Women's position and fertility levels in the peninsular Basque Country

Abstract

Between 1975 and 1990 the Basque Country1 has experienced the rapid adaptation of a demographic model highly influenced by two decades of fast economic growth (declining ages at marriage, generalized nuptiality and above replacement level fertility) into its opposite (restricted marriage and at older ages, and below replacement fertility). In this period the number of marriages declined by 40 percent and the number of births by 60 percentTFR fell from 2.5 to 0.94, there is a stable negative migration flow and total population oscillates around 2,1 million people since 1980. However, this declining fertility annd nuptiality trends down to the present low levels cannot be considered exclusively as the result of the intense economic crisis which has swept the area for the last fifteen years. The cohorts born after 1955, this is, the cohorts with generalized access to better and higher educational standards, have introduced as well new behavioural patterns with regards union formation and family building. 1. The present analysis is limited to the three Peninsular Basque provinces of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa due to lack of access to similar data for Nafarroa. However, the graphs 1 to 4 shown on pages 11-12 refer to Census data for the four terrritories