First and second births in first and second unions: a decomposition of fertility decline in Bulgaria and Russia since the 1989 economic and political transition

Following the collapse of the communist regimes in Bulgaria and Russia, the two countries have experienced dramatic fertility decline. The aim of this paper is to examine the individual contribution of various factors that have contributed to the overall drop in first and second births. By means of microsimulation, we isolate the effect of changes observed in first and second birth risks in different life course situations as well as the impact of changes in union formation and dissolution on fertility. The study is based on hazard regression models estimated from GGS data. We find remarkable similarities in first and second birth behavior and changes in these behaviors over time in both countries. However, partnership behavior and trends differ considerably, causing a stronger fertility decline in Bulgaria due to delayed partnership formation. Nevertheless, in Russia unions are increasingly unstable, a process which, according to our findings, leads to longer birth intervals but has almost no impact on final birth outcome. Bulgaria and Russia experienced fast fertility decline after the collapse of communism, as did all countries of the former Soviet Bloc. At the starting point of the transition, we find almost identical demographic patterns in the two countries, characterized by very early and universal marriage, universal parenthood, and a strong two-child norm. Until 1989 period fertility was remarkably stable around replacement level. An international comparison of the distribution of family sizes of the 1960 female birth cohorts of 21 countries identified Bulgaria as the country with the lowest inter-individual diversity in fertility (Shkolnikov et.al. 2004; including Austria: Spielauer 20051) and the highest rate of two-child families. (Russia ranked on the 4th place in this comparison.) After the political and economic transition, period fertility dropped rapidly to lowest low levels, in Bulgaria nearing a TFR of 1 in 1997. Russia reached its lowest level (1.16) in 1999. The fertility drop results from changes in various demographic behaviors. In this paper, we aim at quantifying the individual effects of the observed changes in first and second birth