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This work examines, using Eurostat data, the fertility-development relationship at the sub- national level and further, the relationship between development and age-specific fertility rates. By conducting simple linear regression, we examine the relationship between economic development, as measured by GDP per capita, and age-specific fertility rates using 5-years cohorts among European countries in 2015. A particular emphasis is placed on 20-39 years cohorts. The relationship is analyzed for each 5-years cohort and each of the 26 European countries individually, covering 1358 NUTS 3 regions. We document a weak negative relationship between GDP per capita and TFR among most countries in 2015. In some countries, the relationship is slightly positive. Although on the one-year data we cannot track long-standing relationship, fertility decomposition into age groups revealed that the fertility-development relationship is formed by two opposite relationships. GDP per capita is in a negative relationship with age-specific fertility rates of the 20-24 and 25-29 age groups. With the age group of 30-34 years a relationship reverses to weak positive, and with the group 35-39 years a positive relationship becomes strong and significant. In younger cohorts and among less developed countries, the impact of GDP per capita on age-specific fertility rates is greater. Since the relationship transition from negative to positive depends on births at later ages, countries with a higher share of births after 30 have a more positive relationship. Following such a finding, the direction of the fertility- development relationship depends on the share of birth of the pre and after 30 subpopulation. |
