Why Fertility Levels Vary between Urban and Rural Areas?

Hill Kulu (1)

1 University of Liverpool

This study examines the causes of fertility variation across settlements. We use longitudinal register data from Finland and apply event-history analysis. Our analysis shows that fertility levels are the highest in small towns and rural areas and the lowest in the capital city, as expected. The socio-economic characteristics of women and selective migrations account for a small portion of fertility variation across settlements. Housing conditions explain a significant portion of urban-rural fertility variation for first birth, but little variation for second and third birth. Significant spatial fertility variation after controlling for housing conditions suggests that there are also contextual effects.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Domaines: Science politique

Hill Kulu. Why Fertility Levels Vary between Urban and Rural Areas?. Regional Studies, 2011, ⟨10.1080/00343404.2011.581276⟩. ⟨hal-00714930⟩