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We analyze the relationship between religiosity and fertility among Jews in Israel—a modern democracy in which there is no separation of religion and state. Micro-level data from the 2009 Israel Social Survey are used to perform multivariate analyses of the odds of having at least three children. The findings from separate analyses of women and men are consistent with a theoretical framework, outlined by McQuillan and C. Goldscheider, which suggests how religiosity affects fertility. In particular, measures of the importance of religious community explain in part the higher levels of fertility among some religiosity groups; attitudes toward religion as a social and political institution as well as norms regarding family building over the life course also partly account for the influence of religiosity on fertility. While women's employment activity is significantly related to their fertility, as many economic theories predict, controlling for paid work in regression models does not affect the estimated relationship between religiosity and women's fertility. We conclude that, in the current context, fertility variation across religiosity groups can be understood largely in terms of the cultural, political, and institutional power of religion, and the impact of religion through community, and via norms and ideals. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10680-016-9409-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

AbstractThe increasingly central role of vertical family kinship in Western societies underscores the potential value of intergenerational linkages that tie grandparents to the fertility of their adult children. Recent research has examined the changing demography of grandparenthood and the roles fulfilled by living grandparents, but the complex implications of grandparental death—a key feature of intergenerational linkages over the life course—have drawn less attention. In this article, we explore whether and how childbearing of adult women is affected by the death of grandparents—their own parent(s) or their spouse's parent(s). We develop a novel conceptual framework that presents the pathways of influence and considers the overall impact of grandparental death on childbearing of adult children. We then estimate fixed-effects models to identify causal relationships between grandparental death and childbearing, using linked micro-level census and population register data from Israel for the period 1986–2014. We find that grandparental death leads to a reduction of approximately 5 percentage points in the five-year probability of childbirth. The effects of grandparental death are negative across all parities examined and are broadly similar across grandparent's gender and kinship relation. Additional effects are identified, including how the impact of grandparental death varies with time since the previous birth as well as residential proximity prior to death. We explain how our findings regarding the effect of grandparental death offer insight into the role of living grandparents. Our results suggest that policy-makers concerned with low fertility should explore mechanisms that reinforce potential sources of support from grandparents.

Background: Economic and ideational theories offer various explanations for the roles of ethnicity, education, and employment characteristics in determining cohabitation behavior in various contexts.

Objective: We focus on young, native-born secular Jewish adults in Israel, a subpopulation that has been shown to display Second Demographic Transition behaviors. Within this group we investigate whether a person's ethnicity, education, and employment characteristics are associated with their current living arrangements.

Methods: We employ multinomial logit regression on a series of five annual data files from the Israeli Social Survey (ISS), 2005-2009. We consider the association between various explanatory variables and the odds of cohabitation vs. being married as well as the odds of cohabitation vs. being unpartnered.

Results: Higher odds of cohabiting vs. being married are significantly associated with (1) tertiary education and student status, among men and women; (2) having accumulated fewer than five years of work experience, among men; (3) working full-time, among women; and (4) European-American ethnicity and being third-generation Israeli, among women. Higher odds of cohabiting vs. being unpartnered are significantly associated with (1) tertiary education and student status, among men; and (2) working full-time, among men.

Conclusions: We suggest that in Israel a multicausal model that accounts for both economic and ideational factors is appropriate. While limited work experience among men encourages cohabitation as an alternative to marriage, as suggested by some economic theories, associations between cohabitation and educational characteristics (among men and women) as well as ethnicity (among women) are more consistent with ideational theories.

Research on the evolution of immigrant fertility patterns has focused on the expected reduction in fertility among immigrants from high fertility, less developed countries who arrive in relatively low-fertility developed societies. The current research considers a different context in which immigrants from the low-fertility Former Soviet Union arrive in a relatively high-fertility setting in Israel. This research context allows us to test various theories of immigrant fertility, which cannot normally be distinguished empirically. Results from Cox multivariate regressions of parity-specific progression do not support assimilation theory, which would predict an increase in fertility following migration, in this context. We interpret the very low fertility rates of the FSU immigrants in Israel, relative to all relevant comparison groups, in terms of the economic uncertainty and hardship experienced during a difficult transition period by immigrants who have high aspirations for social mobility in their destination society.

Building on Davis (1963) and subsequent work, we propose a conceptual framework that provides a guide for the organization of empirical demographic research. Our approach is based on the notion that changes in nuptiality, fertility, and migration are not objectives in and of themselves, but means for reducing welfare gaps—defined as the gaps between actual welfare and that which could be attained with altered demographic and/or other behavior. We clarify theoretical issues concerning three levels of analysis. At the highest level, societal change leads to welfare gaps for families and/or individuals. In turn, behavioral adjustments are made to reduce these gaps. Finally, demographic responses at the community level result when large numbers of families and/or individuals adjust behavior in a particular manner. We consider and exemplify relationships among demographic and other responses in historical, agricultural contexts.

An important line of research concerning historical fertility patterns in currently developed countries of Europe has concluded that, prior to the fertility transition, marital fertility was essentially constant over time, and deliberate fertility control was virtually unknown. It has been argued that variations over time in overall fertility were largely the consequence of variations in nuptiality. Other researchers have challenged these views and present evidence for the existence of a significant minority of fertility controllers in pretransition populations. In this article, we find support for this second view and argue that (1) there was significant, non-random variation in marital fertility over time, prior to the transition; (2) in many cases, this variation in marital fertility was large relative to contemporaneous variations in nuptiality; and (3) in a substantial minority of the cases, the variation over time in pretransition marital fertility was so large that it is suggestive of deliberate fertility control. Thus, our findings question the view of fertility transition as an innovation in deliberate marital fertility control. While most of our evidence is based on data from England and Wales, we find corroboration of our key results in other European data.

Fifty years have passed since the post–World War II development of demography as an academic field. During this time, one of the central focuses of research has been the study of demographic and fertility transitions. The authors reviewa selection of research developments and analytic issues that have appeared in the literature. After presenting, in roughly chronological order, the general development of this research work, they raise questions concerning theory and methodology. In doing so, they argue that some research directions have been overemphasized to the neglect of others.

AbstractObjectiveWe consider whether heterosexual unions in which male partners are more gender egalitarian experience less union dissolution.BackgroundGender revolution theory argues that as men become more egalitarian in their attitudes and behaviors, female partners experience reduced work–family conflict, and couples enjoy more stable partnerships. In contrast, the "flip side" perspective argues that consequences of men's increased egalitarian behavior for their own experience of role incompatibility may counterbalance effects on union stability.MethodAnalyzing a sample of roughly 46,600 women‐years from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society (1993–2019), we estimate random‐intercept and fixed‐effects models of union dissolution. Explanatory variables include, for each partner, measures of egalitarianism in gender role attitudes and weekly housework hours.ResultsOdds of union dissolution are not associated with men's absolute level of egalitarian attitudes, but they are higher when men's attitudes are less egalitarian than their partner's. Neither the absolute number of men's housework hours, nor their share of total housework, is associated with the odds of dissolution.ConclusionsOur findings are not generally supportive of gender revolution theory. Counterbalancing effects may provide an explanation for the findings, as per the flip side approach.ImplicationsTaking a couple‐level perspective advances understanding of the associations between gender egalitarianism and union dissolution.