Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Since the late 1960s important family and household transformations have been taking place in Europe including in terms of fertility. Modern figures expect families to have one child less than with 1960 figures. While theories such as the Second Demographic Transition have brought satisfactory understanding to both the nature and origins of these transformations, their predilection for cross-country analyses has left the spatial variations of these transformations relatively unrecognised. However variations between and within countries exist, resulting from differences in the onset and speed of these transformations. For this research I focus on a key aspect of transformations in fertility behaviours and map subnational (NUTS-2 level) fertility rates in Europe for the 1960-2015 period. This makes it possible to answer the question of the likelihood of a convergence of fertility in Europe and to suggest factors that shaped spatial distribution of fertility. This research demonstrates how, in five and a half decades, fertility changed unevenly across Europe. I only observed limited convergence across Europe. However despite subnational specificities not disappearing I demonstrate that homogenising trends occur within four supranational areas. Spatial distribution of European fertility at different dates highlights a change of the most important spatial structure to the spatial organisation of European fertility. While countries were predominant in 1960, a division of the continent in just four groups of countries is now much more relevant. Based on these results I hypothesise on the factors that could have led to such spatial organisation because of the extent at witch their operate. These factors are likely to have played an important role in shaping recent fertility behaviours and transformations. |
