• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• Publications close
• FI close
• Population Studies close

Discrete-time multistate life tables are attractive because they are easier to understand and apply in comparison with their continuous-time counterparts. While such models are based on a discrete time grid, it is often useful to calculate derived magnitudes (e.g. state occupation times), under assumptions which posit that transitions take place at other times, such as mid-period. Unfortunately, currently available models allow very few choices about transition timing. We propose the use of Markov chains with rewards as a general way of incorporating information on the timing of transitions into the model. We illustrate the usefulness of rewards-based multistate life tables by estimating working life expectancies using different retirement transition timings. We also demonstrate that for the single-state case, the rewards approach matches traditional life-table methods exactly. Finally, we provide code to replicate all results from the paper plus R and Stata packages for general use of the method proposed.

Cognitively impaired adults without a partner are highly disadvantaged, as partners constitute an important source of caregiving and emotional support. With the application of innovative multistate models to the Health and Retirement Study, this paper is the first to estimate joint expectancies of cognitive and partnership status at age 50 by sex, race/ethnicity, and education in the United States. We find that women live a decade longer unpartnered than men. Women are also disadvantaged as they experience three more years as both cognitively impaired and unpartnered than men. Black women live over twice as long as cognitively impaired and unpartnered compared with White women. Lower-educated men and women live around three and five years longer, respectively, as cognitively impaired and unpartnered than more highly educated men and women. This study addresses a novel facet of partnership and cognitive status dynamics and examines their variations by key socio-demographic factors. Peer reviewed

This study uses income accumulated over ages 20-60 to examine whether richer or poorer individuals have more children. Income histories are calculated using yearly administrative register data from contemporary Sweden for cohorts born 1940-70. Differences by parity and income distribution are examined separately by sex. There is a strong positive gradient between accumulated disposable income (and to a lesser extent earnings) and fertility for men in all cohorts and a gradual transformation from a negative to a positive gradient for women. In particular, accumulated incomes are substantially lower for childless men and women than those with children. For men, fertility increases monotonically with increasing income, whereas for women much of the positive gradient results from low fertility among women with very low accumulated incomes in later cohorts. Most of the positive income-fertility gradient can be explained by the high incomes of men and women with two to four children.

The Brazilian period total fertility rate (PTFR) dropped to 1.8 in 2010 (1.5 among those with high education). Due to shifts in fertility timing, the PTFR may provide a misleading picture of fertility levels. The consequences of these changes for the cohort total fertility rate (CTFR)-a measure free from tempo distortions-and for educational differences in completed fertility remain unknown. Due to data limitations, CTFR forecasts in low- and middle-income countries are rare. We use Brazilian censuses to reconstruct fertility rates indirectly and forecast the CTFR for all women and by educational level. Four forecasting methods indicate that the CTFR is unlikely to fall to the level of the PTFR. Educational differences in the CTFR are likely to be stark, at 0.7-0.9, larger than in many high-income countries with comparable CTFRs. We show how the CTFR can be forecasted in settings with limited data and call for more research on educational differences in completed fertility in low- and middle-income countries.

Although preterm birth is the leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality in advanced economies, evidence about the consequences of prematurity in later life is limited. Using Swedish registers for cohorts born 1982–94 (N = 1,087,750), we examine the effects of preterm birth on school grades at age 16 using sibling fixed effects models. We further examine how school grades are affected by degree of prematurity and the compensating roles of family socio-economic resources and characteristics of school districts. Our results show that the negative effects of preterm birth are observed mostly among children born extremely preterm (<28 weeks); children born moderately preterm (32–<37 weeks) suffer no ill effects. We do not find any evidence for a moderating effect of parental socio-economic resources. Children born extremely preterm and in the top decile of school districts achieve as good grades as children born at full term in an average school district.

This study aims to present an alternative measure of fertility-cross-sectional average length of life by parity (CALP)-which: (1) is a period fertility indicator using all available cohort information; (2) captures the dynamics of parity transitions; and (3) links information on fertility quantum and timing together as part of a single phenomenon. Using data from the Human Fertility Database, we calculate CALP for 12 countries in the Global North. Our results show that women spend the longest time at parity zero on average, and in countries where women spend comparatively longer time at parity zero, they spend fewer years at parities one and two. The analysis is extended by decomposing the differences in CALPs between Sweden and the United States, revealing age- and cohort-specific contributions to population-level differences in parity-specific fertility patterns. The decomposition illustrates how high teenage fertility in the United States dominates the differences between these two countries in the time spent at different parities.

Published online: 08 February 2022 Parents with two boys or two girls are more likely to have a third child than those with a ‘sex mix’. However, little is known on whether these ‘mixed-sex preferences’ extend beyond the nuclear family. This study leverages the random variation in sex at birth to assess whether the sex of nieces and nephews, in combination with own children, matters for fertility choices. Using three-generational data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), I show that extended families (including grandparents, their children, and their grandchildren) are collectively more likely to have three or more grandchildren when lacking sex mix, whether the first two grandchildren are siblings or cousins. I explore the pathways for these offspring sex preferences, finding support for a preference for an uninterrupted line of male descendants. This multigenerational approach also contributes a new estimation strategy that causally estimates the effects of family sizes on outcomes beyond fertility.

The number of people who undergo medically assisted reproduction (MAR) to conceive has increased considerably in recent decades. However, existing research into the demographics and the partnership histories of this growing subgroup is limited. Using unique data from Finnish population registers on nulliparous women born in Finland in 1971–77 (n = 21,129; ∼10 per cent of all women) who had undergone MAR treatment, we created longitudinal partnership histories from age 16 until first MAR treatment. We identified six typical partnership trajectories and used relative frequency sequence plots to investigate heterogeneity in partnership transitions within and between these groups. The majority of women (60.7 per cent) underwent MAR with their first partner, followed by women who underwent MAR in a second (21.5 per cent) or higher-order partnership (7.1 per cent), while 10.7 per cent underwent MAR without a partner. On average, women undergoing MAR were relatively young (with around half starting treatment before age 30) and were highly educated with high incomes.