Understanding fertility trends in Britain: Do fertility intentions differ across England, Wales and Scotland?

Berrington, Ann, Kuang, Bernice, Christison, Sarah and Kulu, Hill (2023) Understanding fertility trends in Britain: Do fertility intentions differ across England, Wales and Scotland? (ESRC Centre for Population Change Connecting Generations Working Paper, 105) ESRC Centre for Population Change 33pp.

Abstract

This paper has three aims: Firstly, to review recent evidence collected within the vital registration system to identify how childbearing trends differ between Scotland, England and Wales; secondly, to use nationally representative survey data to identify how family size distributions changed during the period when the overall level of fertility diverged between the countries; and thirdly, to establish whether fertility intentions are different in the British nations
and hence whether this could be an explanation for differences in behaviour. We find:
• Fertility in Britain fell to an historically low level in 2020.
• Since the late 1970s, Scotland has consistently recorded significantly lower levels of fertility than England and Wales.
• The difference appears to be due to lower rates of childbearing among women in their thirties and forties in Scotland as compared to England.
• Some, but not all of the difference can be attributed to higher fertility among foreignborn women in the UK. Fertility of UK-born women in Scotland is lower than UK-born women in England and Wales.
• Survey data on fertility intentions show that there are no differences in intentions to have a first birth. However, Scottish (and Welsh) mothers are less likely to have a firm intention to have additional births.
• Analysis of fertility by age, parity and duration since last birth is critical to understand differences in childbearing behaviour between Scotland and England and Wales.
• Analyses using large census-linked longitudinal datasets such as the ONS Longitudinal Study and the Scottish Longitudinal Study are required.

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Contributors

Author: Ann Berrington

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