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Regional Contexts and Family Formation: Evidence from the German Family Panel

Regionale Kontexte und Familiengründung – Befunde auf Basis des Beziehungs- und Familienpanels

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Abstract

Substantial regional variation in marriage and fertility patterns continues to exist in Germany. Following a multilevel approach, we exploit longitudinal data from the German Family Panel (pairfam), enhanced by an array of district-level variables, to investigate the extent to which spatial variations in men’s and women’s family formation behaviors result from differences in population composition or from ‘true’ contextual effects. Our multilevel analyses provide evidence for only small—if any—contextual effects on individuals’ family formation behaviors (except for a continuation of significant differences between East and West Germany). However, we still find indication that (1) regional economic circumstances matter in determining individuals’ fertility intentions as well as their transition to first marriage, (2) regional milieus are associated with individuals’ fertility, and that (3) selective family migration takes place. While it seems that social interaction rather than differences in local opportunity structures plays a role here, more research is needed to further substantiate this conclusion.

Zusammenfassung

Bis heute lassen sich in Deutschland kleinräumig regionale Unterschiede im Heirats- und Geburtenverhalten feststellen. Einem Mehrebenen-Design folgend analysieren wir mit Kontextinformationen auf der Kreisebene angereicherte Längsschnittdaten des Beziehungs- und Familienpanels (pairfam), um zu untersuchen, inwieweit regionale Unterschiede im Familiengründungsverhalten von Männern und Frauen auf Bevölkerungskompositions- oder tatsächliche Kontexteffekte zurückzuführen sind. Die Ergebnisse unserer Mehrebenenanalyse zeigen – falls überhaupt – nur geringe Kontexteinflüsse auf individuelle Entscheidungen zur Familiengründung (außer nach wie vor bestehenden signifikanten Ost-West-Unterschieden). Dennoch finden sich Hinweise darauf, dass (1) regionale ökonomische Rahmenbedingungen relevant für Kinderwünsche und die Erstheiratswahrscheinlichkeit sind, dass es (2) einen Zusammenhang zwischen regionalen Milieus und Fertilitätsentscheidungen gibt, und dass (3) selektive Migration im Kontext der Familiengründung stattfindet. Der Schluss, dass soziale Interaktion bedeutsamer als Unterschiede in regionalen Opportunitätsstrukturen zu sein scheint, sollte jedoch durch zusätzliche Untersuchungen weiter substantiiert werden.

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Notes

  1. Note that the individual-level control variables employed in our models—age, education and employment, parental and marital status, as well as information on whether the individual is a foreigner—are standard ones and will therefore not be discussed here any further.

  2. Note that the full multilevel Poisson regression models for respondents’ number of children and for being childless (Table 1) did not converge. We thus estimated robust regressions, providing us with unbiased standard errors, but not the district-level variance component.

  3. One reason why the interaction between the degree of urbanization and relocation between districts remained insignificant might be that family related relocations rather take place within a shorter geographical range (that is, between communities; see Kulu and Milewski 2007).

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Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2014 PAA Annual Meeting in Boston. We would like to thank Hans-Peter Kohler for his discussion of our presentation. We are also grateful for comments by Michaela Kreyenfeld.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Universität zu Köln, Greinstr. 2, 50939, Cologne, Germany

    Karsten Hank

  2. EMPAS Institut für empirische und angewandte Soziologie, Universität Bremen, Mary-Somerville-Str. 9, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Johannes Huinink

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  1. Karsten Hank
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Correspondence to Karsten Hank.

Appendix

Appendix

Fig. 1
figure 1

Regional distribution of crude marriage rates in Germany (2010). (Source: BBSR (2012))

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Fig. 2
figure 2

Regional distribution of total fertility rates in Germany (2010). (Source: BBSR (2012))

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Hank, K., Huinink, J. Regional Contexts and Family Formation: Evidence from the German Family Panel. Köln Z Soziol 67 (Suppl 1), 41–58 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-015-0322-9

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