By Joshua Goldstein, Michaela Kreyenfeld, Aiva Jasilioniene, Deniz Dilan Karaman Örsal

Objective: This paper provides recent cross-national evidence of the impact of the great recession on fertility in Europe in the context of the recent decade.

Methods: Using data from the Human Fertility Database (HFD), from Eurostat, and from the OECD database, we employ fixed-effects modeling to study how changes in unemployment rates have affected birth rates across Europe.

Results: We find that countries that were hit hard by the recession show reduced fertility when compared with a continuation of recent trends, especially at younger ages.

Conclusions: Our results indicate a strong relationship between economic conditions and fertility. However, there is variation by region, age, and parity suggesting the importance of life course and institutional factors.