Settlement size and fertility in the Nordic countries

Abstract

While the variation in childbearing patterns across countries and between socio-economic groups within a country has been studied in detail, less is known about the differences in fertility patterns across settlements within a country. Using aggregate and individual-level register data, we examine fertility variation across settlements in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. We observe a significant variation in fertility level by settlement size in all four of these Nordic countries—the larger the settlement, the lower the fertility. Second, the variation in fertility level has decreased over time, but significant differences in fertility between settlements of different size persist. Third, the timing of childbearing also varies across settlements—the larger the settlement, the later the peak of fertility. Fourth, our analysis of parity-specific fertility in Sweden shows that the major socio-economic characteristics of women account for only a small portion of fertility variation across settlements.

Keywords:

• fertility
• urbanization
• settlement size
• event-history analysis
• Nordic countries

Notes

1. Hill Kulu and Gunnar Andersson are at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Konrad-Zuse Strasse 1, 18057 Rostock, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. Andres Vikat is at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Population Activities Unit, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland.

2. We are grateful to the referees of Population Studies, Magdalena Muszynska, and the members of the research team on Interdependencies in the Life Course at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research for valuable comments and suggestions. We thank Susann Backer for English-language editing, and Susann Trabert for drawing the maps of the Nordic countries. Finally, we are grateful to the statistical central bureaus of the four Nordic countries for providing us with the raw data used in this study.