Trends of second birth rates in Eastern Europe after 1990: a comparative study of four selected countries

Elena Koytcheva, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

The fertility changes in the Easern European countries after 1990 are usually described as a postponement of entering marriage and starting reproduction, lower TFRs, an increase of out-of-wedlock births, and the emergence of new trends in family formation. Generally the trends are very similar across the countries, but the timing and the tempo differ. In the scientific literature not much attention is given to the contribution of the decreasing number of second births to the overall fertility. In our study, we compare the trends of second birth developments since the beginning of the 1990s across four ex-socialist countries: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia. We examine if the birth intervals are comparable and how they change through time. We also study the influence of economic situation and education of the mothers on the timing of the second births and how these influences differ in their strength across the counties.