Recent Demographic Developments in France: Marked Diff erences between Départements
Didier Breton, Magali Barbieri, Hippolyte d’Albis, Magali Mazuy
On 1 January 2017, the population of France was 67 million, an increase of 0.4% with respect to 2016. The total fertility rate continued to drop in 2016, notably among women aged 25-29, the age group with the highest fertility. The number of residence permits issued rose slightly and reached its highest level since 1998. Newly arrived foreigners with a residence permit represented 0.32% of the French population on 1 January 2015, compared to 0.30% the previous year. Unlike the number of civil partnerships (PACS), the number of marriages – both different-sex and same-sex – continued to decline. Mixed nationality couples (one French and one foreign partner), who account for 18% of new unions, have a larger age gap between partners than couples where both partners are French. After a severe flu epidemic in 2015, mortality fell back again in 2016. The gender gap in life expectancy narrowed slightly in 2016, to 6.1 years. Demographic behaviours differ greatly from one département to another, probably because of social and economic disparities, as well as geographic differences (notably whether or not the département is located on a border), and cultural differences that influence mortality and union formation.
Employment and Second Childbirths in Europe
Angela Greulich, Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière, Olivier Thévenon
This article studies the effects of women’s employment on second births in contemporary Europe. By mobilizing longitudinal data from the European Union’s Statistics of Income and Living conditions (EU-SILC) and aggregated data from the OECD Family Database, we find evidence that being in employment significantly increases women’s probability of second childbirth. The magnitude of the effect differs, however, among individuals. The positive impact is stronger for highly educated women and for women with partners who are themselves in employment. Dual employment thus favours family enlargement from one to two children more strongly than other employment configurations within the couple. Multilevel models also reveal that the positive effect
of employment on the transition to second childbirth is reinforced in countries with high childcare coverage. The development of childcare at the country level – the most effective family policy to secure women’s employment – increases the individual probability for women of having a second child, whereas other types of institutional support such as leave schemes or lump-sum cash transfers do not have such a positive effect.
Do Children Matter for the Stability of Cohabitation? A Cross-National Comparison
Zuzana Žilincˇíková
Motivated by the lack of official statistics and the lack of systematic estimates in Europe, this article aims to map the dissolutions of cohabitating unions across European countries and compare the stability of cohabiting unions, especially those with children, to marriage. The article studies more recent cohabiting unions and marriages (formed after 1990) drawn from retrospective information on partnership and fertility histories from the Generations and Gender Survey for 14 European countries. Discrete-time models were employed for the analysis. The results confirm that, in all countries, cohabiting unions are always less stable unions than marriages, whether or not children are present. Contrary to theoretical expectations, the difference in the stability of childless unions and those with a child present is found to be more distinct for cohabiting than marital unions. Cohabiting unions with a child present are more stable than childless cohabiting unions in ten out of 14 countries, and in four of these countries, the difference is even larger than for marriage. It is also more pronounced in western European countries than in most of the central and eastern European countries.
Religion and Sexuality in France from the 1970s to the 2000s. Changes in practices and attachment to the heterosexual family
Marion Maudet
The growing diversity of affective and sexual trajectories, the waning influence of institutional principles governing behaviours and representations, and the individualization of both sexual and religious practices raise questions about the influence of religion on contemporary sexuality in France. Drawing on data from three French surveys on sexuality conducted in 1970, 1992 and 2006, this article characterizes the sexual practices and representations of Catholics and Muslims in France, focusing on the combined effects of gender and religion. We show that over the period, for a series of sexual practices, including contraception, masturbation and pornography, the behavior of Catholics moved closer to that of people with no religion. But the age at first sexual intercourse remained higher for Catholic and Muslim women than for non-religious women in 2006. This interaction between gender and religion relative to certain sexual practices is also observed for representations of sexuality, notably of homosexuality and same-sex parenting. Compared with non-religious people, Catholics and Muslims, men in particular, are strongly attached to the heterosexual family.
Testing the Acceptability of Asking Respondents for Identifying Information in a Cross-Sectional Survey of the General Population
Stéphane Legleye, Jean-Baptiste Richard, Grégoire Rey, François Beck
General population telephone surveys are vital tools for describing health behaviours of the population. In the 2014 Baromètre santé health survey, we tested the feasibility of requesting identifying data – social security number and birth details such as first name, surname, place and date of birth – that could potentially be matched with medical and administrative data. The questions on willingness to provide social security number or birth details were tested on a random sub-sample of more than 3,000 respondents. The study did not measure actual provision of the identifying data, only the intention to do so. A much higher percentage of people were willing to provide their name and birth details than their social security number (51.9% versus 34.9%). Men agreed to the requests more readily, as did respondents with the highest educational level, or in higher-level occupations (social security number) or with a high income (social security number and birth details). Respondents surveyed over a mobile telephone agreed less frequently, whereas respondents who reported health problems (chronic illness, functional limitations), who were sedentary, who drank alcohol daily or who considered themselves to be in poor health agreed more frequently. The practical conditions for applying this method remain to be tested in a future survey.
