Population aging and the delay in family formation that are occurring in industrialized countries are intimately related. Young adults are spending more of their early twenties attending school and focusing on employment, and they are postponing marriage and childbearing until their late twenties and early thirties. In sum, they are having fewer children later in life, and in doing so, they contribute to the aging of the population. Some argue that population aging results in lower public and private investments in children and greater public expenditures on the elderly. In this article, the author reviews evidence for this argument and concludes that population aging does not necessarily result in lesser investment in children and youth. Instead, our new demographic condition demands a renegotiation of the public intergenerational contract between age groups.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Arum, Richard, and Yossi Shavit.1995. Secondary vocational education and the transition from school to work. Sociology of Education68 (3): 187-204.
2.
Becker, Gary.1981. Treatise on the family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3.
Bengstsson, Tommy, and Gunnar Fridlizius.1994. Public intergenerational transfers as an old-age pension system: A historical interlude ? In The family, the market, and the state in ageing societies, edited by John Ermisch and Naohiro Ogawa, 198-215. Oxford , UK: Clarendon.
4.
Bernhardt, Annette, Martina Morris, Mark S. Handcock , and Marc A. Scott.2001. Divergent paths: Economic mobility in the new American labor market. New York: Russell Sage.
5.
Bernhardt, Eva M.1988. Changing family ties, women's position and low fertility . In Women's position and demographic change, edited by Nora Federici, Karen Oppenheim Mason, and Sølvi Sogner , 80-103.
6.
Blanchet, Didier, and Olivia Ekert-Jaffé .1994. The demographic impact of family benefits: Evidence from a micro-model and from macro-data. In The family, the market and the state in Ageing societies, edited by John Ermisch and Naohiro Ogawa, 79-103. Oxford, UK: Clarendon .
7.
Chafetz, Janet Saltzman, and Jacqueline Hagan.1996. The gender division of labor and family change in industrial societies: A theoretical accounting. Journal of Comparative Family Studies27 (2): 187-219.
Coale, Ansley.1964. How a population ages or grows younger. In Population: The vital revolution, edited by Ronald Freedman, 47-58. New York: Doubleday .
10.
Coale, Ansley J., and Susan Cott Watkins, eds. 1986. The decline offertility in Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
11.
Davis, Kingsley, Mikhail S. Bernstam, and Rita Ricardo-Campbell .1986. Below-replacement fertility in industrial societies: Causes, consequences, policies. Population and Development Review12 (Suppl.): 1-359.
12.
Easterlin, Richard A.1987. Birth and fortune. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
13.
Fussell, Elizabeth.2002. Youth in aging societies. In The future of adolescent experience: Societal trends and the transition to adulthood , edited by Jeylan Mortimer and Reed Larson.New York: Cambridge University Press.
14.
Gaude, J.1997. L'Insertion des jeunes et les politiques d'emploi formation . In Employment and training papers. No. 1. Geneva, Switzerland: International Labor Organization.
15.
Gauthier, Anne H.1996. The state and the family: A comparative analysis of family policies in industrialized countries. Oxford, UK: Clarendon .
16.
Gerson, Kathleen.1985. Hard choices: How women decide about work, career, and motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press.
17.
Hajnal, John.1953. Age at marriage and proportions marrying. Population Studies7:111-36.
18.
—. 1965. European marriage patterns in perspective. In Population in history: Essays in historical demography, edited by D. V. Glass and D.E.C. Eversley , 101-43. London: Edward Arnold.
19.
—. 1982. Two kinds of preindustrial household formation systems . Population and Development Review8 (3): 449-94.
20.
Hall, R.1993. Reproductive individualism: Exploring the relationship between religion, cohabitation and divorce. Discussion Paper No. 93-9. London, Ontario, Canada: Population Studies Centre , University of Western Ontario.
21.
Harvey, David.1989. The condition of postmodernity:An enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
22.
Heinz, Walter R.2000. Youth transitions and employment in Germany. International Social Science Journal164:161ff.
23.
Hoem, Britta, and Jan M. Hoem.1997. Fertility trends in Sweden up to 1996 . Paper presented at the Expert Group Meeting on Below-Replacement Fertility, UN Population Division, New York, 4-6 November.
24.
Hoem, Jan M.1993. Public policy as a fuel of fertility: Effects of policy reform on the pace of childbearing in Sweden in the 1980s. Acta Sociologica36 (1): 19-32.
25.
Le Bras, Hervé.1991. Demographic impact of post-war migration in selected OECD countries. In Migration: The demographic aspects, 15-27. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development .
26.
Lesthaeghe, Ron.1995. The second demographic transition in Western countries: An interpretation. In Gender and family change in industrialized countries, edited by Karen Oppenheim Mason and An-Magritt Jensen, 17-62. Oxford , UK: Clarendon.
27.
Levy, Frank.1998. The new dollars and dreams: American incomes and economic change. New York: Russell Sage.
28.
Lichter, Daniel T., G. K. McLaughlin, and D.J. Landry.1992. Race and the retreat from marriage: A shortage of marriageable men? American Sociological Review57:781-99.
29.
Liefbroer, Aart C., and Martine Corijn.1999. Who, what, where, and when? Specifying the impact of educational attainment and labour force participation on family formation. European Journal of Population14:45-75.
30.
Modell, John, Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., and Theodore Hershberg.1976. Social change and transitions to adulthood in historical perspective. Journal of Family History1 (1): 7-32.
31.
Monnier, Alain, and Jitka Rychtarikova .1992. The division of Europe into east and west. Population: An English Selection4:129-60.
32.
Morris, Martina, and Bruce Western.1999. Inequality in earnings at the close of the twentieth century . Annual Review of Sociology25:623-57.
33.
National Research Council.2001. Preparing for an aging world: The case for cross-national research. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
34.
O'Higgins, Niall.1997. The challenge of youth unemployment. In Employment and training papers. No. 7. Geneva, Switzerland: Employment and Training Department , International Labor Office.
35.
Oppenheimer, Valerie.1988. A theory of marriage timing: Assortative mating under varying degrees of uncertaintyAmerican Journal of Sociology94:563-91.
36.
Oppenheimer, Valerie Kincade, Matthijs Kalmijn, and Nelson Lim.1997. Men's career development and marriage timing during a period of rising inequality . Demography34 (3): 311-30.
37.
Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD).1995. Education at a glance: OECD indicators. Paris: Centre for Educational Research and Innovation , OECD.
38.
—. 1998. Education at a glance, OECD education indicators. Retrieved from www.oecd.org/els/edu/EAG98. htm
39.
Pinnelli, Antonella.1995. Women's condition, low fertility, and emerging union patterns in Europe. In Gender and family change in industrialized countries , edited by Karen Oppenheim Mason and An-Magritt Jensen, 82-104. Oxford , UK: Clarendon.
40.
Preston, Samuel.1984. Children and the elderly: Divergent paths for America's dependents. Demography21:435-57.
41.
Rindfuss, Ronald R.1991. The young adult years: Diversity, structural change, and fertility. Demography28 (4): 493-512.
42.
Sardon, Jean-Paul.1993. Women's first marriage rates in Europe: Elements for a typology. Population: An English Selection5:119-52.
43.
Smock, Pamela J., and Wendy D. Manning .1997. Cohabiting partners' economic circumstances and marriage. Demography34:331-41.
44.
United States Census Bureau. 2001. International database. Available from www.census.gov
45.
Walker, Alan.1993. Intergenerational relations and welfare restructuring: The social construction of an intergenerational problem. In The changing contract across generations, edited by Vern L. Bengtson and W Andrew Achenbaum, 141-65. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
46.
Western, Bruce, and K. Healy.1999. Explaining the OECD wage slowdown: Recession or labor decline?European Sociological Review15:233-49.
47.
Wyn, Johanna, and Peter Dwyer.2000. New patterns of youth transition in education. International Social Science Journal164:147ff.
