1. POSTPONEMENT OF FIRST CHILD – NEW REALITY FOR RUSSIA Sergei V. Zakharov Institute of Demography State University ‘Higher School of Economics’ Research Leader of Russian GGS szakharov@hse.ru

2. First Birth by Partnership Status in Russia

3. Distribution of Women by Maternal Status by age 30, birth cohorts, % 1930-19341950-19541970-1974 No birth 8410 Have at least 1 child 929690 100

4. First Births by Formal Marital Status of Mother having a child by age 30, birth cohorts, % 1930-19341950-19541970-1974 Marital 778273 Non-marital 231827 All 100

5. First Births by Partnership Status of Mothers having a child by age 30, birth cohorts, % 1930-19341950-19541970-1974 Before the 1 st partnership 444 Within the 1 st partnership 859088 Within the 2 nd + partnerships 023 Out of partnership (not including before the 1 st partnership) 1145 All 100

6. First Births: Out of Any Partnership (left panel), and Out of Marriage (right panel) as per cent of Total First Births Given by age 25 and age 30, female birth cohorts

7. CHANGE IN PROTOGENETIC INTERVAL: AGE OF MOTHER, BIRTH COHORT AND FIRST PARTNERSHIP COHORT

8. Mean Protogenetic Interval for Mothers Who Had the First Birth by Age 25 and 30, female birth cohorts (truncated for 0-60 months since beginning of the 1 st partnership)

9. Cumulative Percentage of Partnerships which Gave a First Birth by the Time since the Start of the First Partnership, first partnership cohorts.

10. Cumulative Percentage of Partnerships which Gave a First Birth by the Time Relative to the Start of the First Partnership: 1954- 1958, 1974-1978, 1994-1998 first partnership cohorts.

11. Cumulative Percentage of Partnerships which Gave a First Birth by the 7 th month since the Start of the First Partnership, first partnership cohorts.

12. Pre-Partnership Conceptions realized in the First Birth Before and Within 7 months since the Start of the First Partnership, female birth cohorts, by age 25 and 30.

13. Percentage of Conceptions realized in the First Birth by time of Conception Occurrence, partnership cohorts.

14. First Births by Time Relative to the Start of the First Partnership, partnership cohorts (truncated to 5 years since start of the 1 st PAR) 1954-581964-681974-781984-881994-98 Before partnership 45467 0-7 months 711151619 8-12 months 423436 19 13-36 months 394338 43 37-59 months 877412 Total 100

15. PROTOGENETIC INTERVAL BY TYPE OF SETTLEMENT

16. Percentage of Women Who Have First Births by age 30, and within 8-12 months since the Start of the First Partnership, birth cohorts (first births within 5 years of partnership=100)

17. Percentage of Women Who Have First Births by age 30, and within 13-59 months since the Start of the First Partnership, birth cohorts (first births within 5 years of partnership=100)

18. Percentage of Women Who Have First Births by age 25, and within 0-7 months since the Start of the First Partnership, birth cohorts (first births within 5 years of partnership=100)

19. PROTOGENETIC INTERVAL BY EDUCATIONAL LEVEL

20. Percentage of Women Who Have the First Birth by Age 25 by the Time Relative to the Start of the First Partnership: Low Education (left panel), and High Education (right panel), birth cohorts (total First Births by age 25 = 100)

21. Percentage of Women Who Have the First Birth by Age 30, and by the Time Relative to the Start of the First Partnership: Low Education (left panel), and High Education (right panel), birth cohorts (total First Births by age 30 = 100)

22. CONLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION (1) In Russia, the likelihood of first birth continues to be high. Almost 90% of first births occur in the first union. The share of first births that occur out of any partnership (to single mothers) was for a long time decreasing, while it has somewhat risen most recently. A fast growth of non-marital fertility can be mostly attributed to the fact that an increasing number of partners decide not to register their union officially.

23. CONLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION (2) After a long period of downward tendency, the average protogenetic interval shows a strong upward trend. The growth of the average protogenetic interval could have been even greater provided that the number of births occurring during the first 6 months since the beginning of the partnership had not continued growing (i.e. births as outcomes of pregnancies that had taken place before partners began to live together).

24. CONLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION (3) Delay of first births is occurring more intensively in the vanguard social strata. In Russia, the current situation is dual: on the one hand, pregnancy, increasingly frequently, leads partners to start living together; on the other hand, partners living together tend to increase control over fertility during the first years of their union.

25. CONLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION (4) The key conclusion: beginning a partnership, and getting married in particular, starts a procreation cycle increasingly less frequently. Russia apparently remains a heterogeneous population as regards the usage of modern methods of contraception and family planning strategies in general.