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Individuals age at vastly different rates resulting in significant within‐population heterogeneity in health and aging outcomes. This diversity in health and aging trajectories has rarely been investigated among low‐income aging populations that have experienced substantial hardships throughout their lifecourses. Utilizing 2006–2019 data from the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health and estimating group‐based trajectory models, our analyses identified three distinct lifecourse health trajectories: (1) comparatively good initial mental and physical health that persisted throughout the lifecourse ("resilient aging"), (2) relatively good initial mental and physical health that started to deteriorate during mid‐adulthood ("accelerated aging"), and (3) poor initial mental and physical health that further declined over the lifecourse ("aging with persistently poor health"). For both physical and mental health, men were more likely to enjoy resilient aging than women. Predictors other than gender of trajectory membership sometimes confirmed, and sometimes contradicted, hypotheses derived from high‐income country studies. Our analyses highlight the long arm of early life conditions and gender in determining aging trajectories and show that a nontrivial subpopulation is characterized by aging with persistently poor health. The study uncovers widening gaps in health outcomes between those who age with resilience and those who experience accelerated aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender differences in union formation and sexual initiation in sub‐Saharan Africa remain poorly documented, in large part due to a scarcity of research on the transition to adulthood among men. We adopt a novel perspective on this topic by examining gender gaps in the ages at first union and sex in 24 countries, focusing on measures of central tendency and dispersion. Gender differences in age at first union decreased, driven by postponement among women with relatively late union formation. Yet, due to concurrent persistence of early unions among a sizable portion of women's populations, within‐country heterogeneity in ages at first union increased substantially among women. Thus, although forces responsible for earlier union formation among women than men are weakening, these changes affect population strata unequally. Gender differences in age at first sex decreased to a lesser extent, but in some countries, they disappeared or reversed, uncovering a shift in the relationship between gender and timing of sexual initiation. Changes in union formation and sexual initiation are more heterogeneous across countries among men than women, indicating that these processes among men are more context specific. We show importance of studying men's behavior and exploring heterogeneity in union formation and sexual initiation both within and between populations of women and men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on contributions to the literature on intergenerational transfers and investigate patterns of financial and non-financial transfers by drawing on rich longitudinal data from rural Malawi. It mentions important insights into the micro-level dynamics of intergenerational economics in a low-resource setting and patterns using fixed-effects regression models. It also mentions National Transfer Accounts (NTA) has limited applicability and social protection schemes.

While new empirical findings and theoretical frameworks provide insight into the interrelations between socioeconomic development, gender equity, and low fertility, puzzling exceptions and outliers in these findings call for a more all-encompassing framework to understand the interplay between these processes. We argue that the pace and onset of development are two important factors to be considered when analyzing gender equity and fertility. Within the developed world, 'first-wave developers'-or countries that began socioeconomic development in the nineteenth/early twentieth century-currently have much higher fertility levels than 'late developers.' We lay out a novel theoretical approach to explain why this is the case and provide empirical evidence to support our argument. Our approach not only explains historical periods of low fertility but also sheds light on why there exists such large variance in fertility rates among today's developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how European women are historically bearing their first children later than ever before. In the United States and other countries, entry into parenthood is also seeing delays. Many experts argue that such fertility trends in developed countries are characterized by increasing, persistent, and arguably irreversible delays in childbearing in many socioeconomic conditions. Many of the informal age deadlines for childbearing are apparently being challenged and biological limits are being pushed. The article also presents information about the physiological aspects of late fertility and discusses the effect of new technologies on conception and pregnancy. Sweden's late and very late fertility is also examined.

Economic and rational-choice theories suggest that individuals form unions or have children because these decisions increase their subjective well-being or “happiness.” We investigate this relation using within-MZ (identical) twin pair estimates to control for unobserved factors, such as optimistic preferences, that may simultaneously affect happiness, partnerships, and fertility. Our findings, based on Danish twins aged 25–45 and 50–70 years old, include the following. (1) Currently being in a partnership has large positive effects on happiness. (2) A first child substantially increases well-being, in analyses without controls for partnerships, and males enjoy an almost 75 percent larger happiness gain from a first-born son than from a first-born daughter; however, only females enjoy a happiness gain from the first-born child with controls for partnerships. (3) Additional children beyond the first child have a negative effect on subjective well-being for females, while there is no effect for males. (4) Ever having had children does not significantly affect the subjective well-being of males or females aged 50–70 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lowest-low fertility, defined as a period total fertility rate at or below 1.3, has rapidly spread in Europe during the 1990s. This article traces the emergence of this new phenomenon to the interaction of five factors. First, tempo and compositional distortions reduce the total fertility rate below the associated level of cohort fertility. Second, socioeconomic changes--including increased returns to human capital and high economic uncertainty in early adulthood--have made late childbearing a rational response for individuals and couples. Third, social interaction effects reinforce this behavioral adjustment and contribute to large and persistent postponement in the mean age at birth. Fourth, institutional settings favor an overall low quantum of fertility. Fifth, postponement-quantum interactions amplify the consequences of this institutional setting when combined with ongoing delays of childbearing. The article concludes with speculations about future trends in current and prospective lowest-low-fertility countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the fertility of Danish twins born during the periods 1870-1910 and 1953-64 in order to pursue two central questions for understanding human reproduction: Do genetic dispositions influence fertility and fertility-related behavior? Does the relevance of the "nature versus nurture" debate shift over time or with demographic regimes? The authors find that genetic influences on fertility exist, but that their relative magnitude and pattern are contingent on gender and on the socioeconomic environment experienced by cohorts. Among females born in 1880-90 and after 1955, about 30-50 percent of the variance in fertility is due to genetic influences; these influences are substantially smaller for earlier and for interim birth cohorts. Male fertility is generally subject to smaller genetic and larger shared-environment effects than female fertility. Because genetic effects are most prevalent in situations with deliberately controlled fertility and relatively egalitarian socioeconomic opportunities, the authors propose that the genetic dispositions affect primarily fertility behavior and motivations for having children. Analyses of fertility motivations, measured by age of first attempt to have a child, support this interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]