The Transition Generation’s Entrance to Parenthood: Patterns across 27 Post-Socialist Countries

Sunnee Billingsley, Stockholm University
Aija Duntava, Södertörn University

The postponement of childbearing in countries that were formerly state socialist has been the subject of much debate. This study is the first to use micro-data and contextual indicators to explore the postponement of parenthood over a wide range of post-socialist countries. We focus on the men and women who entered adulthood during the transition from communism in 27 post-socialist countries, using the Life in Transition Survey (LiTS). These countries share a few specific characteristics in recent history and, to varying degrees, at least three emerging characteristics: new lifestyle and consumption opportunities, wage dispersion and a privatized housing market. They also represent at least six diverse geo-cultural groups or regions. Using piecewise constant hazard models and multi-level discrete hazard models, we observe the influence of individual and contextual-level indicators on first conception risk as well as isolate factors that explain differences in the timing of first conception between geo-cultural regions.