Influence of the socio-economic factors on fertility behaviour in Romania and Russia

Raluca Dana Caplescu, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies
Constanta V. Mihaescu, Academie d'Etudes Economiques de Bucarest

Fertility behaviour is influenced by a wide range of biological, economic, social and demographic factors. The present paper aims at analysing how and to what extent do socio-environmental factors influence reproductive behaviour in Romania and Russia from a comparative point of view. The analysis will mainly focus on intergenerational transmission of reproductive behaviour. In order to reach the proposed goal, data from the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey were used to form a sample comprising women aged 18 to 44, excluding pensioners, invalid and long term sick women, as well as women who were pregnant or whose health (or their partner’s) did not allow them to have children. The sample resulted comprises over 2000 respondents for Romania and about 3000 for Russia, all of whom are theoretically able to have children. The probability of one of these women to have children based on the socio-economic factors considered was estimated with the help of the binary logistic regression.