FAMilyDECisions · Family formation decisions and gender attitudes in crisis times: an international, historical and longitudinal comparison.
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-10-01 → 2019-09-30
- EU contribution
- €239,191
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-GF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Family formation decisions and gender attitudes in crisis times: an international, historical and longitudinal comparison.
Low fertility has been at the forefront of demographers’ research agendas in recent decades. Fertility rates in many developed societies, including Spain, have rapidly fallen below 1.5 children per woman. However, the ideal number of children remains centered at two children in most postindustrial countries. Many young adults say they would like to have two children, but they expect to have fewer. What explains this gap between fertility ideals and intentions? Understanding the reasoning behind the gap between ideal and intended or realized fertility is key to helping young adults to meet their fertility aspirations. This research aims to better understand the reasoning behind young adults’ fertility decision-making. Three factors are explored in detail to reach this understanding: 1) the gap between relatively egalitarian gender-role attitudes and more traditional gender-role behaviors among Spanish couples, 2) the rigidity and precariousness of the labor-market structure for men and women’s fertility decision-making, and 3) the role of public institutions and family policies. Extensive scientific literature can be found focused on family formation dynamics and fertility, especially for European countries and mainly using a quantitative perspective. This qualitative project used an innovative methodology to analyze the Spanish case from a three different perspectives: an intra-country and cross-country comparison (comparing similar data from Spain, Sweden, the U.S., Japan and Korea in 2012), an historical comparison (comparing Spain 1985 vs.2012) and a longitudinal comparison (comparing the same Spanish sample in 2012 and 2018). The overall conclusion of the project emphasizes the key role and implications that gender-egalitarianism at a multidimensional level –individual, couple, institutional- has on young couples forming families today. This study also contributes to the understanding of theories explaining low fertility over time by placing value on individual reasoning at the micro-level of analysis.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
During the last decades, Spain has experienced not only an strong decrease on its fertility levels but also a significant delay in its timing to childbearing, so much so that it has been considered one of the countries with the lowest-low and latest-late fertility in the world. This research aims to better understand the reasons behind young adults’ behaviors in family dynamics in a moment where it is possible to approach the impact of the economic crisis from different dimensions of the analysis. An extended scientific literature can be found about family formation dynamics and fertility, especially for European countries and mainly using a quantitative perspective. This mainly qualitative project proposes an innovative methodology to analyze the Spanish case from a three different perspectives of analysis: a cross-country comparison (five countries in 2012), an historical comparison (Spain 1985 vs. 2012) and a longitudinal comparison (Spain, same sample in 2012 and 2017). Furthermore, mixed methods will be applied considering the contextualization of qualitative data with quantitative data from census and surveys as complementary approaches; and the application of quantitative analysis to qualitative data. Main data from Spain in 2012 comes directly from the words of young adults in three different moments of their family formation decisions: i) to start a stable relationship; ii) to become parents; and iii) to expand the family after the first child. Main data consists of eighty (80) in-depth personal interviews already carried out to young adults between 24 and 35 years old, living in the Madrid and Barcelona metropolitan areas, that will be compared with an identical sample in the US, Sweden, Japan and Korea. Historical data comes from an existing comparable study from middle 80’s in Spain and longitudinal data will be obtained after re-interview in 2017 the same sample interviewed in 2012 for Spain.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS DEMOGRAFICOS · BARCELONACoordinatorSpain
- PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE · CambridgeUnited States
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union