Gender, education, and cohort fertility: is Germany moving towards the nordic path?
Recent research on fertility differentials between men and women has provided evidence for both continuities and shifts. While women in high-income countries tend to have higher fertility than men, studies of the Nordic countries have provided evidence that the previously steep negative educational...
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Book/Monograph Working Paper |
| Langue: | anglais |
| Publié: |
Wiesbaden
Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)
2026
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| Collection: | BiB Working Paper
2026/4 |
| In: |
BiB Working Paper (2026/4)
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| Accès en ligne: | Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://www.bib.bund.de/Publikation/2026/pdf/Gender-education-and-cohort-fertility-Is-Germany-moving-towards-the-nordic-path.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 Resolving-System, kostenfrei: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bib-wp-2026-04 
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| Notes sur l'auteur: | Victor Leocádio, Carmen Friedrich, Sebastian Klüsener, Martin Bujard, Harun Sulak and Ana Paula Verona |
| Résumé: | Recent research on fertility differentials between men and women has provided evidence for both continuities and shifts. While women in high-income countries tend to have higher fertility than men, studies of the Nordic countries have provided evidence that the previously steep negative educational gradient among women has weakened over time. Men, on the other hand, continue to display positive educational gradients in fertility. Yet, studies examining this trend beyond the Nordic countries are scarce. In this study, we investigate whether similar gendered patterns in overall fertility trends and fertility by education are also visible in Germany, the largest Western European country. For this, we benefit from a new survey resource (FReDA – The German Family Demography Panel Study), whose large sample size enables, for the first time for Germany, a detailed analysis of gendered fertility differentials. We calculate Cohort Total Fertility Rates, childlessness rates, and mean age of childbearing for the 1971-1981 cohorts. Our results show that the female fertility outcomes derived from FReDA are in line with official statistics. Differentiated results reveal that female cohort fertility clearly exceeds male cohort fertility in Germany and displays many similarities with patterns observed in other high-income countries. In line with trends in the Nordic countries, Germany experienced a convergence in fertility outcomes between medium- and high-educated women. This might be related to family policy reforms, which were inspired by policies implemented in the Nordic countries. These policies seem to have been particularly supportive in bolstering the fertility outcomes of high-educated women. |
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| Description matérielle: | Online Resource |