European Population Conference 2016

31 August - 3 September 2016 - CPC members were busy preparing presentations, posters and the exhibition booth for this year's European Population Conference (EPC). The conference was hosted at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Twenty-six presentations from CPC members paid special attention to this year's theme 'Demographic change and policy implications'.

Talks by CPC members included a presentation of current work on 'Intergenerational Flows of Support between Parents and Adult Children' by Maria Evandrou, Jane Falkingham, Madelin Gomez Leon and Athina Vlachantoni's in session 97. This work investigates the extent to which the receipt of help from parents in early adulthood affects the chances of adult-children supporting their parents later in life. Results from the research show that three-quarters of both men and women had received some kind of help from their parents in adulthood, and more than half provided some kind of support towards their parents at age 50. More about this research can also be seen in our Working Paper.

In session 5 chaired by Agnese Vitali, Elspeth Graham, Francesca Fiori and Albert Sabater presented their work on large scale fertility trends in Italy and Spain over the past two decades, in the context of economic recession. During this time both countries have seen a reduction in the number of births, leading the team to investigate the role population composition has made to this decline. This work is part of the project 'Fertility in the context of economic recession and international migration; an analysis of Britain, Italy and Spain'.

As part of his research on 'Complex models of demographic change' Jason Hilton presented results, in session 58, from an agent-based model of inter-generational fertility change, which uses simulation to investigate how wave-like patterns in fertility may arise from individual decisions to start a family.

Work on the timing of fertility among recent migrants to England and Wales by Ann Berrington and James Robards was presented in poster session 1. Their research, published in Demographic Research, investigates how the timing of childbearing differs between women moving to the UK from various countries of birth. The main findings, which build on previous research, show that, compared to the other countries studied, women born in Pakistan or Bangladesh are the most likely to have children in the first 5 years after moving to England or Wales. In contrast, women from India and Poland generally delay childbearing until some years after migration.

Alongside the work on fertility of migrants, Ann also presented her work with Juliet Stone on the link between household income and education with the number of children a woman is likely to have throughout her lifetime. This work will be presented in session 67 and builds on research discussed in our Briefing Paper.

Jennifer Holland and Agnese Vitali spoke about their project 'Women's economic dependency and the transition to marriage' in session 102 which explores female breadwinner partnerships in the United States, and how likely these couples are to get married. This work links to Agnese's ESRC Future Leaders scheme project 'Female Breadwinner Families in Europe'.

CPC also had an information stand in the exhibition space, with copies of a variety of our work available. Visitors had the opportunity to come along and talk to our Researchers and Research Manager to find out more about our work and see what free materials were available.

Full details of the programme can be seen on the conference website.

Posted 25/07/2016 10:25