Childbearing After Separation : Do Second Unions Make up for Earlier Missing Births? Evidence from France

Eva Beaujouan, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Anne Solaz, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

Linked to the increasing number of separations, more and more people repartner and have children in second unions. The aim of this article is to study fertility behaviour after the first union: is there a greater likelihood for individuals who experienced a separation to reach the same fertility level –or to overtake it– than for their fellows who did not? We particularly detail the determinants of having children after first union dissolution, notably conditional to repartnering, related to the form of the first relationship or the number of previous children. The data come from a survey linked to the French census called “Enquête sur les Histoires Familiales”. We perform a nested model on the probability of having children in a second union, conditional to repartnering. First results show that fertility level for separated people barely reaches the level of those who have not separated only if they repartner