Childlessness and the Postponement of First Births in the Visegrad Countries

Branislav Šprocha
Demografie, 64(2): 139–157
https://doi.org/10.54694/dem.0302

Abstract
Fertility postponement and fertility ageing are the most important changes in demographic reproduction that have occurred in post-communist countries in Europe. This process has been found to have begun earlier and to be more dynamic in the Central European post-communist countries]. It turns out that fertility postponement has mainly affected first births. Closely related to this finding is the question of whether these maternal starts will be completed at an older age and what the total childlessness rates will be. Post-communist countries have long been among the countries in Europe with a relatively low rate of childlessness. The dynamic postponement of fertility and the first findings on the postponement transition among the affected cohorts suggest that this situation could change rapidly.

The main aim of the paper is to analyse the process of the postponement and recuperation of first-order fertility in Visegrad countries from a cohort perspective. Using the benchmark model, we identified the beginning, dynamics, and development of the postponement and recuperation measures and derived recuperation index from these measures. The results show that not only are there some differences between countries at the beginning of the postponement, but there are also differences in the extent of this postponement and in the success of subsequent recuperation at an older age. As a result, an intercohort deepening of differences in childlessness rates can be expected. The resulting scenarios indicate that Czech women could be the most successful in this respect, while in other countries childlessness can be expected to exceed 20%. The worst situation may occur in Poland.

Keywords
Childlessness, first births, postponement, recuperation, V4