* The original article can be found here: Paul, Darel E. 2026: The Gender Egalitarian Family Model: Empirical and Theoretical Problems. In: Comparative Population Studies 51: 403-426. https://doi.org/10.12765/CPoS-2026-17 This is a rejoinder to a paper published in this journal authored by Paul (2026). The paper to which this rejoinder refers takes aim at the gender egalitarian family model, and in places it makes points the field needs to absorb: the recent cross-national correlation between fertility and female labour force participation has lost some of its force; Nordic period and cohort fertility have declined in ways the framework may not have predicted; and the gendered attitudinal divergence between young men and young women is real. Yet the paper moves too readily from a critique of particular explanatory and predictive claims to a much broader rejection of the gender-egalitarian family model as a policy orientation. In doing so, it underplays an important normative and institutional strand of the literature, which has been concerned not only with demographic outcomes but also with equity and fairness as the conditions under which people can “write their own biographies.” The paper’s closing balancing act between liberal values and “the simultaneous interests of both the state and society in its own reproduction” as it is written makes me feel quite uneasy (Paul 2026: 420).
* A Rejoinder to this article is published here: Gietel-Basten, Stuart 2026: Gender Egalitarianism, Fertility, and an Attribution Error: a rejoinder on “The Gender Egalitarian Family Model: Empirical and Theoretical Problems”. In: Comparative Population Studies 51: 427-440. https://doi.org/10.12765/CPoS-2026-18 In the demographic literature, gender egalitarianism has become the leading prescription for successful family (re)production in highly developed countries. Recent trends bring into question the case for the gender egalitarian family model, however. Its empirical claims are dependent on the transient experience of the Nordic countries in the 1990s and 2000s as well as on an amalgamation effect in the comparative national data. Its theoretical basis is challenged by social processes including rising female childlessness and young male reaction against gender egalitarianism. A reckoning with the limitations of this family model is important for both social scientists and policymakers seeking explanations for contemporary low fertility and family decline in the advanced Western democracies.
The millennium fertility uptick of 2000 was seen in 29 out of 39 low fertility countries; those countries saw an average increase in TFR of 0.04. The pandemic uptick of 2021 showed a similar average TFR uptick of 0.04 across 31 countries. Those superficial similarities conceal considerable differences. The aim of this paper is to explore those differences at both a regional level and by individual characteristics of age of mother and birth order. Across Asia the millennium uptick was particularly strong, with Taiwan and Singapore each seeing a leap of 8 percent in births over the previous year. The “auspicious” Year of the Dragon was a likely driver of this boost. However, having a “millennium baby” also appealed to women across much of Europe. The USA posted an increase of almost 100,000 births; yet most other Anglophone countries saw a fall. The regional differences in the pandemic uptick were also stark. Across the Nordic, Central European and Anglophone countries, the uptick was universal; an increase in births of over 3 percent in 2021 compared to 2020 was seen in 12 countries, which marked a sharp reversal from six consecutive years of declining births. The majority of countries in Southern and Eastern Europe also saw fertility rates rise, but these were generally modest. In Asia only Singapore experienced a slight bounce. In addition to the regional differences, the contrasts by parity and age of mother are illuminating. The millennium uptick was driven primarily by first births and was spread across all age groups. By contrast, in the pandemic uptick, it was second and higher order births, particularly to older mothers, which boosted the fertility rate, with first births concurrently being subdued. This observation gives policy-makers an indication of potential measures that can temporarily boost second and higher order births; yet any panacea for boosting first order births remains elusive: new millennia are rare and even Dragon years seem to be losing their attraction for childbearing in Asia.
This paper examines how mobility biographies shape mental health in later life. Moving beyond the conventional migrant/non-migrant binary, we reconstruct complete internal, return, and international migration histories for individuals aged 50 and older across 20 European countries, linking retrospective life-history data from SHARE to repeated measures of depressive symptoms (Waves 4-9). Our results reveal three sets of findings. First, international migrants face a substantial and persistent mental health penalty, roughly five times greater than the modest disadvantage observed among internal migrants, while return migrants are statistically indistinguishable from stayers. Second, the cumulative toll of repeated mobility depends on migration type: each additional cross-border episode is associated with markedly worse mental health, while repeated internal moves carry limited consequences. Third, international migration in midlife is associated with progressively worse outcomes in later life, whereas the timing of internal moves bears no discernible association with mental health. These findings underscore the importance of treating migration not as a single event but as a cumulative biographical process, the mental health consequences of which unfold – and compound – across the life course. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Migration Trajectories Across the Life Course”.
A socio-demographic framework for understanding how global religious revivalism influences transition to adulthood in the Majority World remains limited. In post-Reformasi Indonesia (1998-present), the growing visibility of halal-centred narratives among Muslim middle-class young adults provides a compelling case for examining the intersection of deepening Islamic piety and intimate relationships. This study offers a socio-demographic perspective on halal love, examining how rising Islamic piety shapes young adults’ romantic relationships and family formation in Malang, Indonesia. We draw on an interdisciplinary literature review to propose a series of theoretical propositions on halal love, and qualitative insights from in-depth interviews conducted in 2019 with 28 young adults. We found that halal love appeals to young Muslims navigating diverse ideals and pathways to marriage. Religiosity – not just religion – has emerged as a key social identity marker, alongside class, family background, ethnicity, and geography. It shapes how participants engage with online and offline dating and marriage markets. Halal love narratives align with broader trends in publicly expressed Islamic piety, intersecting with aspirations for self-improvement, autonomy, consumption, and social mobility. The appeal of halal love does not necessarily lead to early marriage or a rejection of small-family norms. Rather, our participants shared hybridised ideals that combined pious ways of living with small-family aspirations. We argue that halal-love narratives are linked to increasingly protracted and precarious transitions to adulthood. These findings offer broader insights into how religious revivalism shapes youth identities and demographic trends in the Muslim world and beyond.
The paper studies cross-cohort changes of son preference effects upon parity progressions. In many countries of South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa women are more likely to have another child when they do not have a living son. However, little is known about how son preference in parity progressions changes over time or across birth cohorts of women in those countries. Understanding these changes is crucial, as son preference in parity progressions contributes to higher fertility rates and reinforces gender inequalities within families. The paper concentrates on son preference in parity progressions across 1950-89 birth cohorts of women in eight countries of the studied regions: Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Nepal, Türkiye, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The studied cohorts were in their reproductive period in the time of fertility decrease in the process of the First Demographic Transition. Particularly, rates of transition to the 3rd child were consistently decreasing from the older to the younger cohorts. Birth histories from World Fertility Surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys are analyzed using event history techniques. Results show that the importance of not having a son increased for progression to the 3rd child in more recent cohorts. Having no daughter was not associated with higher progression risk in any of the cohorts. Son preference therefore persists despite social changes that may be expected to balance the value of sons and daughters, such as urbanization and the growth of women's educational levels. In this aspect the studied countries are in sharp contrast with countries of Western and Northern Europe in the time of the First Demographic Transition, where son preference effects in parity progressions disappeared in the process of fertility decrease. Possible reasons for the stability of son preference in the countries under study are discussed. The cross-cohort dynamics of son preference in parity progressions are also compared to dynamics of sex-selective abortions in other countries of Asia known from earlier studies. Son preference in parity progressions appears to be generally more stable than sex-selective abortions, another manifestation of a higher value of sons, likely because the societal consequences of sex-selective abortions are more visible and widely recognized. † This publication appears under special circumstances: the author recently passed away and was therefore unable to see his work through to its final publication. The inclusion of this article is thus posthumous, in recognition of Konstantin Kazenin’s valuable scientific contributions and his dedication to the field of population studies. We proceeded with the publication with the consent of the author’s family. By publishing this work, we wish to ensure that Konstantin’s insights remain accessible to the scientific community. Since Konstantin was no longer able to respond to reviewers’ comments, we decided not to continue with the standard review process. Instead one referee decided whether the paper (as it was) is publishable. The published paper is the version Konstantin originally submitted (without any changes, not even language editing). This was only possible because the paper was already in a very good shape. The editors
This study examines the factors associated with fertility desire and first-birth intentions among childless individuals aged 25-40 in heterosexual partnership in Spain, a country marked by lowest-low fertility, delayed life-course transitions, and persistent gaps between reproductive aspirations and outcomes. We analyse how sociodemographic and family background characteristics, life-course transitions, and lifestyle preferences are associated with desire and intention. Using microdata from the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey (N = 1,645), we estimate logistic regression models for both outcomes and explore interactions between lifestyle preferences and key explanatory variables. Results show that fertility desire is primarily related to age, religious affiliation, education, and family background, while intentions are associated with enabling life-course transitions such as perceived job stability, leaving the parental home, and living with a partner. Lifestyle preferences are also associated with variation in these patterns: family-oriented individuals show a clear positive association with the intention to have a first child during the next three years, even without having completed key life-course transitions, whereas work-oriented individuals display lower desire, but a clear positive association with short-term intentions once stability is achieved. Overall, the findings illustrate the importance of distinguishing motivational from situational stages in reproductive decision-making and point to the potential of work-family balance policies to bridge the gap between reproductive aspirations and their realisation in low-fertility contexts.
Marital separation has been an important driver of the diversification of contemporary family arrangements, yet the diversity and the nature of family patterns after marital separation in Germany remain understudied. In this study, we adopt a trajectory-based approach to address two key questions. First, what are the typical family trajectories following marital separation? Second, what marital circumstances lead to specific family trajectories after marital separation? We analysed a sample of 1,563 individuals who separated from their first marriage and participated in the German Socio-Economic Panel between 1991 and 2019. We followed the trajectories of combined partnership and parenthood episodes for these respondents over a 60-month period after their marital separation. To capture the diversity in post-marital trajectories, we used sequence and cluster analysis. To examine the antecedents of post-marital trajectories, we employed discrete-time event history analysis for multinomial outcomes, using all first-time married respondents as the at-risk population along with typical predictors of marital separation. This approach allowed us to link characteristics of the first marriages with family trajectories after separation. Our results reveal that most separated individuals spent this period in single living arrangements, often combined with some episodes of non-cohabiting relationships, and with (particularly women) or without (particularly men) children from their first marriage. During this early post-marital period, a relatively small percentage of these respondents remarried or had post-marital childbirth. Additionally, we found that certain post-marital trajectories corresponded to specific demographic and socioeconomic profiles. For instance, our results show that the personal income of women and their contribution to household income during their first marriage likely determined their family trajectories after separation. Overall, our study provides insights into the development of the post-marital life course, and thus on the consequences of marital separation.
In this contribution, the authors visualise how fertility dynamics have changed in East Germany over a period of 69 years, covering much of the existence of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the societal transformation following reunification and the more recent past. The Lexis surface plot provides an intuitive understanding of the underlying developments that have contributed to the change in the age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs). It reveals distinct periods of fertility timing. Two major period effects profoundly reshaped age-specific fertility patterns in East Germany in the second half of the 20th century.
The process of transitioning into adulthood is changing due to shifts in norms and cultural beliefs, increasing individualisation, as well as changes in structural factors such as economic climate or educational patterns. This study examines how educational attainment and labour status influence recent changes in the residential situation of young adults in Spain. We adapt a semi-parametric decomposition technique for a categorical variable and a temporal relative decomposition approach. Results show that observed characteristics alone cannot fully explain the changes in youth living arrangements. The effects of labour and educational characteristics often move in opposing directions.
This study investigates how single parenthood is associated with subjective well-being across European countries, with a particular focus on financial satisfaction, social connectedness, and welfare policy. Moving beyond the traditional dichotomy between single and coupled parents, we introduce a four-category typology that distinguishes between parents who are single or in a couple, and whether they have experienced a divorce. Using multilevel data from the European Social Survey, we examine both individual-level and macro-level mediators/moderators of the relationship between family structure and life satisfaction. Results confirm that single parents report significantly lower subjective well-being compared to coupled parents. Financial satisfaction emerges as a key mediating mechanism, substantially reducing the well-being gap, although not eliminating it. Social connectedness plays a more consistent moderating role. At the macro level, generous and targeted welfare policies, particularly in childcare and parental leave, help narrow well-being disparities, but gaps persist even in the most supportive contexts. Our findings underscore the complex nature of disadvantage among single parents. They highlight the need for context-sensitive, targeted interventions that go beyond income support to address time poverty, caregiving strain, and structural exclusion.
The decline in total fertility rates in Western countries, particularly the Nordic countries, has puzzled demographers. Researchers assume that the decline is associated with increasing perceptions of uncertainties about the future. In this study, we explore whether childbearing intentions have also declined and whether individuals have become more uncertain about future childbearing. To do so, we compare childbearing intentions expressed by participants in the 2012 and 2021 Swedish Generations and Gender Surveys. We present multinominal logistic regressions of respondents’ answers to the question whether they definitely or probably intend to have a(nother) child in the next three years and (if not) whether they (ever) intend to have a(nother) child in the future. Our findings indicate that the intentions to definitely have a(nother) child have declined across socio-demographic groups, and that uncertainties about future childbearing have increased. These changes were particularly pronounced among young people and among childless respondents, indicating a growing indecision as well as a growing tendency to remain childfree among groups that are relevant for future fertility development. The decline in intentions and the increase in uncertainties about childbearing indicate that the ongoing fertility decline cannot be classified as a temporary phenomenon. Rather, the results suggest that the decline will continue, because childbearing intentions are rarely fully realized. Our results are a step toward unraveling the puzzle of declining fertility in the Nordic region and beyond. The findings reveal that individuals have become more uncertain about future childbearing and that they have become more likely to retreat from childbearing.
Understanding the motivations that underpin fertility decision-making can shed light on why people in low-fertility countries are increasingly having fewer or no children. Using data from the 2020 Norwegian Generations and Gender Survey, we examine 3,024 people of childbearing age and their childbearing motivations. We find that the childbearing motivations receiving the highest ratings are lifelong joy, fulfilling parental instinct, and the satisfaction of raising a child. Non-parents exhibit more negative motivations than parents, especially regarding care responsibilities. Gender differences in childbearing motivations emerge, with women giving a higher rating than men to the fulfilment of parental instinct, and men rating the time and energy burden of having children more highly. As expected, individuals with more positive and less negative childbearing motivations have higher fertility desires. However, on the whole, fertility desires appear to be influenced more by positive motivations than negative ones. This study emphasises the importance of individual perceptions and predispositions towards parenthood when examining fertility preferences.
Women and mothers perform the lion’s share of unpaid family labor (i.e., housework and childcare) in Germany, negatively affecting their finances, time resources, opportunities in life, and mental health. The constraints brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the pandemic-related changes in working hours, are thought to have reorganized the division of unpaid family labor. However, changes in time availability alone cannot explain couples’ heterogeneous pandemic responses. While framing the pandemic as a natural experiment, we first examine how individuals’ pre-pandemic gender role attitudes (GRAs) shape the division of family labor during the pandemic. Second, we examine how individuals’ pre-pandemic GRAs moderate the effect of changing working hours during the pandemic on the division of family labor. We use Waves 11 and 13 of the German Family Panel “pairfam” to analyze two samples and questions. We examine (1) respondents in heterosexual, cohabitating relationships with and without children to study the division of housework and (2) respondents in heterosexual, cohabitating relationships living with at least one child to study the division of childcare. We find that individuals holding traditional pre-pandemic GRAs are, to some degree, more likely to have had a higher female share of family labor during the pandemic: for both housework and childcare, this association can be found for the samples as a whole, as well as for the sample with only men, but not for only women. However, the association is small and – for housework – only marginally significant. Most notably, we find evidence for a three-way-interaction between gender, GRAs, and changes in time availability for childcare: egalitarian men who reduced working hours took on a significantly greater share of childcare than traditional men did, consistent with the idea of “gender deviance neutralization”. Traditionally-oriented men might take on less female-connotated unpaid labor, as their reduced engagement in the labor market does not match their masculinity ideals. We found no moderation effect of GRAs on the influence of increasing working hours during the pandemic on the division of family labor, neither for women nor men. Our analysis provides new insights into gendered interactional processes regarding time availability and its association with the gendered division of housework and childcare in a quasi-experimental setting that reduces endogeneity. While association sizes are small, our findings support the notion of a complex interplay between gender, GRAs, and time availability in the gendered division of labor.
Increasing the labour market participation of mothers is often seen as a solution to address skill shortages in countries with long child-related career interruptions. However, little is known about the leave-taking behaviour of parents with higher and lower skill levels. This study addresses that gap by examining how employment trajectories after the transition to parenthood vary by gender and skill level in Austria, which has one of the longest parental leave entitlements globally. We focus on understanding whether skill differences shape leave-taking and labour market re-entry, and to what extent they explain the large and persistent gender gaps in parental employment. We use a new dataset that, for the first time, links Austrian administrative data on births and daily labour market activities (2009-2022) with tested skill scores from the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Our main sample includes 5,130 Austrians born between 1942 and 1997. We focus on tested numeracy skills, which are strongly associated with employment and wages, offer a more precise measure of work-relevant skills than formal education, and account for important parts of the gender pay gap. Adopting a life-course perspective, we observe labour market patterns between the ages 20 and 70, and examine the three years before and after the birth of a first child to capture short- and medium-term dynamics. We find clear differences by skill level. Higher-skilled women tend to return to employment more quickly and are more likely to use educational leave to extend their parental leave. Lower-skilled mothers, by contrast, experience longer periods out of the labour force. Among fathers, skill gradients are present as well: higher-skilled men are more likely to take parental leave than their lower-skilled counterparts, though leave uptake remains very low in absolute terms. However, gender trumps skills. On average, mothers take 416 days of paid parental leave following the birth of their first child, while fathers take just nine days. Most mothers remain at home well beyond the period of paid leave, and part-time work is common upon return – regardless of skill level. Our findings suggest that policies aimed at increasing female labour market participation − particularly among the skilled − face structural constraints. In a context of demographic ageing and rising skill shortages, improving access to early childcare and encouraging more balanced leave-taking may be necessary to reduce gender gaps and make better use of existing skills across the workforce.
In his editorial, former editor of Comparative Population Studies (CPoS) Frans Willekens reflects on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in population studies. Effective and responsible use of any tool requires a basic understanding of how it works, when it may be used, and when its use should be avoided. When this fundamental principle is observed, AI tools can enrich learning and research and help advance the frontiers of knowledge. Epistemic integrity and accountability remain essential; the advent of AI does not diminish that core value. Although generative AI is currently dominated by machine learning and relies on statistical inference to make predictions and generate content, rule-based AI, which dominated AI in the early days, is making a comeback. Students of population should critically engage with the expanding landscape of AI systems and resist the tendency towards technological monoculture. They should cultivate substantive collaborations with computer scientists to develop domain-specific AI systems that fully prepare population studies − with demography at its core − for the era of AI. * This article belongs to a series celebrating the journal's 50th anniversary.
Understanding the alignment of Eastern European immigrants’ attitudes with those of their host societies in Western Europe is critical for exploring cultural convergence and divergence, particularly in the context of mass migration and freedom of movement within the European Union (EU). This study examines the extent to which Polish migrants’ attitudes towards non-marital family forms − cohabitation, divorce, and single motherhood − align with those of both their host (Dutch) and sending (Polish) societies, thereby increasing understanding of the challenges involved in cultural assimilation processes in Europe. Using data from the Polish and Netherlands Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) and the Families of Poles in the Netherlands (FPN) survey, we estimate a series of regression models to assess how nativity status influences attitudes towards non-marital family forms. We further examine the role of social integration indicators − such as Dutch language proficiency and usage, post-migration education, and having a Dutch partner − in shaping these attitudes among Polish migrants. Polish migrants show greater acceptance of cohabitation and divorce than Polish non-migrants, although their attitudes regarding divorce are more aligned with those of Dutch non-migrants than Polish non-migrants. They exhibit less acceptance of single motherhood than both Polish and Dutch non-migrants, and these attitudes are not significantly influenced by social integration factors typically associated with host-country assimilation. Our findings suggest that Polish migrants’ attitudes towards non-marital family forms reflect a mix of assimilation and sui generis adaptation, combining elements of origin and host cultures with views shaped by the unique conditions of migration. This study advances the literature on migrant acculturation by identifying unique patterns of attitudes among Polish migrants in the Netherlands. It also suggests that migrants are at the forefront of cultural encounters, contributing to greater convergence on some, but not all, attitudes across EU member states.
Good health is central to human happiness and well-being. It contributes substantially to economic progress, as healthy populations live longer and are more productive. The corresponding public health policies are typically assessed based on a structural indicator for “Health Expectancy” (HE) such as the EU’s “Healthy Life Years” (HLY) or the WHO’s “Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy” (HALE). Unfortunately, HE estimates are extremely sensitive to methodological choices, an issue that is widely overlooked. First, the common practice of measuring population health by the distribution of responses to specific survey questions is ambiguous and not straightforward. Consequently, levels and trends of HE vary significantly depending on the underlying data and health indicators. Moreover, HE estimates are also highly sensitive to technical features, such as the age range and partitioning selected for analysis, as well as the technique chosen to add the health dimension to the life table; an issue that has gone remarkably unrecognized. With the aim of filling this important research gap, the European Research Council (ERC) funded a Consolidator Grant project entitled “Levels and trends of health expectancy: understanding its measurement and estimation sensitivity” (LETHE). This special issue of Comparative Population Studies (CPoS) marks the completion of this project. It contains five articles, each dealing with a specific aspect of HE computation or a concrete empirical application based on HE indicators. This editorial summarizes the insights gained during the LETHE project and aims to make users of HE aware of its methodological sensitivities through illustrative empirical examples. A better understanding of these issues is essential to ensure the indicators’ appropriate usage in research as well as in advising policy makers and public health officials. * This is the Editorial on the Special Issue "Levels and Trends of Health Expectancy: Understanding its Measurement and Estimation Sensitivity".
This article provides a systematic overview of the academic literature on the impact of 'refugee shocks' on host countries: the sudden arrival of large numbers of refugees in a place. A scoping analysis was conducted to describe the literature, drawing on 4,576 effects from 123 studies. About two thirds of the effects concern economic outcomes in the host country, while few cover health or the environment. There are generally positive effects on education, and generally negative effects on wages and employment. Refugee shocks tend to be associated with an increase in votes for the radical right. Across topics, about half of the analyses indicate no statistically significant effect. We find an increase in studies on refugee shocks after 2015, and that the most commonly studied shocks took place in the Middle East and Europe. We conclude that many dimensions need to be studied to adequately characterize the impact of refugee shocks on host countries.
Cross-border reproductive care (CBRC) represents a growing component of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), particularly in Europe. This article presents a descriptive, register-based analysis of CBRC in Czechia, focusing on the volume of ART cycles, the countries of origin of patients, and treatment types in comparison with domestic patients. We analysed 176,588 ART cycles recorded in the Czech National Registry of Assisted Reproduction (NRAR) between 2016 and 2019. Patients were classified by country of residence, nationality, and insurance status. Descriptive statistics were used to identify patterns in terms of patient characteristics and treatment choices. The analysis was contextualised with reference to national ART legislation in selected source countries. The findings revealed that nearly 40 percent of ART cycles in Czechia are attributable to CBRC, making the country one of Europe’s leading destinations for cross-border fertility treatment. The largest groups of CBRC patients are from Germany, Italy, Slovakia, the UK, France, Serbia, Ireland, and Hungary. Women who seek CBRC in Czechia are significantly older than their Czech counterparts, with a modal age of 41 years compared to 38 years, respectively, for IVF/ICSI cycles and 43 years compared to 38 years, respectively, for cycles in which a woman receives donated eggs. Moreover, the treatment preferences of CBRC patients differ markedly: they are more likely to undergo frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycles (37 percent vs. 30 percent among Czech patients) and egg receipt (OoR) cycles (32 percent vs. 3 percent among Czech patients). The study provides a unique, data-driven perspective on the dynamics of cross-border reproductive care in Czechia, drawing on comprehensive national registry data. By identifying key source countries and differences in treatment preferences, it highlights Czechia’s growing role in the European reproductive care landscape and sheds light on how legal, demographic, and economic conditions shape cross-border patient mobility in Europe.
