim countries migrating to relatively high fertility countries in Europe at an early fertile age.
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The paper aims to contribute to studies of women’s human capital and fertility in post-Soviet societies. The post-Soviet regions are a particularly interesting setting to study this question because they have combined traditional family organization and rapid social change in recent decades. Based on evidence from Karachay-Cherkessia (Russia), we examine whether elements of a woman’s human capital can account for her fertility behavior in the context of family traditionalism. Our analysis is based in a sample survey of women conducted in 2018. Using Poisson regressions, we analyze the relation of human capital and family traditionalism to the number of children born to women of different ages. We conclude that both human capital and cultural family traditionalism (the empowerment of elder relatives in a woman’s family and a woman’s observance of religious rituals) appear to be significant for fertility decisions, with their effects working in opposite directions.
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Objectives: The religious landscape of older adults around the world is changing profoundly. Yet until now, no study has chronicled these changes or compared expected aging patterns of religious groups. Differential aging among religious groups can have important economic and social consequences. This study estimates and projects the future religious composition by age at the global and regional levels. Method: This study presents estimates of age structures by religion for 2010 and projections until 2050. It is based on analyses of more than 2,500 censuses, registers, and surveys from 198 countries. Regional and global results are the aggregate of demographic projections carried out at the country level. Results: In 2010, Muslims were least likely to be aged 60 or older (7% of all Muslims), and Jews were most likely to be in this age group (20% of all Jews). By 2050, we project that Buddhists and the religiously unaffiliated will have the oldest populations (both will have 32% above the age of 60), whereas Muslims will remain the youngest religious group (with only 16% above the age of 60). Christians will, globally, age relatively slowly, from 14% to 21% above the age of 60 from 2010 to 2050. Discussion: The religious landscape among the world’s seniors will change fundamentally in the coming years, due to the combination of rapid aging among the religiously unaffiliated and Buddhist populations and the persistence of relatively young age structures among Muslims and Christians, which are the dominant religions in Africa.
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Education is the main driving force of development, autonomy and demographic change. It provides women access to modern ways of thinking, confidence to engage with the modern world, reduces infant mortality, raises age at marriage and stimulates higher levels of gender equity within couple relationships. Schooling is also positively related with more favorable attitudes towards birth control, greater knowledge of contraception, and husband-wife communication. It also promotes female labour force participation in the cash economy hence raising the opportunity cost of having children. This chapter, first, discusses the value that Islam places on women’s education, and presents the trend of female education in Muslim-majority countries. Second, country level differences as well as gender gap in education and the reasons for this diversity are reviewed. Third, fertility change in Islamic countries and the pathways by which female education has had impact on fertility is examined. The result shows that the level of women’s education has increased substantially in most of the Islamic world and women have higher access to formal schooling and acquire information through various means of communication. Thus, there is a need to reconsider many of the stereotypes indicating that Muslim societies for religious reason discriminate against women. As a consequence of educational achievements, the traditional values and norms have been weakened, although in many cases there is strong resistance to these influences. Considerable fertility decline occurred in these countries can be explained by the improvements in female education that has strongly affected the supply and the demand for children as well as fertility regulations.
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La Grèce était, jusqu'au éclatement de l'ex-Yougoslavie, le seul pays des Balkans caractérisé par une forte homogénéité religieuse et linguistique. Toutefois, dans la partie nord-est du pays, en Thrace (carte 1), dans deux parmi les trois Départements de la région (Xanthi et Rhodope), une population chrétienne cohabite depuis des siècles avec une population musulmane, résidus, comme dans les autres états balkaniques, des antécédents historiques et des accords internationaux de l'entre deux guerres 1 .Cette population, musulmane et turcophone à la fois, ayant un poids minime au niveau national, était légèrement majoritaire jusqu'au 1951 dans les deux Départements en question (Tableau 1). CARTE 1 : LES DÉPARTEMENTS DE XANTHI ET DE RHODOPE EN THRACE GRECQUE Toutefois, les dernières données disponibles, permettant de connaitre la répartition de la population totale des ces départements selon la religion (ainsi que sa répartition dans l'espace selon cette même variable) remontent au premier recensement de l'après-guerre, alors que les questions permettant de connaitre le volume et les caractéristiques démographiques de la minorité musulmane de Thrace sont éliminées aux recensements organisés après 1951. Néanmoins, les indices épars disponibles laissent supposer que la répartition de la population selon l'appartenance religieuse dans ces deux départements Thraciotes n'a pas été modifiée de manière radicale ces 50 dernières années, le jeu des composantes du renouvellement de la population (mortalité, fécondité et migration) allant dans le sens de la persistance de cette hétérogénéité 2 .
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The fertility of immigrants' children increasingly shapes the ethnic diversity of the population in Western Europe. However, few data are available on the fertility patterns of immigrants and their offspring. This article provides new fertility estimates of immigrants and immigrants' children by ethnic group in the United Kingdom that may provide betterinformed fertility assumptions for future population projection models. The impact of migration-specific tempo effects on the period TFR of immigrants is analyzed. Among the results, intergenerational fertility transitions strongly contribute both to fertility convergence between ethnic groups and to fertility "assimilation" or "intergenerational adaptation" to the UK mainstream childbearing behavior. Ethnic fertility convergence, particularly marked for populations originating from high-fertility countries, reflects in part decreasing fertility in sending countries and in part intergenerational adaptation to the UK mainstream. Higher educational enrollment of the daughters of immigrants may partly explain their relatively lower fertility.
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The relative sizes of secular and religious populations belong to the most important social characteristics of each country. In the wake of religious change, family behaviour, including marriage and childbearing, is likely to be altered. European demographic trends, including those of late childbearing and low fertility are also likely to change when there is a growth of religious groups where conversion/secularisation rates are low and childbearing levels are high. We project the membership size of the various religious groupings until 2051 for Austria, a country where the religion question is included in the census, allowing detailed and accurate projections to be made. We consider relative fertility rates, religion-specific emigration and immigration, conversion rates and intergenerational transmission of religious affiliation. Our estimates suggest that the Catholic proportion will decrease from 75% in 2001 to less than 50% in 2051. The Muslim population, which grew from 1% in 1981 to 4% in 2001, will represent 14% to 18% of the Austrian population by 2051, and could represent up to 32% of those below 15 years of age. The Protestants’ population share will be stable at around 4%, while up to 34% of the population will be without religion.
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Since the early 1990s, Spanish fertility has been among the lowest in the world, despite a small upturn observed in the last few years (1.35 children per woman in 2006). In this context, and despite a steady increase in life expectancy, population growth is set to level off and become negative in the coming decades. Yet at the same time, thanks to unprecedented economic prosperity, Spain's population has risen by 5 million over the last decade and now exceeds 45 million. This rapid growth, unique in Europe, is almost entirely attributable to immigration: the number of foreigners rose from 200,000 in 1981 to almost 4.5 million in early 2007 In this article, MARTA RoIG VILA and TERESA CASTRO MARTÍN examine the contribution of foreigners' fertility to population growth, both today and in the future. They approach the question by examining differences in fertility behaviour between Spanish women and foreign women, and between foreign women of different origins. After meticulous analysis of all available data, they interpret the observed differences with caution and conclude that a broader range of data is required before more detailed analyses can be attempted.
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This article describes a cultural production process called religification, in which religious affiliation, rather than race or ethnicity, has become the core category of identity for working-class Pakistani-American youth in the United States. In this dialectical process, triggered by political changes following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Muslim identity is both thrust upon Pakistani-American youth by those who question their citizenship and embraced by the youth themselves. Specifically, the article examines the ways in which schools are sites where citizenship is both constructed and contested and the roles that peers, school personnel, families, and the youth themselves play in this construction/contestation of citizenship.
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This study uses the economic concepts of household production and human capital to develop and test a new model of religious participation. The model explains observed patterns in denominational mobility, religious intermarriage, conversion ages, the relationship between church attendance and contributions, and the influence of upbringing and interfaith marriage on levels of religious participation.
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This paper estimates the impact of the extension of compulsory schooling in Turkey from 5 to 8 years on the marriage and fertility behavior of teenage women in Turkey using the 2008 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey. We find that the new education policy reduces the probability of marriage and giving birth for teenage women substantially: the probability of marriage by age 16 is reduced by 44 percent and the probability of giving birth by age 17 falls by 36 percent. The effects of the education policy on the time until marriage and first-birth persist beyond the completion of compulsory schooling. In addition, we find that the delay in the time until first-birth is driven by the delay in the time until marriage. After a woman is married, the rise in compulsory schooling years does not have an effect on the duration until her first-birth. Finally, we find that the education policy was more effective in reducing early marriage than a change in the Civil Code aimed for this purpose.
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Spain has recently become the destination for large numbers of international migrants and now ranks as a key focal point for international migration in Europe. Currently, approximately one in ten residents in Spain are foreigners, up more than tenfold from figures holding at the outset of this century. Migration has now become a major social and political issue in the country. In order to provide reliable data about migrants in Spain for researchers and policy makers, acting on a proposal of a research team working within the context of the Population and Society Research Network (GEPS), the Spanish Statistical Office has recently carried out an extremely ambitious survey of foreign-born persons currently living in Spain. In the course of the survey, nearly 15,500 persons were interviewed regarding a large array of issues pertaining to their migration experience. Important documentation, including the project report, the methodological specifications of the survey, and the anonymized micro data have recently been made available to the scientific community and to policy makers at the website of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística. The purpose of this paper is to describe this data source, its content, its methodological underpinnings, and the way the fieldwork and data cleaning were carried out. Examples of preliminary results will be presented so as to underscore the potential this survey affords for researchers everywhere.
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Based on an analysis of the Spanish census and the January 1, 2005 municipal register and on exploratory fieldwork in Catalonia, this paper combines ethnography and demography, in conjunction with current Spanish reunification law, to examine the dynamics of what appears to be high fertility among Gambian immigrants living in Spain. We suggest that this high fertility rate reflects several things. One is the high costs of living in Spain for an unskilled, often-undocumented, but also relatively-longstanding SubSaharan group from a homeland with high rates of fertility: a homeland with which close ties remain vital for migrants in highly marginal conditions. Another is the replacement, in some cases, of older wives by younger ones from Africa, resulting in high rates of reproduction for short slices of time by a circulating pool of young women. We focus, however, on the role of Spanish and European policies themselves in shaping these numbers, particularly those policies that place restrictions on the free movement of people. We conclude that the most interesting demographic facet of this population may not be high fertility but rather the paradoxical dynamics of child accumulation in particular geographic regions as an artifact of Spanish law itself.
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Declining fertility is often attributed to the increased education of women. It is difficult to establish a causal link because both fertility and education have changed secularly. In this paper we study the connection between fertility and education using educational reform as an instrument to control for selection. Our results indicate that increasing education leads to postponement of first births away from teenage motherhood and towards women having their first birth in their 20s as well as, for a smaller group, up to the age of 35-40. We find no evidence, however, that more education results in more women remaining childless or having fewer children. Copyright © The editors of the "Scandinavian Journal of Economics" 2008 .
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This article discusses how fertility relates to social status with the use of a new dataset, several times larger than the ones used so far. The status-fertility relation is investigated over several centuries, across world regions and by the type of status-measure. The study reveals that as fertility declines, there is a general shift from a positive to a negative or neutral status-fertility relation. Those with high income/wealth or high occupation/social class switch from having relatively many to fewer or the same number of children as others. Education, however, depresses fertility for as long as this relation is observed (from early in the 20th century).
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This paper investigates the impact of immigration on the transition to motherhood among women from Turkey, Italy, Spain, Greece, and the former Yugoslavia in West Germany. A hazard-regression analysis is applied to data of the German Socio-Economic Panel study. We distinguish between the first and second immigrant generation. The results show that the transition rates to a first birth of first-generation immigrants are elevated shortly after they move country. Elevated birth risks that occur shortly following the immigration are traced back to an interrelation of events - these are migration, marriage, and first birth. We do not find evidence of a fertility-disruption effect after immigration. The analysis indicates that second-generation immigrants are more adapted to the lower fertility levels of West Germans than their mothers’ generation is.
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There has been much scholarly debate on the politically disruptive capabilities of Islam and the threats to global security posed by or to Muslim states and societies, but within this dialogue there has been little recognition of the role of population policies in security issues. Katrina Riddell's study focuses specifically on Islam and the securitization of population policies and sustainability. Opening with a discussion of contemporary population discourses and their historical foundations, the book examines how population growth has become an international security issue. The author takes the examples of Pakistan and Iran to provide a nuanced understanding of Muslim states' interaction with global debates on sustainability. She also explores how Muslim and non-Muslim states, societies and agents perceive issues of population growth and control. Providing an innovative approach to the pursuit of global sustainability and security, this book presents useful material to scholars whose research focuses on Islam and the future.
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Since the early 1990s, Spanish fertility has been among the lowest in the world, despite a small upturn observed in the last few years (1.35 children per woman in 2006). In this context, and despite a steady increase in life expectancy, population growth is set to level off and become negative in the coming decades. Yet at the same time, thanks to unprecedented economic prosperity, Spain's population has risen by 5 million over the last decade and now exceeds 45 million. This rapid growth, unique in Europe, is almost entirely attributable to immigration: the number of foreigners rose from 200,000 in 1981 to almost 4.5 million in early 2007. In this article, MARTA ROIG VILA and TERESA CASTRO MARTÍN examine the contribution of foreigners' fertility to population growth, both today and in the future. They approach the question by examining differences in fertility behaviour between Spanish women and foreign women, and between foreign women of different origins. After meticulous analysis of all available data, they interpret the observed differences with caution and conclude that a broader range of data is required before more detailed analyses can be attempted.
Article
Precision matching is used to test whether religious differences in fertility behavior result from socio-economic differences between the major religious groups. The 66 Jewish couples from a national sample survey of fertility are matched with Catholic and Protestant couples on duration of marriage and five socio-economic characteristics. These socio-economic controls eliminate most of the Protestant-Jewish differences for the fertility variables. However, the Catholic-Jewish differentials are not reduced. Apparently the distinctive Catholic fertility pattern cannot be explained by the combination of socio-economic characteristics considered. The significance of these results is discussed.
Article
This article presents the first projection, to our knowledge, of the intensity of religiosity in a population, which has a strong bearing on the critical question of the religious future of Europe. Spain has, in recent decades, simultaneously experienced rapid religious decline and marked demographic change through high immigration and declining fertility. To investigate future trends, we carry out population projections by religion and religiosity to the year 2050. We find that both fertility and immigration increase the share of the highly religious, as the more religious tend to have more children and immigrants tend to be more religious than non-immigrants. The non-religious population grows because people switch from religion to no-religion and because they are younger. Our findings suggest that in the longer term (2050), there may be growth in the no-religion population, a decline in the share of highly religious Christians, and moderate development of low religious Christians. The Muslim population would substantially increase, unless there is an end to migration and fertility differentials.
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Cross-sectional comparisons of the decline in fertility in former socialist countries point to a bi-phasic response: a crisis-induced family limitation followed by the postponement of childbearing during economic and political consolidation. In this article, the last two decades of Albania’s fertility transition are documented. The bi-phasic response model is tested in a period analysis of adaptations in marriage and parity-specific fertility to the socio-economic and political transformations since the fall of communist rule. We find that the timing and patterns of changes in Albanian family behaviours generally adhere to the model. Socio-economic differentials and trends are congruent with the major role played by the crisis and structural change. However, the Albanian case also highlights the enduring importance of traditional family formation models during the crisis, as well as among specific subpopulations more recently. These results are discussed with reference to a sociological account of Albanian society.
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The signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, the main bilateral agreement for the protection of Greek and Muslim minorities, hallmarks the onset of a bilateral conflict between Greece and Turkey. Together with tackling the issues of the Aegean and Cyprus, the question of the Muslim minority in Greece impedes the normalization of Greek-Turkish diplomatic relations in recent decades. The state of affairs of the Muslim community in Western Thrace has been labeled as an extremely sensitive issue within the political scene. Drawing upon Pille Petersoo's typology this paper introduces the notion of “negative and positive Others” to explore its role in Greek nationalist discourse. The main minority political, cultural and religious claims are also discussed, emphasizing minority's most prominent political claim, the recognition of its ethnic Turkish identity. The paper argues that the historical and political conditions as well as the common ethnic background of a minority group with a kin-state, have nurtured the formation and expression of an internal negative “Other”. However, new dynamics have promoted the reconstruction of the role of otherness in Greek national identity.
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No problem has perplexed students of modern Ottoman history more than that of determining the state of the empire's population during its last century. Foreign travelers and diplomats and various nationalist leaders claimed that the Ottoman government had no census of its own. They made self-serving estimates of its population to support their own political or diplomatic ambitions, using at best methods such as multiplying by preset figures the number of males found in neighborhood coffeehouses or Sunday religious services, or simply accepting the estimates of local priests. In the face of this, the Ottomans did no more than publish their figures without providing supporting data or bothering to explain their census procedures. As a result, the Ottoman census system and its data were largely ignored in the outside world, and the rough and inaccurate estimates of foreigners were generally accepted in preference to the official figures.
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This article analyzes the best available evidence from the major British social surveys to describe and explain the continuous decline of religion throughout the 20th century. This decline is overwhelmingly generational in nature rather than a product of particular periods such as World War II or the 1960s. Measures of religious affiliation, regular attendance at worship, and religious belief show nearly identical rates of intergenerational decline. Decline has not been offset by any positive age effects in an aging society: Britons do not get more religious as they get older. The intergenerational decline follows clear patterns of transmission of parental religious characteristics to children. Two potential modulators of decline are identified and investigated: immigration of people who are more religious than the existing population and higher fertility rates among the religiously active population. Of these only the former appears of importance. The nonwhite ethnic minority immigrant population is far more religious than the white population; however, the rates of intergenerational decline (between immigrant parents and native-born children) are almost as high as for the white population, leading to an intergenerational convergence of levels of religiosity. Although ethnic minority populations tend to be more religious and have higher fertility rates, there is no differential fertility by religiosity among the population as a whole.
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Papa Sow © 2007 Bledsoe, Houle & Sow This open-access work is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 2.0 Germany, which permits use, reproduction & distribution in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author(s) and source are given credit.
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Using a ‘transitional’ perspective on migration, which combines three theoretical approaches on dynamic development-migration linkages, this paper interprets the evolution of migration within, from, and to Morocco over the twentieth century. Colonization and the incorporation of rural areas, along with a certain level of socio-economic development, have spurred internal and international wage labour migration both within Morocco and from Morocco to Europe. Migration seems to be the result of development rather than the lack of development. Populations from highly marginalized regions were less likely to participate in migration than populations from the three, moderately enclosed “migration belts” which had established traditions of pre-modern, largely circular migration. At the onset of large-scale emigration in the 1960s, the spatial patterns of labour migration were significantly infuenced by colonial bonds with Spain and France, selective labour recruitment, and Moroccan selective passport issuance policies.
Article
We project the religious composition of the United States to 2043, considering fertility differences, migration, intergenerational religious transmission and conversion by 11 ethnoreligious groups. If fertility and migration trends continue, Hispanic Catholics will experience rapid growth, expanding from 10 to 18 percent of the population between 2003 and 2043. Protestants could decrease from 47 to 39 percent over the same period, establishing Catholicism as the largest religion among younger age groups. Immigration drives growth among Hindus and Muslims, while low fertility explains decline among Jews. The religiosity of immigrants combined with the low fertility of nonreligious Americans results in a gradual decline, and subsequent reversal of, secularization, with the nonreligious population share expected to plateau before 2043.
Article
The present study provides an investigation of patterns in childbearing among foreign-born women in Sweden from the 1960s to the 1990s. Event-history techniques are applied to longitudinal population register data on childbearing and migration of 446,000 foreign-born women who had ever lived in Sweden before the end of 1999. Period trends in parity-specific fertility appear to be quite similar for Swedish- and foreignborn women, but important differences exist in levels of childbearing propensities between women from different countries of origin. Most immigrant groups tend to display higher levels of childbearing shortly after immigration. We conclude that migration and family building in many cases are interrelated processes and that it is always important to account for time since migration when fertility of immigrants is studied.
Article
This article explores the doctrine of Islam and the different theological interpretations of the position of Islam about family planning in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Jordan, following the Sunni and Shia traditions. Principles that led to fatwas (rulings) in both these theological traditions, together with the main arguments of the debate between the proponents and opponents of family planning in Islam and the Higher Judge's interpretation (Islamic Courts in Jordan) of the position of Islam on family planning, are included. Men's and women's views are summarized, based on the findings of natural group discussions and in-depth interviews conducted in 1998 with couples and individuals within their social networks in the different contexts in Jordan. Based on a gap analysis between doctrine, policy and people's beliefs, this study shows a need for family planning programmes to address men and women in a culturally sensitive manner: Men shape reproductive decisions. It is therefore argued that if men were more pro-actively involved in family-planning awareness campaigns, there might be a transformation of values and perceptions around fertility and family planning. Another conclusion drawn from the findings is that local resources, especially religious men, can be instrumental in promoting political trust in—and a sense of ownership of—family planning programmes in Jordan. Using local resources in advocacy for family planning, based on the cultural context of Shari’ah, seems effective in changing the reproductive behaviour of men.
Article
This paper examines the fertility of female migrants in Germany. After introducing major hypotheses on migrant fertility we give an overview on German datasets that are available for migrant fertility research. Finally, descriptive and multivariate analyses based on the "Sample Survey of Selected Migrant Groups in Germany (RAM)" are presented. Migrant fertility in Germany differs according to the country of origin: among major migrant groups analysed, Turkish women show the highest and Polish women the lowest fertility level. Multivariate analysis shows that the existence of children born in the country of origin has a strong increasing effect on migrant fertility. Besides, migrant women with German partners have a lower fertility than women with non-German partners. Furthermore, the fertility of Muslim women is elevated when compared with other religious groups. In contrast, emotional ties with the country of origin and the level of native and German language skills show no influence on migrants' fertility.
Book
Women's access to education has been recognized as a fundamental right. At the national level, educating women results in improved productivity, income, and economic development, as well as a better quality of life, notably a healthier and better nourished population. It is important for all kinds of demographic behaviour, affecting mortality, health, fertility, and contraception, The personal benefits that women attach to education vary widely according to region, culture, and level of devlopment, but it is clear that educaiton empowers women, providing them with increased autonomy and resulting in almost every context in fewer children. Beyond these few general assertions, however, there is little consensus on such issues as how much education is required before changes in autonomy or reproductive behaviour occur; whether the education-autonomy relationship exists in all cultural contexts, at all times, and at all levels of development; and which aspects of autonomy are important in the relationship between education and fertility. It is in the need to address these fundamental issues that this book took shape. The author reviews the considerable evidence about education and fertility in the developing world that has emerged over the last twenty years, and then passes beyond the limits of previous studies to address three major questions: BL Does increased education always lead to a decrease in the number of children, or is there a threshold level of education that a woman must achieve before this inverse relationship becomes apparent? BL What are the critical pathways influencing the relationship of women's education to fertility? Is fertility affected because education leads to changes in the duration of breast-feeding? Because it raises the age at marriage? Because it increases the practice of contraception? Or because education reduces women's preferences for large numbers of children? BL Do improvements in education empower women in other areas of life, such as their improving exposure to information, decision-making, control of resources, or confidence in dealing with family and the outside world? Supported by full documentation of the available survey data, this study concludes that such contextual factors as the overall level of socio-economic development and the situation of women in traditional kinship structures complicate the general assumptions about the interrelationships between education, fertility, and female autonomy. It lays out the policy implications of these findings and fruitful directions for future research.
Chapter
For many countries, like the United States, Canada and Australia, immigration has played an important role in the settlement processes. In Sweden, immigration has been a largely post-war phenomenon, but it has nevertheless served as an important input for the transformation of Swedish society and has left an imprint on the composition of the Swedish population that could not be foreseen 50 years ago. From numbering fewer than 100,000 in 1945, the foreign-born population in Sweden had increased to 1.2 million in 2008, and Statistics Sweden projects that this number will reach 1.7 million in the year 2050. Initially, migrants to Sweden were fleeing the horrors and destruction of World War II in Europe, but shortly after the war labor force migration from the neighboring Nordic countries and Southern Europe became the dominant force. In the early 1970s the face of immigration changed and has since been dominated by refugee and family reunification migration from a wide range of countries from all over the world. The widespread demand for manual and industrial labor which was an important determinant of immigration streams in the 1950s and 1960s became less important and, since the early 1970s, migration policy and the outbursts of war, famine and terror on behalf of anti-democratic regimes have largely determined the streams of immigrants to Sweden. This intense and multi-faceted immigration experience resulted in the varied society of today. Not only does Swedish society contain a large immigrant population, but the children of immigrants, also known as the second generation, make up a sizeable and growing fraction of the Swedish population.
Article
This article examines fertility patterns and differentials between native women, and Albanian and Bulgarian immigrants, using data from the 2001 census of Greece on the reported numbers of children ever-born alive by citizenship. The analysis focuses on changing fertility timing and quantum of women born between 1950 and 1970, and reveals that cohort fertility is highest among Albanians and lowest among Bulgarians, while levels for native women are somewhere in between. Completed cohort fertility is decreasing over time for all nationalities, while the gap observed among the ethnic groups has been narrowing. Evidence based on the 2001 censuses of Albania and Bulgaria indicates that immigrants in Greece constitute, to some extent, selected groups, compared to the inhabitants of their countries of origin. Cet article examine les schémas de fécondité et les écarts entre femmes autochtones et immigrées albanaises et bulgares en Grèce à l’aide des données du recensement de 2001 sur le nombre d’enfants nés vivants par nationalité. L’analyse est centrée sur l’évolution du calendrier et du niveau de la fécondité des femmes nées entre 1950 at 1970 et met en évidence une fécondité par génération maximale pour les Albanaises, minimale pour les Bulgares, et intermédiaire pour les autochtones. La fécondité achevée par génération diminue au cours du temps pour toutes les nationalités, et les écarts entre groupes ethniques se réduisent. L’analyse montre que les immigrés en Grèce sont des groupes sélectionnés par rapport à la population de leur pays d’origine.
Article
During the two decades extending from the late 1970s, average TFR in Arab countries declined by more than two births per woman. The paper examines changes in the proximate determinants of Arab fertility and evaluates some of the underlying factors that are variously held to have influenced the fertility transition. The proximate and underlying determinants of fertility in Arab countries are compared with those of other regions. Among the factors examined are economic hardship, delayed marriage, and female education and labour force participation. The roles of oil revenues and of the Islamic religion are also considered. An interesting feature is that fertility declined despite continued desires for large families.
Article
This paper presents estimates of the level and trend of the fertility of different ethnic minorities in the UK from the 1960s up to 2006. The fertility estimates are derived primarily from the Labour Force Survey using the Own-Child method, with additional information from the General Household Survey and vital registration data. Comparisons are made between the level of fertility of UK-born and immigrant mothers from minority groups, and the fertility of the populations in the country of origin. Total fertility in all groups has fallen from levels that were initially relatively high. That of some UK ethnic groups has already fallen to about the level of the UK national average (e.g., black Caribbean) or below it (e.g., Indian and Chinese). Only among Pakistani and Bangladeshi women does total fertility remain substantially above the national average despite a continuous decrease over the last 20 years.
Article
Even though second generation immigrants make up ever increasing population shares in industrialized countries we know little about their social integration and wellbeing. This study focuses on the educational attainment of German born children of immigrants. Their schooling success still lags behind that of natives. This paper investigates school attendance and completed degrees of second generation immigrants and finds that even after controlling for characteristics the educational gap remains large and significant. The available evidence suggests that this group as a whole does not assimilate to native educational standards and instead increasingly falls behind. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2003
Article
Surprisingly, relatively little is known about the relationship between education and completed fertility in low fertility countries and especially the trend in this relationship over time. An inverse relationship is expected, but the topic has been left largely unexplored for at least a generation, and for men the topic is almost completely unexplored empirically. In this paper, we use data from the population registers covering all Norwegians born 1940-64. Among women, the relationship between completed fertility and the educational level attained at age 39 has become substantially less negative. In all the cohorts, better educated women have more often remained childless than the less educated, and they have had later first births, which also contributes to lower subsequent fertility. However, the negative effect of education on higher-order birth rates net of this impact of later motherhood has disappeared in the younger cohorts. Family-friendly policies and ideologies, leading, for example, to better access to high-quality day care, are likely the main engine behind this shift. Among men, a positive relationship has emerged. The better educated become fathers later than others, but fewer remain childless, and there has been an increasingly stimulating effect of education on second- and third-birth rates. We discuss these sex differences in the light of the persistent differences between mother and father roles.
Article
This contribution looks at the influence of immigration on childbearing trends in the countries of Western, Northern and Southern Europe, which have received relatively large numbers of immigrants during the last decades. It analyses the contribution of migrants to the total number of births and compares fertility rates of migrant women with the fertility rates of native women, pointing out huge diversity between migrant groups. It also discusses the evidence regarding the progressive ‘assimilation’ in migrants’ fertility to the local fertility patterns and analyses the net impact of migrants on period fertility rates. This review reveals that migrant women typically retain substantially higher levels of period fertility than the ‘native’ populations, but this difference typically diminishes over time and with the duration of their stay in a country. Immigrants contribute substantially to the total number of births and their share of total births has increased in the last decade, exceeding in some countries one fifth of the recorded live births. However, the ‘net effect’ of the higher fertility of migrants on the period total fertility of particular countries remains relatively small, typically between 0.05 and 0.10 in absolute terms.
Article
Based on official data on religion, national origin, and other indicators of ethnic origin, Muslim fertility in 13 European countries is higher than that for other women, but in most countries with trend data the differences are diminishing over time. Fertility varies by country of origin of immigrants. Various European survey data show that higher proportions of Muslim women are married and their commitment to traditional family values is greater than among other women. Muslim women are more religious than non-Muslim women and religiousness is directly associated with fertility. Among Muslim women, religiousness and commitment to family values are equally important for fertility, while for non-Muslim women religiousness is much less important. Copyright 2007 The Population Council, Inc..
Article
This note reviews and synthesizes research on the effects of religion on various economic and demographic behaviors of individuals and families in the United States, including the choice of marital partner, union formation and dissolution, fertility, female time allocation, education, wages, and wealth. Using a theoretical framework based on Gary Becker's contributions to the economics of the family, it demonstrates that religious affiliation affects economic and demographic behavior because of its impact on the costs and benefits of many interrelated decisions that people make over the life cycle. In addition, for behaviors that pertain to married-couple households, religious affiliation matters because it is a complementary trait within the context of marriage. Religiosity, another dimension of religion, also affects economic and demographic outcomes, partly because it accentuates differences by religious affiliation, partly because religious involvement has generally beneficial effects on health and well-being. Copyright 2004 The Population Council, Inc..
Article
Religious affiliation as a determinant of demographic behavior is receiving renewed attention in demography. Interest in the role of cultural factors in affecting fertility and a specific concern with the role of Islam in many developing countries have helped re-invigorate research on the role of religion. This article reviews theoretical and empirical work on that relationship, with special attention to a number of cases in which religion has been identified as an important determinant of fertility patterns. The article concludes that religion plays an influential role when three conditions are satisfied: first, the religion articulates behavioral norms with a bearing on fertility behavior; second, the religion holds the means to communicate these values and promote compliance; and, third, religion forms a central component of the social identity of its followers. Copyright 2004 The Population Council, Inc..
Regions, minorities and European integration: a state of the art report on the Turkish Muslims in Western Thrace
  • D Anagnostou
  • A Triandafyllidou
Anagnostou D, Triandafyllidou A. 2007. Regions, minorities and European integration: a state of the art report on the Turkish Muslims in Western Thrace, Greece. Project Report for EUROREG project FP6-506019.
Estimating Fertility from Data on Children Ever Born
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Arriaga E. 1983. Estimating Fertility from Data on Children Ever Born, by Age of Mother. US Census Bureau: Washington, DC.
Demographic transition among Muslims in Eastern Europe
  • Courbage
Courbage Y. 1992. Demographic transition among Muslims in Eastern Europe. Population: An English Edition 4: 161-186.
Hard times lift Greece's anti-immigrant fringe
  • R Donadio
  • D Bounias
Donadio R, Bounias D. 2012. Hard times lift Greece's anti-immigrant fringe, New York Times, 12 April, A1
Fertility and religion in the UK: trends and outlook
  • S Dubuc
Dubuc S. 2009. Fertility and religion in the UK: trends and outlook. Paper presented at the Population Association of America conference, Detroit.
The Islamic world's quiet revolution Foreign Policy
  • N Eberstadt
Eberstadt N. 2012. The Islamic world's quiet revolution. Foreign Policy, 9 March.
Heading home again. Worried Albanians in northern Greece prepare to go home
The Economist. 2012. Heading home again. Worried Albanians in northern Greece prepare to go home. The Economist, 14 January.