Browsing by Subject "90’s depression"

Goals Economics and fertility are widely studied areas, and the link between economics and fertility is well proven. However, less research exists concerning economics as a life course factor to fertility. The first aim of this study is to research whether the 90's depression impacted Finnish children's future fertility. The hypothesis is that if the family's economic situation decreased during the 90's depression, the children would be less willing to have children of their own later in life. The other aim is to clarify whether this effect is different depending on children's age during the depression. Methods Participants in this study were selected among the FinnFamily-register data, consisting of a longitudinal following of 60000 Finish families for four generations. Among the FinnFamily data, 43 432 participants who were born between 1975-1989 were included in this study. Participants and their parents were followed to the end of 2012. Analyses were made using Cox regression. The robust covariance matrix -method was used to allow correlation among members of the same family. Results and conclusions A change in the parents' economic situation during the 90's depression was not connected to a decrease in the child's future fertility. Neither evidence of interaction between parents' income change and child's age was found. However, it was found that the decrease and a major increase in parents' income during the 90's depression was connected to the increase in the probability of having a first child in later life. The connection between income decrease and later fertility remained statistically significant after controlling the education level, sex, age cohort, and number of siblings. The connection between a major income increase and later fertility disappeared when the number of siblings was controlled. The finding was somewhat unexpected, and more research is needed to clarify the reasons behind this effect. Particularly longitudinal research, including measurements of participants' subjective experiences and narratives associating with parents' economic difficulties, is needed in the future.