Partnership, Childbearing and Parenting: Trends of the 1990s

The patterns of partnership formation and dissolution, childbearing and parenting in the UNECE during the 1990s are often heterogeneous, with fundamental differences between nations. However, if we want to characterise the unifying direction, we can use a single keyword: postponement. In general, with some exceptions, key demographic events, and more specifically events leading to the formation of new households and families, have been increasingly postponed in the lives of women and men. In the new millennium, leaving the parental home, forming a new union, getting married and becoming a parent are being experienced on average later than ever before. Although there is a convergence across the region in terms of postponing key demographic transitions in early adulthood, some countries (mostly in Southern Europe) have been characterised by extreme levels of postponement, experiencing the so-called latest-late pattern of transition to adulthood.