Fertility rates in higher and middle-income countries have reached record lows. Today, over 2 billion people - more than a quarter of the global population - live in countries with a total fertility rate below 1.3. This level would lead to rapidly shrinking populations in these countries in the absence of significant immigration. This article maps the global landscape of low fertility and the key drivers behind its recent declines. The current fertility 'freefall' is more widespread, deeper and more permanent than previously anticipated. It is driven by multiple factors, including structural conditions, unstable labour markets and anxiety about the future, but also changing intimate relations, better access to efficient contraception and changing views about parenthood and reproductive preferences. These conditions contribute to delayed parenthood, which increases the risk of infertility. Young adults express lower and more fluid fertility intentions than the previous generations, eroding the two-child family norm. The multifaceted nature of fertility decline implies that very low fertility is likely to persist and spread to many more countries. Due to lower fertility preferences and a limited scope to address the root causes of low fertility, policies aiming to increase fertility will probably fail in their aim to reverse fertility decline.

Reproductive behaviour has been changing fast around the world, with fertility rates falling to record-low levels, first births being shifted to ever later ages and more women and men remaining permanently childless. This talk reviews the changing global reproductive landscape, focusing especially on higher-income countries with a long history of low fertility rates. I sum up what is known about the main drivers of changing fertility trends in the past two decades, looking at structural factors including economic uncertainty and housing prices, changing partnerships and intimate behaviours and contraceptive use and unplanned pregnancies. I highlight the shifts in education distribution, characterised by rapidly rising share of young people with a degree and growing educational imbalances between men and women. The education expansion has had different impact on fertility in countries with higher and lower levels of gender inequality. I also look at changing reproductive preferences and views of parenthood. I highlight other relevant factors that have been suggested in many studies – including the impact of “screens” and the supposed “sperm crisis” –where we still lack more broad-based evidence on their impact. Next I focus on the intersection between delayed parenthood, reproductive plans at higher childbearing ages, and possible role of infertility and assisted reproduction as important factors determining the future fertility recovery at higher reproductive ages. We still lack representative data on age-related infertility across countries and over time. In conclusion, I sketch out the future research agenda and argue that we are heading into an era of low or very low fertility, to which most countries need to accommodate.

Research on declining marriage rates in Korea has predominantly focused on economic-structural factors. This study uses five nationally representative cross-sectional surveys from 1991-2018 to examine the marital intentions of never-married Korean women and men aged 20-29 by their education, employment, and partnership. The analysis shows that the share of single young adults not intending to marry increased, especially between 2015 and 2018, when uncertainty about marriage intentions also grew. Marital intentions vary little by education and employment but are closely related to partnership status. The ambivalence toward marriage grew in tandem with a fall in the number of young Koreans having a dating partner. The rise in negative and uncertain marriage intentions suggests that the decline in marriage rates is likely to continue, contributing to a further rise in childlessness and a decline in fertility as reproduction in Korean society occurs almost exclusively within marriage.

BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, birth rates in most higher-income countries first briefly declined and then shortly recovered, showing no common trends afterwards until early 2022, when they unexpectedly dropped. STUDY FOCUS: We analyse monthly changes in total fertility rates in higher-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a special focus on 2022, when birth rates declined in most countries. We consider three broader sets of explanatory factors: economic uncertainty, policy interventions restricting mobility and social activities outside the home, and the role of vaccination programmes. STUDY DESIGN, DATA: This study uses population-wide data on monthly total fertility rates adjusted for seasonality and calendar effects provided in the Human Fertility Database (HFD, 2023). Births taking place between November 2020 and October 2022 correspond to conceptions occurring between February 2020 and January 2022, i.e., after the onset of the pandemic but prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The data cover 26 countries, including 21 countries in Europe, the United States, Canada, Israel, Japan and the Republic of Korea. METHODS: First, we provide a descriptive analysis of the monthly changes in the total fertility rate (TFR). Second, we estimate the effects of the explanatory factors on the observed fertility swings using linear fixed effects (within) regression models. MAIN RESULTS: We find that birth trends during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with economic uncertainty, as measured by increased inflation, the stringency of pandemic policy interventions, and the progression of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, whereas unemployment did not show any link to fertility during the pandemic. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Our research is restricted to higher-income countries with relatively strong social support policies provided by the government as well as wide access to modern contraception. Our data do not allow analysing fertility trends by key characteristics, such as age, birth order and social status. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: This is the first multi-country study of the drivers of birth trends in a later phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, periods following epidemics and health crises were typically associated with a recovery in fertility. In contrast, our results show that the gradual phasing out of pandemic containment measures, allowing increased mobility and a return to more normal work and social life, contributed to declining birth rates in most countries. In addition, our analysis indicates that some women avoided pregnancy during the initial vaccination roll-out.### Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.### Funding StatementThis study did not receive any funding.### Author DeclarationsI confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.YesThe details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:The study used (or will use) ONLY openly available human data that were originally located at the Human Fertility Database (https://www.humanfertility.org), OECD website (https://oecd.org), Our World in Data (https://ourworldindata.org) and the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) at GitHub (https://github.com/OxCGRT/covid-policy-dataset)I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals.YesI understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).YesI have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable.YesAll data produced are available online at different online databases: Human Fertility Database (https://www.humanfertility.org), OECD website (https://oecd.org), Our World in Data (https://ourworldindata.org) and the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) at GitHub (https://github.com/OxCGRT/covid-policy-dataset)

STUDY QUESTION What are the factors influencing the decline in the birth rates observed in higher-income countries in the later phase of the COVID-19 pandemic? SUMMARY ANSWER Our results suggest that economic uncertainty, non-pharmaceutical policy interventions, and the first wave of the population-wide vaccination campaign were associated with the decline in birth rates during 2022. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY During the COVID-19 pandemic, birth rates in most higher-income countries first briefly declined and then shortly recovered, showing no common trends afterwards until early 2022, when they unexpectedly dropped. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION This study uses population-wide data on monthly total fertility rates (TFRs) adjusted for seasonality and calendar effects provided in the Human Fertility Database (HFD). Births taking place between November 2020 and October 2022 correspond to conceptions occurring between February 2020 and January 2022, i.e. after the onset of the pandemic but prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The data cover 26 countries, including 21 countries in Europe, the USA, Canada, Israel, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS First, we provided a descriptive analysis of the monthly changes in the TFR. Second, we employed linear fixed effects regression models to estimate the association of explanatory factors with the observed seasonally adjusted TFRs. Our analysis considered three broader sets of explanatory factors: economic uncertainty, policy interventions restricting mobility and social activities outside the home, and the progression of vaccination programmes. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE We found that birth trends during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with economic uncertainty, as measured by increased inflation (P < 0.001), whereas unemployment did not show any link to births during the pandemic (P = 0.677). The stringency of pandemic policy interventions was linked to a postponement of births, but only in countries with lower institutional trust and only in the early phase of the pandemic (P = 0.003). In countries with higher trust, stricter containment measures were positively associated with birth rates, both for conceptions in the first year of the pandemic (P = 0.019) and, albeit only weakly significant, for conceptions later in the pandemic (P = 0.057). Furthermore, we found a negative association between the share of the population having received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination and TFRs (P < 0.001), whereas the share of the population having completed the primary vaccination course (usually consisting of two doses) was linked to a recovery of birth rates (P < 0.001). LARGE SCALE DATA N/A. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION Our research is restricted to higher-income countries with relatively strong social support policies provided by the government as well as wide access to modern contraception. Our data did not allow analyses of birth trends by key characteristics, such as age, birth order, and social status. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS This is the first multi-country study of the drivers of birth trends in the later phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, periods following epidemics and health crises were typically associated with a recovery in births. In contrast, our results show that the gradual phasing out of pandemic containment measures, allowing increased mobility and a return to more normal work and social life, contributed to declining birth rates in some countries. In addition, our analysis indicates that some women avoided pregnancy until completion of the primary vaccination protocol. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S) This study did not use any external funding. The authors acknowledge funding from their home institution, the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and from the Open-Access Fund of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript versions arising from this submission. All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

We use monthly birth data collected by the Human Fertility Database to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on birth trends until September 2022 in 38 higher-income countries. We also present estimates of the monthly total fertility rate adjusted for seasonality. Our analysis reveals that the pandemic led to distinct swings in births and fertility rates. The initial pandemic shock was associated with a fall in births in most countries, with the sharpest drop in January 2021. Next, birth rates showed a short-term recovery in March 2021, following the conceptions after the end of the first wave of the pandemic. Most countries reported a stable or slightly increasing number of births in the subsequent months, especially in autumn 2021. Yet another, quite unexpected, downturn in births started in January 2022, linked with the conceptions in spring 2021 when the pandemic measures were mostly eased out and vaccination was gaining momentum. Taken together and contrary to some initial expectations, the coronavirus pandemic did not bring a lasting "baby bust" in most of the analyzed countries. Especially the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States experienced an improvement in their birth dynamics in 2021 compared with the prepandemic period.

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is increasingly influencing the fertility trends of high-income countries characterized by a pattern of delayed childbearing. However, research on the impact of ART on completed fertility is limited and the extent to which delayed births are realized later in life through ART is not well understood. This study uses data from Australian fertility clinics and national birth registries to project the contribution of ART for cohorts of women that have not yet completed their reproductive life and estimate the role played by ART in the fertility 'recuperation' process. Assuming that the increasing trends in ART success rates and treatment rates continue, the projection shows that the contribution of ART-conceived births to completed fertility will increase from 2.1% among women born in 1968 to 5.7% among women born in 1986. ART is projected to substantially affect the extent to which childbearing delay will be compensated at older ages, suggesting that its availability may become an important factor in helping women to achieve their reproductive plans later in life.

Iran has witnessed three major reversals of population policies since their inception in the 1960s. In response to a rapid decline in fertility to very low levels, the latest policy shift has led to the development of legislation that aims to encourage marriage and fertility, particularly the "Youthful Population and Protection of the Family" law approved in 2021. This study reviews the changes in population policy and their interrelations with fertility trends, focusing mainly on the shift towards pronatalist policies since 2005, and accompanying restriction of reproductive health and family planning services. Combining international and national sources, we position the new pronatalist drive in the country within the broader trend of government attempts to reverse fertility decline and promote conservative family values. Our study has three main aims. (1) We provide an overview of fertility trends, policy discourses and policy shifts in the context of the changes in the societal and political structures of Iran during the last half a century. (2) We highlight and discuss the most problematic features of the new Family Law, especially the legislation pertaining to maternal and reproductive health, access to abortion and contraception, and incentives supporting earlier marriage and higher fertility. (3) We discuss the likely consequences of the new legislation for maternal and child health and sexual and reproductive rights, for women in general, and the country's socio-economic disparities. As well as violating reproductive rights, the new policy is unlikely to achieve its aim of initiating a sustained rise in fertility in Iran.

A long-term trend of delayed childbearing in the highly developed countries has resulted in a rising number of women having children at advanced reproductive ages. We draw on vital statistics, register and survey data for European countries to outline the main trends in late reproduction, focusing on fertility plans and actual fertility rates among women past age 40. We pay special attention to education differences in late fertility. We document a rapid increase in late childbearing across Europe, fuelled especially by rising first and second birth rates. The share of women planning their first or second child in their late 30s or early 40s has increased rapidly as well, signalling that many women aim to become mothers at an age when they are likely to face infertility or pregnancy complications. We discuss the role medically assisted reproduction plays in this trend. In conclusion, we argue that trends in late childbearing will become one of the critical factors determining the future of fertility and reproduction.

Stuart Gietel-Basten, Anna Rotkirch, and Tomáš Sobotka argue that policies responding to population decline and ageing should enable reproductive choice and maximise the potential of all citizens

Past economic, health and policy shocks were associated with a downturn in fertility. We use monthly birth data collected by the Human Fertility Database (Short-Term Fertility Fluctuations data series) to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on birth trends until April 2022 in 37 highly developed countries. We also present estimates of monthly total fertility rate adjusted for seasonality. Overall, the coronavirus pandemic did not bring a lasting “baby bust” in most of the analyzed countries. On balance, many countries experienced an improvement in their birth dynamics compared with the pre-pandemic period. This was especially the case in the Nordic countries, German-speaking countries and Western Europe, alongside New Zealand, Israel and Quebec. However, this summary picture hides distinct short-term shifts during the pandemic. The initial pandemic shock resulted in a fall in births in most countries, with the sharpest drop in January 2021. Next, birth rates showed a surprising short-term recovery in March 2021, linked with the conceptions after the end of the first wave of the pandemic. Most countries then reported stable or slightly increasing numbers of births in the subsequent months, especially in Autumn 2021. Yet another downturn in births and fertility rates occurred in January-April 2022.

Past evidence on fertility responses to external shocks, including economic recessions and the outbreaks of infectious diseases, show that people often put their childbearing plans on hold in uncertain times. We study the most recent data on monthly birth trends to analyse the initial fertility responses to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research, based on new Short-Term Fertility Fluctuations (STFF) data series (https://www.humanfertility.org/cgi-bin/stff.php), embedded in the Human Fertility Database (HFD), shows the initial signs of the expected “birth recession”. Monthly number of births in many countries fell sharply between October 2020 and the most recent month observed, often bringing about a clear reversal of the previous trend. Across 17 countries with lower fluctuations in births, the number of births fell on average by 5.1% in November 2020, 6.5% in December 2020 and 8.9% in January 2021 when compared with the same month of the previous year. Spain sustained the sharpest drop in the number of births among the analysed countries, with the number of births plummeting by 20% in December 2020 and January 2021. The combined effect of rising mortality and falling birth rates is disrupting the balance of births and deaths in many countries, pushing natural population increase to record low levels in 2020 and 2021.

We analyse the effects of changes in parental leave regulations in Austria in 1990, 1996and 2002 on second and third-birth rates. These changes determined both the length ofparental leave and the possibility for its prolongation in case of subsequent pregnancy. Weconstruct monthly duration and order-specific fertility rates and parity progression ratios tostudy both short-term shifts in period second and third-birth rates and the trends in cohortparity progression ratios among women affected by changing leave regulations. Theextension of parental leave from one to two years in 1990, which created an incentive forwomen to have their subsequent child within 26 months, led to an immediate and markedincrease in second and third-birth rates at intervals 21-26 months after the previous birth.De facto shortening of paid leave in 1996 generated a sharp increase in second and thirdbirthrates at shorter intervals of 15-20 months. Although we find clear evidence ofimmediate changes in birth spacing that are in line with the ‘logic’ of the new leaveregulations, this discontinuity in childbearing patterns did not have any discernable impacton the overall second and third-birth cohort progression rates or on period fertility trends.As in most cases analysed for other developed countries, the main effect of the policychange was on the tempo of fertility, namely on the spacing of second and third births.

China’s “one-child policy” that had been in force between 1980 and 2016 evolved over time and differed widely between regions. Local policies in many regions also targeted the timing and spacing of childbearing by setting the minimum age at marriage, first birth and second birth and defining minimum interval between births. Our study uses data from the 120 Counties Population Dynamics Monitoring System to reconstruct fertility level and timing in nine counties in Shandong province, which experienced frequent changes in birth and marriage policies. We reconstruct detailed indicators of fertility by birth order in 1986–2016, when policies on marriage and fertility timing became strictly enforced since 1989 and subsequently relaxed (especially in 2002) and abandoned (in 2013). Our analysis reveals that birth timing policies have fuelled drastic changes in fertility level, timing and spacing in the province. In the early 1990s period fertility rates plummeted to extreme low levels, with the provincial average total fertility rate falling below 1 in 1992–1995. Second births rates fell especially sharply. The age schedule of childbearing shifted to later ages and births became strongly concentrated just above the minimum policy age at first and second birth, resulting in a bimodal distribution of fertility with peaks at ages 25 and 32. Conversely, the abandonment of the province-level policy on the minimum age at marriage and first birth and less strict enforcement of the policy on the minimum age at second birth contributed to a recovery of period fertility rates in the 2000s and a shift to earlier timing of first and second births. It also led to a shorter second birth interval and a re-emergence of a regular age schedule of fertility with a single peak around age 28.

La fécondité a baissé jusqu’à des niveaux extrêmement bas dans la plupart des pays développés d’Asie de l’Est au cours des dernières décennies. Autour d’une femme sur trois n’aura jamais eu d’enfant au cours de sa vie parmi celles nées au milieu des années 1970 au Japon, à Hong Kong et à Singapour. Ce phénomène est lié au retard du mariage et à l’augmentation du célibat à vie, ainsi qu’au fait que davantage de femmes mariées restent sans enfant. Chez les femmes nées dans les années 1960 et 1970, l’augmentation de l’infécondité explique environ les deux tiers de la baisse de la fécondité des cohortes au Japon, à Hong Kong et en Corée du Sud. Les tendances futures en matière d’infécondité dépendent de la façon dont les sociétés d’Asie de l’Est réussiront à prendre le train de la « révolution de genre » et à considérer de nouveaux modèles familiaux. Les facteurs clés sont notamment une plus grande égalité entre les sexes, une attention plus importante aux enfants et à la famille, de meilleures conditions économiques pour les jeunes adultes et une réforme du marché du travail afin que les femmes n’aient plus à choisir entre leur carrière et leur famille.

The period total fertility rate (TFR) in East Asia dropped below 1.5 children per woman between 1985 (Hong Kong) and 2000 (South Korea). Recently, the TFR in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan dropped below 1.0, with South Korea (0.84) and Hong Kong (0.87) reporting the world’s lowest fertility in 2020. Only in Japan is the TFR higher, at 1.36 in 2020. The emergence of very low fertility in East Asia has often been interpreted as a consequence of the rapid postponement of marriage and the rising share of women who do not marry during their reproductive lives. Unlike in other highly developed countries, where the erosion of marriage progressed in tandem with the rise of cohabitation and non-marital childbearing, marriage in East Asia remains closely connected with reproduction. Childbearing outside marriage remains rare, representing only 2%–4% of all children born in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore [1]. By contrast, more than 60% of births in France nowadays take place outside marriage. Therefore, the rise in permanent singlehood in East Asia is directly mirrored in a rising share of permanently childless women and men. Delayed marriage also contributes to higher childlessness in the region. Using census and vital statistics data (Box 1), let us reconstruct how this trend has evolved among women born in the 1950s–1970s. About 3 in 10 women permanently childless in Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore Permanent childlessness has increased rapidly across East Asia, from low levels at 4%–12% among women born in the 1950s to very high levels among those born in the 1970s (Figure 1). In Singapore, 28% of women born in 1975–1980 were childless at the time of the 2020 census. Japan has experienced a continuous increase in childlessness among women born between the early 1950s and 1974–1976, when its level peaked at 28%. Childlessness is higher still in Hong Kong, where it peaked at 35% among women born in 1971, and then started to fall, reaching 30% among those born in 1979. Childlessness among women in South Korea and Taiwan increased later, accelerating among those born since the mid-1960s. It has not yet reached the levels observed in Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, but it displays a similar dynamic. Among the youngest cohorts, lifetime childlessness reached almost 19% among Korean women and 23% among Taiwanese women born in the late 1970s. These levels are set to rise further, as the proportion of women in their 30s who have never had children continues to rise. At age 35, women born in 1983 in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan display a convergence to a similar level of childlessness at 37%– 39%. Unlike in Japan, childlessness among women in their mid-30s in South Korea and Taiwan does not yet show any signs of levelling off (Figure 1). Compared with other highly developed countries, childlessness in East Asia has been increasing unusually fast and to very high levels, illustrated in the ranking * Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ ÖAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences. ORCID: 0000-0002-6418-7105. Email: tomas.sobotka@oeaw.ac.at

Das Geburtenbarometer Wien zielt darauf ab, ein aktuelles Fertilitätsmonitoring für Wien zur Verfügung zu stellen, basierend auf einem Satz jährlicher und vierteljährlicher Fruchtbarkeitsindikatoren und regelmäßigen zusammenfassenden Berichten. Die vorliegende Studie informiert über die verwendeten Daten, Methoden und Indikatoren und kontrastiert die Hauptresultate mit Daten für die anderen österreichischen Regionen und für das ganze Land. Den größten Teil des 20. Jahrhunderts hindurch lag die Fertilität in Wien weit unterhalb jener des übrigen Österreichs. Weil sich die Fruchtbarkeit in Wien deutlich zwischen den in Österreich und den im Ausland geborenen Frauen unterscheidet, werden diese Fertilitätsdifferentiale und ihr Einfluss auf die gesamten Fertilitätsmuster Wiens und Österreichs betrachtet. Zugewanderte Frauen hatten in Wien seit der Mitte der 1980er Jahre nicht nur einen schnell zunehmenden Anteil an den Gesamtgeburten und trugen folglich zu einem allmählichen Anstieg der absoluten Geburtenzahl in der Stadt bei, sondern ihre höheren Fruchtbarkeitsziffern halfen auch, die Periodenfertilitätsraten in Richtung auf die Niveaus zu bringen, die in anderen Regionen Österreichs verzeichnet werden. Die vorliegende Studie veranschaulicht die ausgeprägte Wiener Bevölkerungsdynamik, in der sich eine hohe Kinderlosigkeit und niedrige Fertilität mit einer positiven Bilanz zwischen Geburten und Sterbefällen sowie anhaltendem Bevölkerungszuwachs verbinden und die Bevölkerungstrends stark durch die direkten und indirekten Auswirkungen der Migration beeinflusst werden.

Geburtenbarometer Vienna aims to provide an up-to-date monitoring of fertility in Vienna, based on a set of annual and quarterly indicators of fertility rates and regularly published summary reports. This paper gives an overview of the data, methods and indicators used and contrasts main results with the data for other Austrian regions and for the whole country. Throughout much of the 20th century, Vienna recorded fertility rates deep below those in other parts of Austria. Because fertility in Vienna differs markedly between Austrian-born and foreign-born women, our study looks at these fertility differentials and their influence on the overall fertility patterns for Vienna and Austria. Migrant women in Vienna not only had a rapidly increasing share on total births since the mid-1980s and thus contributed to a gradual increase in the absolute number of births in the city, but their higher fertility has also helped to push period fertility rates in Vienna towards the levels recorded in other regions of Austria. Our study brings to light the distinct population dynamics in Vienna, where high childlessness and low fertility are combined with a positive balance between births and deaths and sustained population growth and where the population trends are strongly influenced by the direct and indirect effects of migration.

This chapter examines family trends in Europe during the last half a century, and specifically among women born in the 1940s-1970s. We outline period and cohort changes in union formation, marriage, living arrangements, fertility, and divorce and discuss the complex transformation in the family context of childbearing. We also briefly review other important family-related developments, including the rise of less conventional family forms – such as non-residential relationships and same-sex unions, – multiple-partner fertility, and social stratification in family behaviour. The chapter highlights the erosion of marriage across the continent, its weakening association with reproduction, and the extent to which it has been replaced by cohabitation. Our review pays special attention to the ongoing shift towards later union formation, marriage, and reproduction; and shows that key family transitions are increasingly taking place among women aged 30 or older. We also document increasing similarities in family behaviour across Europe during the last two decades. We discuss these changes in the light of major theories and concepts that seek to explain them.

The data contains five-sets of Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios results. It consists of population projection by educational attainment and mean years of schooling by age and sex in 201 countries of the world for the period of 2015-2100. This is an update of earlier SSP population projection published in 2013 (SSP Database) and 2014 (IIASA-WIC Data explorer).