28 th International Population Conference of the International Union - - PDF document

28th International Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) THE IMPACT OF CURRENT ECONOMIC RECESSION ON FERTILITY IN GREECE, ITALY AND SPAIN Maria Carella Department of Political Sciences, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy. email: maria.carella1@uniba.it Daniel Devolder Centre for Demographic Studies (CED), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. Email: ddevolder@ced.uab.es Byron Kotzamanis, Laboratory of demographic and social analyses, University of Thessaly, Greece. email: bkotz@prd.uth.gr Julián López Colás Centre for Demographic Studies (CED), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. email: jlopez@ced.uab.es THEME 7 : Fertility 706 : Future fertility in low-fertility societies Extended abstract Theoretical background In the last decades, Southern European countries have experimented significant demographic changes, with a transition from a long tradition of rigid family life courses, toward a new regime of delayed marriage, increasing cohabitation, postponement of childbearing, divorce or separation. Nowadays individual's family life courses are often much more complex than in the past, without any real clear and simple model. In that context, the economic crisis, which started in year 2008, led in most

• f these countries to a profound deterioration of the labour market, with an unprecedented loss of jobs

and acute effects on the economic situation, the conditions of life of families and the demographic behaviours. One of the expected effects of the economic crisis on the demographic dynamics of these countries is the fall in fertility levels (Sobotka et al., 2011; Goldstein et al., 2013). A systematic review of past economic recessions, which occurred in developed countries, confirms that social and economic crises

• ften have serious effects on fertility, with country specific characteristics, but common patterns:

 a weak effect on cohort fertility;  a postponement of the timing of first birth, closely related to a delay in marriage or union formation;  a close relationship in time between unemployment and age-specific fertility. In general, the literature mentions that fertility follows the cycles of the economy, while in times of economic downturn and uncertainty in the labour market, people are mainly led to postpone childbearing, with fewer changes in their family objectives (Pison, 2013 ; Pailhé, 2010). In addition, the sensitivity of fertility behaviours to economic crises is less marked in countries with longstanding family policies and strong social security systems. The Great Recession, the popular name of the contemporary economic crisis (Grusky et al 2011), took place in the South of Europe under significantly different socio-economic conditions than past economic downturns:

• The recent situation is marked by a permanent reduction of economic growth related to

the process of population aging which entails high social costs;

• Women labour participation rates are higher than ever, when most couples nowadays use

reliable contraception that enables them to delay childbearing almost as will, increasing the reactiveness of behaviours to economic change. These factors can affect reproductive decisions and potentially aggravate the negative effects of the recession on fertility. In the light of this evidence, the present proposal intends to investigate the impact

• f the current economic crisis on fertility levels, as well as the evolution of these levels through time, in

three very low fertility countries in Southern Europe: Greece, Italy and Spain. Specific objectives We aim to establish the effects of economic uncertainty on fertility in contemporary Greece Italy and Spain using various demographic indicators and several measures of uncertainty. Specific objectives are:

• To verify whether adverse economic circumstances led individuals to postpone
• childbearing. We will explicitly consider not only the progression to the first child, but also to

higher order births.

• To evaluate how different sources of labour market uncertainty, individual circumstances

(e.g., duration and type of contract, as well as the income level) and other contextual factors affect fertility behaviours. We will focus mainly on three dimensions of change: i) In ages at childbearing; ii) By birth order; iii) On how the context affect the relationship between economic uncertainty and fertility levels. European countries have different kind of welfare provisions. Diverse public policies may influence demographic outcomes during an economic recession in different

• ways. We aim to conduct systematic cross-comparative analyses to check in what ways the

findings concern to these three countries. Importantly, Italy, Spain and Greece themselves represent a laboratory for our analyses: geographical differences embody profound demographic and socio-economic differences. Data and methods To look for patterns of response in fertility change, we will utilize the latest available official data. We will use empirical data provided by the Human Fertility Database (HFD) the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) for Greece, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for Italy and the National Statistical Institute (INE) for Spain:  Births by age of mother and order of birth;  Female population by age;  GDP and Unemployment Rate, detailed by sex and by age, from Labour Force Surveys. Using the empirical data listed above, simple and complex classical demographic indicators will be calculated  Change in time of the demographic or economic series;  Fertility rates by age of mother and order of birth;  Total annual fertility rate (synchronic analysis);  Mean age of mothers of childbearing (for all births and by order). First findings

• 0. Comparison between the three countries

Figure 1 presents the relationship between the yearly variations in the unemployment rate and the variations of the conceptions (births shifted backward 9 months) for each quarter, starting in year 2000, for our three countries. We observe that the effects of the economic crisis were devastating in Greece

• ver the whole period, with quarterly increase in the unemployment rate of up to 6% of the active

population and sustained growth over a period of almost 6 years. In Spain, the increase was faster at start, with a reprieve in year 2010 followed by a second burst around year 2012. On the contrary, the deterioration of the labour market situation in Italy after year 2008 was not so strong. The relationship with the evolution of the variation in the growth rate of conceptions is clear for both Greece and Spain, with a strong association between the two curves which appear almost as a mirrored version of each

• ther. Conceptions started also to decrease in Italy after year 2008, but comparatively at a rhythm that

does not suggest a situation of urgency and crisis.

Figure 1. Relationship between variation of unemployment rate by quarter (related to the same quarter in the previous year) and yearly growth rate of conceptions (live births nine month later) by quarter (related to the same quarter in the previous year), Greece, Italy and Spain 2000-2015

NOTES: Unemployment rates for active population aged 15-39 from the Labour Force Surveys (source Eurostat). Quarterly changes in unemployment and in live births are compared with the same quarter one year earlier to eliminate the influence of seasonality. Births growth rates by quarter are shifted backwards 3 quarters (9 months) to estimate conception growth rates.

• 1. Application to Spanish Data

Figure 2 presents the relationship between variations in the unemployment rate and conceptions (live births shifted 9 months earlier) by birth order, for judging the effects of the Great Recession. The growth rate of conceptions turns negative from the very beginning of the crisis, in the 2nd quarter of 2008, for all birth orders, when the unemployment started to increase.

Figure 2. Relationship between variation of unemployment rate by quarter (related to the same quarter in the previous year) and yearly growth rate of conceptions (live births nine month later) by quarter (related to the same quarter in the previous year), by birth order, Spain 2003-2012

NOTES: Unemployment rates for active population aged 20-64 from Spanish Labour Force Surveys. Quarterly changes in unemployment and in live births are compared with the same quarter one year earlier in order to eliminate the influence

• f seasonality. Births growth rates by quarter are shifted 3 quarters (9 months) before to estimate conception growth rates.

SOURCE: Spanish National Statistical Institute (www.ine.es).

Figure 3 presents the elasticities of response of first conceptions to change in male or female unemployment, by age, in a fixed effect model similar to Goldstein et al. (2013). We observe that the degree of response of conceptions is higher to changes in male rather than changes in female rates over

• time. The elasticities are also higher for the first conceptions than for second or third ones (figures not

shown).

Figure 3. Estimated elasticities of unemployment on first conceptions (first live births shifted 9 months earlier), by age, from 2nd quarter of 2001 to 1st quarter of 2012

NOTES: same data than figure 1. Unemployment is distributed along the same groups than births. Estimate for the elasticities are accompanied by the 95% confidence interval

• 2. Some empirical evidences in Greece

The economic crisis in Greece started at the beginning of 2010, and the first austerity measures, which led to a reduction of salaries, were taken in May 2010, leading to a rapid decline of GDP in the following years, which was much stronger than that recorded decline of GDP in all the other Southern European countries. Looking at the evolution of some selected economic (GDP, unemployment) and demographic indicators we may observe an extremely strong correlation of the TFR and GDP curves, during the period 2001-2014 (Figure 4) and also a strong correlation between TFR and unemployment rates of women at reproductive ages (Figure 5). Nevertheless these correlations though powerful, cannot be considered as causal relationships. In addition, these measures led to a significant reduction of household income and in continuously increased poverty through strongly increased unemployment, which affected more women than men and especially women of reproductive ages. Furthermore, looking at the evolution of monthly TFRs by order and unemployment rates for the period from December 1990 until December 2015 (Figure 6), we can also observe a strong correlation between the fluctuations of the those indicators. Especially, the monthly TFRs start to decrease in the first half of 2010 (almost two years after the beginning of the beginning of the increase of unemployment rates1). The observed functional relationship between the above indicators is not necessarily causal, although the timing of the fall of both monthly TFR (with a time lag 12-18 months from the

beginning of the crisis) and the quarterly unemployment rate is impressive.

1 The increase of those rates starts in the second half of 2008.

5 Figure 4. Greece, TFR 2004-2014 and GDP (one year before)

SOURCE: Kotzamanis, B., P. Baltas and Anastassia Kostaki (2017) “The evolution of Period fertility in Greece and Its changes During the Current Economic Recession”. Population Review, 56 (2)

Figure 5. Greece, TFR 2004-2014 and Unemployment Rate of women 15-44 (one year before)

6

Figure 5. Greece, TFR 2004-2015 and unemployment rate of women one year before

SOURCE: Kotzamanis, B., P. Baltas and Anastassia Kostaki , op. Cit.

7

References DE ROSE, A. e STROZZA, S. (dir.) (2015): Rapporto sulla popolazione. L'Italia nella crisi economica, Bologna, Il Mulino, Universale Paperbacks 674, 180 p. GOLDSTEIN, J., KREYENFELD, M., JASILIONIENE, A. and KARAMAN, D. (2013): “Fertility reactions to the "Great Recession" in Europe: Recent evidence from order-specific data”, Demographic Research: Vol. 29, Article 4 GRUSKY D.B, WESTERN B., and WIMER C.C. (Eds.) (2011), The Great Recession. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. MORGAN P., CUMBERWORTH E., and WIMER C. (2011). The Great Recession’s Influence on Fertility, Marriage, Divorce, and Cohabitation. In D.B. Grusky, B. Western, and C.

• C. Wimer (Eds.), The Great Recession. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

PAILHÉ, A. (2010) : « Effet attendu de la crise économique actuelle sur les naissances : quelques hypothèses », Politiques sociales et familiales, n° 100, pp. 97-103. PISON, G. (2013) : « Les conséquences de la crise économique sur la fécondité en France et dans les pays développés », Informations sociales, no 180, pp. 22-30. SOBOTKA, T.; SKIRBEKK, V. and PHILIPOV, D. (2011): “Economic recession and fertility in the developed world”, Population and Development Review, Vol. 37, n° 2, pp. 267- 306.