POSTPONEMENT%20OF%20FIRST%20CHILD%20

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POSTPONEMENT OF FIRST CHILD NEW REALITY FOR
RUSSIA

• Sergei V. Zakharov
• Institute of Demography
• State University Higher School of Economics
• Research Leader of Russian GGS
• szakharov_at_hse.ru

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First Birth by Partnership Status in Russia
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Distribution of Women by Maternal Status by age
30, birth cohorts,
1930-1934 1950-1954 1970-1974
No birth 8 4 10
Have at least 1 child 92 96 90
100 100 100
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First Births by Formal Marital Status of Mother
having a child by age 30, birth cohorts,
1930-1934 1950-1954 1970-1974
Marital 77 82 73
Non-marital 23 18 27
All 100 100 100
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First Births by Partnership Status of Mothers
having a child by age 30, birth cohorts,
1930-1934 1950-1954 1970-1974
Before the 1st partnership 4 4 4
Within the 1st partnership 85 90 88
Within the 2nd partnerships 0 2 3
Out of partnership(not including before the 1st partnership) 11 4 5
All 100 100 100
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First Births Out of Any Partnership (left
panel), and Out of Marriage (right panel) as per
cent of Total First Births Given by age 25 and
age 30, female birth cohorts
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CHANGE IN PROTOGENETIC INTERVAL AGE OF MOTHER,
BIRTH COHORT AND FIRST PARTNERSHIP COHORT
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Mean Protogenetic Interval for Mothers Who Had
the First Birth by Age 25 and 30, female birth
cohorts (truncated for 0-60 months since
beginning of the 1st partnership)
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Cumulative Percentage of Partnerships which Gave
a First Birth by the Time since the Start of the
First Partnership, first partnership cohorts.
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Cumulative Percentage of Partnerships which Gave
a First Birth by the Time Relative to the Start
of the First Partnership 1954-1958, 1974-1978,
1994-1998 first partnership cohorts.
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Cumulative Percentage of Partnerships which Gave
a First Birth by the 7th month since the Start of
the First Partnership, first partnership cohorts.
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Pre-Partnership Conceptions realized in the First
Birth Before and Within 7 months since the Start
of the First Partnership, female birth cohorts,
by age 25 and 30.
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Percentage of Conceptions realized in the First
Birth by time of Conception Occurrence,
partnership cohorts.
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First Births by Time Relative to the Start of the
First Partnership, partnership cohorts (truncated
to 5 years since start of the 1st PAR)
1954-58 1964-68 1974-78 1984-88 1994-98
Before partnership 4 5 4 6 7
0-7 months 7 11 15 16 19
8-12 months 42 34 36 36 19
13-36 months 39 43 38 38 43
37-59 months 8 7 7 4 12
Total 100 100 100 100 100
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PROTOGENETIC INTERVAL BY TYPE OF SETTLEMENT
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Percentage of Women Who Have First Births by age
30, and within 8-12 months since the Start of the
First Partnership, birth cohorts (first births
within 5 years of partnership100)
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Percentage of Women Who Have First Births by age
30, and within 13-59 months since the Start of
the First Partnership, birth cohorts (first
births within 5 years of partnership100)
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Percentage of Women Who Have First Births by age
25, and within 0-7 months since the Start of the
First Partnership, birth cohorts (first births
within 5 years of partnership100)
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PROTOGENETIC INTERVAL BY EDUCATIONAL LEVEL
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Percentage of Women Who Have the First Birth by
Age 25 by the Time Relative to the Start of the
First Partnership Low Education (left panel),
and High Education (right panel), birth cohorts
(total First Births by age 25 100)
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Percentage of Women Who Have the First Birth by
Age 30, and by the Time Relative to the Start of
the First Partnership Low Education (left
panel), and High Education (right panel), birth
cohorts (total First Births by age 30 100)
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CONLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION (1)

• In Russia, the likelihood of first birth
  continues to be high.
• Almost 90 of first births occur in the first
  union.
• The share of first births that occur out of any
  partnership (to single mothers) was for a long
  time decreasing, while it has somewhat risen most
  recently.
• A fast growth of non-marital fertility can be
  mostly attributed to the fact that an increasing
  number of partners decide not to register their
  union officially.

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CONLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION (2)

• After a long period of downward tendency, the
  average protogenetic interval shows a strong
  upward trend.
• The growth of the average protogenetic interval
  could have been even greater provided that the
  number of births occurring during the first 6
  months since the beginning of the partnership had
  not continued growing (i.e. births as outcomes of
  pregnancies that had taken place before partners
  began to live together).

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CONLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION (3)

• Delay of first births is occurring more
  intensively in the vanguard social strata.
• In Russia, the current situation is dual
• on the one hand, pregnancy, increasingly
  frequently, leads partners to start living
  together
• on the other hand, partners living together tend
  to increase control over fertility during the
  first years of their union.

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CONLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION (4)

• The key conclusion beginning a partnership, and
  getting married in particular, starts a
  procreation cycle increasingly less frequently.
• Russia apparently remains a heterogeneous
  population as regards the usage of modern methods
  of contraception and family planning strategies
  in general.