The second demographic transition, 1986–2020: sub-replacement fertility and rising cohabitation—a global update

The Contraceptive Revolution and the Second Demographic Transition: An Economic Model of Sex, Fertility, and Marriage

Italy’s Path to Very Low Fertility: The Adequacy of Economic and Second Demographic Transition Theories

The deep drop of the fertility rate in Italy to among the lowest in the world challenges contemporary theories of childbearing and family building. Among high-income countries, Italy was presumed to have characteristics of family values and female labor force participation that would favor higher fertility than its European neighbors to the north. We test competing economic and cultural explana...

Increasing fertility in cohabiting unions: evidence for the second demographic transition in the United States?

As cohabitation becomes increasingly common and accepted, one might expect the meaning of this arrangement to change. In some countries in Europe (e.g., Sweden), as cohabitation became more prevalent, it moved from a deviant status to an acceptable alternative to marriage. Will the same thing happen in the United States? To investigate this question, I examine increases in the proportion of bir...

The surprising global variation in replacement fertility

It is frequently assumed by the general public and also by some population experts that the value of replacement-level fertility is everywhere an average of 2.1 lifetime births per woman. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The global variation in replacement fertility is substantial, ranging by almost 1.4 live births from less than 2.1 to nearly 3.5. This range is due almost entirely to c...

Fertility, Human Capital, and Economic Growth over the Demographic Transition

Do low fertility and population aging lead to economic decline if couples have fewer children, but invest more in each child? By addressing this question, this article extends previous work in which the authors show that population aging leads to an increased demand for wealth that can, under some conditions, lead to increased capital per worker and higher per capita consumption. This article i...