Articles

The validity of astrological predictions on marriage and divorce: a longitudinal analysis of Swedish register data

This paper examines astrology, a concept that is considered unscientific by broad segments of the population in the western world. Despite this, astrology remains for some an important source for advice regard...

Authors: Jonas Helgertz and Kirk Scott

An explorative approach to the cross-section of international migration and sexual preference: same-sex couples in Germany

We study the intersection of international migration and sexual preference from a socio-demographic perspective by looking at same-sex couples among migrants in Germany. Despite increasing ethnic diversity and...

Authors: Mirko K. Braack and Nadja Milewski

Trends in fertility and fertility preferences in sub-Saharan Africa: the roles of education and family planning programs

A common explanation for the high fertility prevailing in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a widespread desire for large families. This situation poses a challenge to population policy-makers in the continent. If t...

Authors: John Bongaarts

Population aging and the historical development of intergenerational transfer systems

From our evolutionary past, humans inherited a long period of child dependency, extensive intergenerational transfers to children, cooperative breeding, and social sharing of food. Older people continued to tr...

Authors: Ronald Lee

Sexual violence victimisation among university students in Italy: a gendered intersectional quantitative approach

There is rising attention in Italy and Europe to the occurrence, consequences, and factors related to sexual violence. The focus on women as the primary victims of sexual violence has, however, left data colle...

Authors: Livia Elisa Ortensi and Patrizia Farina

Sexual satisfaction among italian university students

This paper examines the determinants of sexual satisfaction among Italian young men and women at the beginning of their adulthood, taking into account the different stages of sentimental and sexual transitions...

Authors: Laura Terzera, Stefania Maria Lorenza Rimoldi and Elisa Barbiano di Belgiojoso

A reflection on economic uncertainty and fertility in Europe: The Narrative Framework

The generalized and relatively homogeneous fertility decline across European countries in the aftermath of the Great Recession poses serious challenges to our knowledge of contemporary low fertility patterns. ...

Authors: Daniele Vignoli, Raffaele Guetto, Giacomo Bazzani, Elena Pirani and Alessandra Minello

Synergy in fertility forecasting: improving forecast accuracy through model averaging

Accuracy in fertility forecasting has proved challenging and warrants renewed attention. One way to improve accuracy is to combine the strengths of a set of existing models through model averaging. The model-a...

Authors: Han Lin Shang and Heather Booth

Why are supercentenarians so frequently found in French Overseas Departments? The cases of Guadeloupe and Martinique

Many more cases of supercentenarians are observed in the French Départements d’Outre-Mer (DOM) than in metropolitan France. A first possible explanation is that the standard French protocol for validating age doe...

Authors: Jacques Vallin

Thinking as the others do: persistence and conformity of sexual double standard among young Italians

The double standard represents a standard of good behaviour that, unfairly, some people are expected to follow or achieve, but others are not. Once neglected by social scientists, the double standard in sexual...

Authors: Matteo Migheli and Chiara Pronzato

Parent-child communication about sex and romantic feelings: does having older siblings make a difference?

Parental involvement in sex education and the quality of parent-child communication about romantic feelings appear to have a protective effect on adolescent sexual behaviours. However, little research has been...

Authors: Marta Pasqualini and Alessandra De Rose

The “dating game”: age differences at first sex of college students in Italy

Researchers have devoted much attention both to the analysis of the first sexual experience and to how the couple was established, but little is still known about age differences of partners at their first sex...

Authors: Maria Carella, Thaís García-Pereiro, Roberta Pace and Anna Paterno

Decisions on marriage? Couples’ decisions on union transition in Sweden

Marriage is an institution that has become optional for many. This study investigates how decisions are taken regarding marriage among Swedish cohabiting couples in the twenty-first century, specifically focus...

Authors: Ann-Zofie Duvander and Linda Kridahl

Adolescent sexual behaviour and academic performance of Italian students

This article estimates the effect of sexual activity during adolescence on academic performance of high school students in Italy. We exploit a sample of university students drawn from the two waves (2000 and 2...

Authors: Donatella Lanari, Lucia Mangiavacchi and Marta Pasqualini

Past and projected growth of Australia’s older migrant populations

In recent years, Australia’s older population (aged 65 and over) has been growing rapidly, accompanied by a shift in its country of birth composition. Although a great deal of research has been undertaken on p...

Authors: Tom Wilson, Peter McDonald, Jeromey Temple, Bianca Brijnath and Ariane Utomo

Associations of family and social contact with health among Italian grandparents

Past research has documented the positive influence of frequent interactions with social networks on several health outcomes in later life, with different patterns by gender. In this study, we explore the asso...

Authors: Cecilia Tomassini, Jessica Zamberletti, Carlo Lallo and Giulia Cavrini

Causal assessment in demographic research

Causation underlies both research and policy interventions. Causal inference in demography is however far from easy, and few causal claims are probably sustainable in this field. This paper targets the assessm...

Authors: Guillaume Wunsch and Catherine Gourbin

Sexual behavioural differences and risk-taking differences among born-abroad and native university students in Italy

There is a substantial lack of information in the literature on affective and sexual behaviours in youths with migratory backgrounds, despite immigrants’ immediate descendants growing in recent years in many d...

Authors: Giuseppe Gabrielli, Anna Paterno and Salvatore Strozza

Catching up! The sexual behaviour and opinions of Italian students (2000–2017)

While sexuality has radically changed across middle–high-income societies in recent years, only outdated studies are available for Italy. We aim to provide novel insights into the sexual behaviour and opinions...

Authors: Alessandra Minello, Marcantonio Caltabiano, Gianpiero Dalla-Zuanna and Daniele Vignoli

Relationship between Religion and Unintended Childbearing in Nigeria: A Cross-Regional Perspective

Childbearing remains a global public health issue, posing an enormous challenge to families, communities, governments, program managers, and researchers, especially in developing countries.

Authors: Kola’ A. Oyediran, Gbenga Ishola and Akinrinola Bankole

Religiosity differences in the transition to first intercourse before age 18 among Polish students

Poland is a Catholic country and is one of a few countries in Europe where the percentage of people declaring themselves as non-believing remains rather low. Thus, most young Poles are brought up in Catholic f...

Authors: Wiktoria Wróblewska

Premarital sex and pregnancy in Greater Jakarta

Social taboos and stigmas around sexuality and non-marital sex in Indonesia have led to substantial underreporting of the prevalence of premarital sex. In this study, we explore underreporting amongst young ad...

Authors: James O’Donnell, Iwu Dwisetyani Utomo and Peter McDonald

"Like a virgin". Correlates of virginity among Italian university students

Virginity, as a status, carries with it enormous personal and social meaning and represents a sexual milestone with high cultural significance. In this paper, we describe the correlates of virginity in Italy b...

Authors: Manuela Stranges and Daniele Vignoli

Who is at risk? Gendered psychological correlates in Italian students’ sexual risk profiles

Recent research has shown that sexual risk behaviours are rising substantially among Italian youth, but this evidence is still undervalued in public discussion. Adopting a multidimensional perspective for sexu...

Authors: Elena Pirani and Camilla Matera

The second demographic transition, 1986–2020: sub-replacement fertility and rising cohabitation—a global update

The article considers the evolution of two “Second Demographic Tradition” (SDT) core characteristics: fertility postponement and the rise of cohabitation, with particular attention being given to the first two...

Authors: Ron Lesthaeghe

Abortions followed by contraceptive failures in Northern India: an analysis of contraceptive histories (2009–2014)

This study tries to elicit the unexplored nexus between the contraceptive failure and abortions in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh. Condom being the most used modern method contributes to 47% of all ...

Authors: Anjali Singh, Rakesh Mishra, K. K. Singh and Prashant Verma

Parental age at childbirth and children’s educational outcomes: evidence from upper-secondary schools in Italy

In the last decades, Western societies have been involved in huge demographic changes, amongst which one of the most important has been the increasing postponement of the transition to parenthood. This paper a...

Authors: Stefano Cantalini, Raffaele Guetto and Nazareno Panichella

Changes in young women’s contraceptive use in the Netherlands: findings from three sex under the age of 25 surveys

Prevention of unintended pregnancy among adolescents and young adults under 25 years is pivotal from an individual as well as societal perspective. In the USA, the use of long-acting reversible contraceptive (...

Authors: Elske Marra, Suzanne Meijer and Hanneke de Graaf

Childlessness and low fertility in context: evidence from a multilevel analysis on 20 European countries

Low fertility and childlessness have been largely interpreted as being driven by the same mechanisms, although they may be qualitatively different phenomena. The present article discusses this assumption and s...

Authors: Elisa Brini

Review of How Population Change Will Transform Our World by Sarah Harper

In this book, Sarah Harper explores the relevant topic of the shift in the age structure of the world’s population. She addresses this issue by considering the entire world population. In particular, she deepl...

Authors: Sara Miccoli

Marital fertility and the changing status of women in Europe

Authors: Antonella Pinnelli

Ethnic fertility behavior and internal migration in Nigeria: revisiting the migrant fertility hypotheses

Fertility patterns in Nigeria are high and widely skewed away from the targets of the country’s population policy. As population growth is fueled by natural increase and migration, and with spatial disparities...

Authors: Clifford O. Odimegwu and Yemi Adewoyin

Socioeconomic development and life expectancy relationship: evidence from the EU accession candidate countries

This paper investigates the effect of the socioeconomic development on life expectancy at birth as an indicator of mortality or longevity in five EU accession candidate countries (Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and...

Authors: Goran Miladinov

Transition to first birth during the Great Recession: the case of Greece

In this study, we examine the effects of the economic uncertainty of partners on the transition to first birth in Greece before and after the onset of the recent economic crisis. After selecting a sample of ch...

Authors: Charalampos Dantis and Ester Lucia Rizzi

Spatio-temporal variations in unmet need for family planning in Ghana: 2003–2014

Ghana has long prioritized family planning as a key strategy for improving health and socioeconomic development. However, despite the heavy investments in the sector over the last decade, the family planning p...

Authors: Samuel H. Nyarko, Corey S. Sparks and Fikrewold Bitew

The gendered division of housework and fertility intention in Turkey

It is increasingly acknowledged that an equal sharing of domestic labour in a household influences women’s childbearing behavior in a positive way. Despite the growing literature on this association, there is ...

Authors: Serap Kavas

Structured additive distributional hurdle Poisson modelling of individual fertility levels in Nigeria

Fertility is one of the dynamic components of population and has been modelled through children ever born per woman, which is a count variable that can be characterized with excessive zeros origination from wo...

Authors: Omodolapo Somo-Aina and Ezra Gayawan

On the logical structure of census and survey questionnaires

Skip instructions in census and survey questionnaires result in different groups of persons being eligible for different questions—the logical structure of the questionnaire. Logical structure is important for an...

Authors: Griffith Feeney and Samuel Feeney

Fertility variations in the recession context: the case of Greece

Research on the counter- or pro-cyclical nature of aggregate fertility over economic cycles has been inconclusive, as results vary significantly across regions and over time. This work examines the variations ...

Authors: Alexandra Tragaki and Christos Bagavos

The elasticity of marital fertility in three sub-Saharan African countries: a decomposition analysis

Many studies of fertility have reported a wide range of factors to be important determinants. These determinants include proximate factors and male and female background variables. However, most of the researc...

Authors: Pedzisai Ndagurwa and Clifford Odimegwu

Race and life expectancy in the USA in the Great Depression

Prior work has highlighted increases in life expectancy in the USA during the Great Depression. This contradicts the tenet that life expectancy is positively correlated with human welfare, but it coheres with ...

Authors: Tim A. Bruckner, Ashley M. Ima, Trang T. Nguyen and Andrew Noymer

One day is not as good as another…at least not across the entire territory of Italy: an analysis of the differences in the daily distribution of births across Italian macro-regions, 1999–2016

The concentration of births on working days compared to a relative lack of events at weekends or during public holidays has been interpreted in literature as evidence of an excessive appeal to elective deliver...

Authors: Marco Breschi, Gabriele Ruiu and Giovanna Gonano

Exploring the link between irregular migration and asylum: the case of Italy

Many asylum seekers crossed European borders in an irregular manner during the last 2 years and completed their asylum procedure with a negative decision. Based on the limited number of effective orders to leave,...

Authors: Daniela Ghio and Gian Carlo Blangiardo

Immigrant citizenship status in Europe: the role of individual characteristics and national policies

The acquisition of citizenship status in the new country of residence may depend on (1) the individual immigrant’s characteristics, (2) the structural characteristics of both the origin and the destination cou...

Authors: Angela Paparusso

Clustering of infant deaths among Nigerian women: investigation of temporal patterns using dynamic random effects model

This study was conducted to estimate the magnitude of infant death clustering as well as the mortality risk associated with death of a preceding child and investigate how these have changed over three decades ...

Authors: Joshua O. Akinyemi, Clifford O. Odimegwu, Olufunmilayo O. Banjo and Babatunde M. Gbadebo

The impact of increasing education levels on rising life expectancy: a decomposition analysis for Italy, Denmark, and the USA

Significant reductions in mortality are reflected in strong increases in life expectancy particularly in industrialized countries. Previous analyses relate these improvements primarily to medical innovations a...

Authors: Marc Luy, Marina Zannella, Christian Wegner-Siegmundt, Yuka Minagawa, Wolfgang Lutz and Graziella Caselli

The timing of the transition from mortality compression to mortality delay in Europe, Japan and the United States

Previous research found evidence for a transition from mortality compression (declining lifespan variability) to mortality delay (increasing ages at death) in low-mortality countries.

Authors: Fanny Janssen and Joop de Beer

Marital fertility patterns and nonmarital birth ratios: an integrated approach

In a 1974 paper, Coale and Trussell described an empirical relationship between the age-specific fertility rate, the marital fertility rate, and the proportion of women with first marriages. However, their key...

Authors: Reginald D. Smith

Population control under various family planning schemes in Uttar Pradesh, India

Contraceptive policies have been derived to achieve desired reductions in the growth rate and also applied to the data of Uttar Pradesh, India, for illustration. Using the Lotka integral equation for stable po...

Authors: Prashant Verma, Kaushalendra Kumar Singh, Anjali Singh and Ujjaval Srivastava

Socioeconomic disparity in adult mortality in India: estimations using the orphanhood method

Due to a lack of data, no study has yet documented differences in adult life expectancy in India by education, caste, and religion.

Authors: Nandita Saikia, Jayanta Kumar Bora and Marc Luy