| Abstract: | Levels of fertility and nuptiality in developed countries in recent years have shown substantial differences by time-period, country and social groups. The very major fluctuations in period fertility have naturally been the prime concern of analysts. Since family formation is a multi-faceted phenomenon, different covariates are likely to be important to the process at different points. The approach in this paper is deliberately eclectic an exploratory, but it does permit a reasonably unbiased comparison of the relative power of a number of covariates which have been considered important in sociological, economic and psychological explanations of demographic change. Differentials in variables concerned with the timing, number, and distribution of fertility by a wide range of socioeconomic, attitudinal, inherited and housing characteristics from the British Family Formation Survey are reported. Variables associated with the couple's housing history and the wife's employment career are becoming more strongly associated with demographic differentials among younger cohorts than traditionally based ones such as religion or region of residence. Cluster analysis techniques show which groups family formation variables are strongly associated with particular types of non-demographic ones, and a natural grouping of explanatory variables is derived. The implications of these conclusions for data collection in demographic surveys are discussed. |
