Cohort fertility, parity progression, and family size in former Yugoslav countries during the twentieth century

This paper reviews cohort fertility trends and patterns in seven successor countries of former Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia’s socialist self-management in many ways differed from other state socialist regimes in Europe. Yugoslavia itself was very rich in diversity ; it comprised countries with strikingly different customs, traditions, and family practices. However, Yugo-specific cohort fertility dynamics has not yet been fully explored in the literature. Our study aims to fill this gap. More specifically, we address the following research questions: What are the trends and patterns of cohort fertility in ex-Yugoslav countries? Are some countries more similar to one another than to other countries? Can country clusters be identified? And, if so, what might account for this homogeneity within (ex-)Yugoslavia’s heterogeneity? Do ex-Yugoslav countries exhibit persistent (between-cluster) diversity, or is there (at least some) convergence in terms of cohort fertility behaviour? We use census data from the last three census rounds (1990, 2000, 2010) to develop a wide array of cohort fertility indicators, including cohort fertility rates (CFRs), CFRs by birth order, parity progression ratios (PPRs), and parity distributions. We focus on women born between 1930 and 1970. Their reproductive careers range from the 1950s baby boom up to the post-socialist transition era. The analyses we present are primarily descriptive, and we rely on various data visualisation tools to better discern between-country (dis)similarities. Our preliminary findings reveal that the ex-Yugoslav countries can be clustered into three clusters: Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia had relatively low level of cohort fertility (around 2) already by cohort 1930 and pertained this levels through the analysed cohort span. This cluster is very homogeneous also in terms of parity progression ratios and the parity composition, with strong focus on two-child family. Second cluster consists of Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Here the fertility level steadily declined from around 4–5 among cohorts born in 1910s towards two children per woman by cohorts born in 1970. Third cluster is constituted of the sole country of Kosovo, with comparatively still very high levels of cohort fertility in European context. The paper further analyses the mechanism of changes in cohort fertility in terms of in parity progression ratios and the consequences on the parity composition of families.