IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dem/demres/v48y2023i16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How much time is left? International trends in parenthood expectancy

Author

Listed:
  • Erich Striessnig

    (Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, OeAW, University of Vienna))

  • Alessandra Trimarchi

    (Università degli Studi di Messina (UNIME))

Abstract

Background: Many industrialized societies have experienced increases in life expectancy and in the mean age at first birth (MAFB). This has likely impacted the lifetime that parents share with their children; i.e., parenthood expectancy (PEX). Objective: With increasing life expectancy contributing positively to PEX and increasing MAFB leading to a reduction in the time spent as an ever-parent, our goal is to study how PEX for both men and women has been affected in different countries over time. Methods: Using harmonized fertility and mortality data for women and men in 37 countries, we provide PEX estimates from a period perspective. By means of counterfactual analyses, we study the extent to which each of the two components was responsible for the observed national trends in PEX. Results: PEX varies between 50–58 years for women and tends to be up to 10 years shorter for men. While for mothers the effects of increasing MAFB and life expectancy almost cancel each other out, PEX for men would have been more heavily affected by stagnation in survival conditions. Conclusions: For most countries and both sexes, PEX has been increasing over the observational period. However, trends in PEX over time are strongly country-specific and depend on the onset of fertility postponement relative to gains in life expectancy. Contribution: We present a novel indicator that allows researchers to assess the potential impact of demographic changes on intergenerational support capacities, as well as the acceptable remaining lifespan at the onset of parenthood.

Suggested Citation

  • Erich Striessnig & Alessandra Trimarchi, 2023. "How much time is left? International trends in parenthood expectancy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 48(16), pages 421-438.
  • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:48:y:2023:i:16
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2023.48.16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol48/16/48-16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/DemRes.2023.48.16?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Evgeny M. Andreev & Vladimir Shkolnikov & Alexander Begun, 2002. "Algorithm for decomposition of differences between aggregate demographic measures and its application to life expectancies, healthy life expectancies, parity-progression ratios and total fertility rat," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 7(14), pages 499-522.
    2. Michael Murphy & Pekka Martikainen & Sophie Pennec, 2006. "Demographic change and the supply of potential family supporters in Britain, Finland and France in the period 1911–2050/Changements démographiques et disponibilité des soutiens familiaux en Grande-Bre," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 219-240, September.
    3. Marc Luy, 2003. "Causes of Male Excess Mortality: Insights from Cloistered Populations," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(4), pages 647-676, December.
    4. Greg J. Duncan & Kenneth T. H. Lee & Maria Rosales-Rueda & Ariel Kalil, 2018. "Maternal Age and Child Development," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(6), pages 2229-2255, December.
    5. Monika Mynarska, 2010. "Deadline for Parenthood: Fertility Postponement and Age Norms in Poland [L’âge limite pour avoir des enfants: Report de la procréation et normes d’âge en Pologne]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 26(3), pages 351-373, August.
    6. Heeju Sohn, 2019. "Fraying Families: Demographic Divergence in the Parental Safety Net," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1519-1540, August.
    7. Christian Dudel & Sebastian Klüsener, 2021. "Male–Female Fertility Differentials Across 17 High-Income Countries: Insights From A New Data Resource," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(2), pages 417-441, April.
    8. Joshua R. Goldstein, 2006. "How Late Can First Births Be Postponed? Some Illustrative Population-level Calculations," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 4(1), pages 153-165.
    9. Kieron Barclay & Mikko Myrskylä, 2016. "Advanced Maternal Age and Offspring Outcomes: Reproductive Aging and Counterbalancing Period Trends," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 42(1), pages 69-94, March.
    10. Karel Neels & Michael Murphy & Máire Ní Bhrolcháin & Éva Beaujouan, 2017. "Rising Educational Participation and the Trend to Later Childbearing," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 43(4), pages 667-693, December.
    11. Evgeny M. Andreev & Vladimir M. Shkolnikov & Alexander Z. Begun, 2002. "Algorithm for decomposition of differences between aggregate demographic measures and its application to life expectancies, Gini coefficients, health expectancies, parity-progression ratios and total ," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2002-035, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    12. Iñaki Permanyer & Nathalie Scholl, 2019. "Global trends in lifespan inequality: 1950-2015," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-19, May.
    13. Iñaki Permanyer & Jeroen Spijker & Amand Blanes & Elisenda Renteria, 2018. "Longevity and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment in Spain: 1960–2015," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(6), pages 2045-2070, December.
    14. Alessandra Trimarchi & Jan Van Bavel, 2017. "Education and the Transition to Fatherhood: The Role of Selection Into Union," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(1), pages 119-144, February.
    15. Máire Ní Bhrolcháin & Éva Beaujouan, 2012. "Fertility postponement is largely due to rising educational enrolment," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 66(3), pages 311-327.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Insu Chang & Heeran Park & Hosung Sohn, 2021. "Causal Impact of School Starting Age on the Tempo of Childbirths: Evidence from Working Mothers and School Entry Cutoff Using Exact Date of Birth," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(4), pages 997-1022, November.
    2. Eva Beaujouan, 2020. "Latest‐Late Fertility? Decline and Resurgence of Late Parenthood Across the Low‐Fertility Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 46(2), pages 219-247, June.
    3. Mikko Myrskylä & Julia Hellstrand & Sampo Lappo & Angelo Lorenti & Jessica Nisén & Ziwei Rao & Heikki Tikanmäki, 2024. "Declining fertility, human capital investment, and economic sustainability," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2024-002, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    4. Qi Cui & Vladimir Canudas-Romo & Heather Booth, 2019. "The Mechanism Underlying Change in the Sex Gap in Life Expectancy at Birth: An Extended Decomposition," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(6), pages 2307-2321, December.
    5. Natalie Nitsche & Hannah Brückner, 2021. "Late, But Not Too Late? Postponement of First Birth Among Highly Educated US Women," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(2), pages 371-403, April.
    6. Marina Vergeles, 2021. "Evolution Of Sex Gap In Life Expectancy Across High-Income Countries: Universal Patterns And Country-Specific Attributes," HSE Working papers WP BRP 98/SOC/2021, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    7. Julia Hellstrand & Jessica Nisén & Vitor Miranda & Peter Fallesen & Lars Dommermuth & Mikko Myrskylä, 2020. "Not just later, but fewer: novel trends in cohort fertility in the Nordic countries," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-007, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    8. Faragó, Miklós, 2011. "Paritásfüggő összetett termékenységi mutatók Magyarországon és különbségeik dekompozíciója [Parity-dependent complex indicators of fertility in Hungary and decomposition of differences between them," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 970-993.
    9. Natalie Nitsche & Anna Matysiak & Jan Bavel & Daniele Vignoli, 2018. "Partners’ Educational Pairings and Fertility Across Europe," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(4), pages 1195-1232, August.
    10. Robert Stelter & David de la Croix & Mikko Myrskylä, 2020. "Leaders And Laggards In Life Expectancy Among European Scholars From The Sixteenth To The Early Twentieth Century," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2020024, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    11. Virginia Zarulli & James W. Vaupel & Rune Lindahl-Jacobsen, 2020. "Onset of the old-age gender gap in survival," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 42(25), pages 727-740.
    12. Vladimir M. Shkolnikov & Evgeny M. Andreev & Dmitri A. Jdanov & Domantas Jasilionis & Tapani Valkonen, 2009. "To what extent do rising mortality inequalities by education and marital status attenuate the general mortality decline? The case of Finland in 1971-2030," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-018, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    13. Jonathan Fox & Mikko Myrskylä, 2015. "Urban fertility responses to local government programs: Evidence from the 1923-1932 U.S," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(16), pages 487-532.
    14. Beltrán-Sánchez, Hiram & Soneji, Samir, 2011. "A unifying framework for assessing changes in life expectancy associated with changes in mortality: The case of violent deaths," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 38-48.
    15. A. Remund & S. Cullati & S. Sieber & C. Burton-Jeangros & M. Oris, 2019. "Longer and healthier lives for all? Successes and failures of a universal consumer-driven healthcare system, Switzerland, 1990–2014," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 64(8), pages 1173-1181, November.
    16. Bijlsma, Maarten J. & Wilson, Ben, 2020. "Modelling the socio-economic determinants of fertility: a mediation analysis using the parametric g-formula," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102414, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. James Vaupel & Vladimir Romo, 2003. "Decomposing change in life expectancy: A bouquet of formulas in honor of Nathan Keyfitz’s 90th birthday," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(2), pages 201-216, May.
    18. Nikkil Sudharsanan & Maarten J. Bijlsma, 2019. "A generalized counterfactual approach to decomposing differences between populations," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2019-004, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    19. Glenn Firebaugh & Claudia Nau & Francesco Acciai & Christopher J Prather & Aggie Noah, 2014. "Why the racial gap in life expectancy is declining in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(32), pages 975-1006.
    20. Per Kragh Andersen & Vladimir Canudas-Romo & Niels Keiding, 2013. "Cause-specific measures of life years lost," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(41), pages 1127-1152.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    parental lifespan; mean age at first birth; life expectancy; shared lifetime; generational overlap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:48:y:2023:i:16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Editorial Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.