Is fertility influenced by couple instability?

In Spain, as elsewhere, declining fertility appears to go hand-in-hand with ever-more fragile unions and the emergence of alternatives to marriage, such as cohabitation. Many believe that the family as an institution is gradually eroding. In this chapter we examine more closely whether -- and how -- rising divorce risks and novel partnership forms influence the likelihood of having children. We focus both on first and second births, comparing across 5 countries: Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Spain. These nations represent quite well the major variations within Europe in terms of fertility levels and welfare state support to working mothers and families. We do find that couple instability and cohabitation are associated with fewer births. But the impact is not straightforward. It is stronger in some countries than others, and for second births the effect is actually the opposite in two cases. Our study yields some very surprising findings as regards cohabitation. We discover that cohabitation in Spain is unexpectedly stable, appearing far closer to Scandinavia than to any Mediterranean 'model'. And differences in fertility behavior, at least for first births, are not great.