| Popis: |
Patterns of nuptiality and fertility changed profoundly in Belgium over the last few decades. Since the mid-1960s the Belgian nuptiality regime is characterised by a fall in proportions marrying, rising mean ages at first marriage, increasing unmarried cohabitation and rising divorce. The fertility regime is characterised by increasing mean ages at first parenthood, the emergence of structural subreplacement fertility, rising nonmarital fertility and rising definitive childlessness in unions. This volume provides a comprehensive reconstruction of the trends in Belgian nuptiality and birth-order-specific fertility between 1960 and 1990. Using anonymous data from the 1991 census, patterns of demographic behaviour are reconstructed for women born between 1921 and 1965 and linked to individual characteristics such as educational attainment and labour force participation as well as regional contexts. The analyses indicate that the aggregate trends emerging since the mid-1960s are not consistently related at the individual level and reveal longstanding heterogeneity in the demographic behviour of Belgian women. |
