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MPIDR WORKING PAPER WP 2010-033
NOVEMBER 2010 (REVISED JULY 2011)

East Germany Overtakes West Germany:
Recent Trends in Order-Specific Fertility
Dynamics

Joshua R. Goldstein (goldstein@demogr.mpg.de)Michaela Kreyenfeld (kreyenfeld@demogr.mpg.de)© Copyright is held by the authors.
Working papers of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research receive only limited review.
Views or opinions expressed in working papers are attributable to the authors and do not necessarilyreflect those of the Institute.

East Germany Overtakes West Germany:
Recent Trends in Order-Specific Fertility Dynamics
Joshua R. Goldstein and Michaela Kreyenfeld

Abstract: Some 20 years after unification, the contrast between East and West Germany
provides a unique natural experiment for studying the persistence of communist-era
family patterns, the effects of economic change, and the complexities of the process of
fertility postponement. After unification, fertility rates plummeted in the former East
Germany to record low levels. The number of births per year fell 60 percent. The period
total fertility rate (TFR) reached a low of 0.8. Since the middle of the 1990s, however,period fertility rates have been rising in East Germany, in contrast to the nearly constantrates seen in the West. By 2008, the TFR of East Germany had overtaken that of the West.
In this paper, we explore why fertility in the East is higher than in West Germany, despite
the severe economic situation in the East, whether the East German TFR will increase
even further in the future, and whether the West German rate will remain at the constantly
low level that has prevailed since the 1970s. This article seeks to shed some light on thesequestions by (a) giving an account of the persisting East-West differences in attitudes
towards and constraints on childbearing, (b) conducting an order-specific fertility analysisof recent fertility trends, and (c) projecting completed fertility for the recent East andWest German cohorts. In addition to using the Human Fertility Database, we draw upon
Perinatal Statistics, which enable us to conduct an order-specific fertility analysis. This
new data source allows us to calculate a tempo-corrected TFR for East and West
Germany, which has not been available previously.
Keywords: Birth order, fertility, Germany, East and West Germany, cohort fertility

Introduction
The 20th century was a time of dramatic demographic changes. One of the mostremarkable developments in the latter half of the century was the demographic responseto the collapse of communism. In virtually all countries of the former Eastern Bloc,
fertility declined with the demise of the communist systems to unprecedented low levels(Eberstadt 1994; Witte and Wagner 1995, Sobotka 2004; Frejka and Sobotka 2008;
Billingsley 2010). However, nowhere was the fertility response so drastic and abrupt as in
East Germany.1 The fall of the Berlin Wall, which marks the end of the German
Democratic Republic (GDR), left its immediate imprint in the monthly fertility rates,
which declined almost exactly nine months thereafter. In 1992, the East German period
fertility rates finally reached a record low level of 0.8 children per woman. This probably
would have been the lowest TFR value that had ever been recorded for a country, if the
GDR had still been in existence.
With the unification of Germany in October 1990, the GDR ceased to be acountry, and a radical and swift transformation of the East German society was initiated.
The central question for many researchers at that time was whether, and under what
conditions, the East German fertility rate would start to recover (Eberstadt 1994; Witteand Wagner 1996; Conrad et al. 1996). The optimists in the research community predicted

1

In this study, the term “West Germany” refers to the region that until 1990 belonged to the Federal
Republic of Germany. “East Germany” refers to the region that until 1990 belonged to the German
Democratic Republic. For the time after German unification, “western Germany” and “eastern
Germany” would probably be more appropriate terms for distinguishing the two parts of the country.
For the sake of readability, however, we use the terms “West Germany” and “East Germany” for theperiods both before and after 1990.

2

a swift convergence of behavior, arguing that institutional constraints in the two parts ofGermany would converge as well. The pessimistic view pointed to the severe economic
conditions in the East, which were not projected to improve substantially in theforeseeable future. If it is assumed that fertility rates respond to economic conditions, it
may be expected that East German fertility would remain permanently below West
German levels.
In 2008 −exactly 18 years after unification− the period total fertility rates of Eastand West Germany had finally converged. In both parts of the country, the current TFR
has reached 1.4. Arguably, the fertility rates of both societies have met at a very low level.
However, the fact that East German period fertility has caught up with the West German
rate still has important implications. It suggests that East Germany has overcome the“demographic shock” (Eberstadt 1994) that was diagnosed in the period after German
unification. It also suggests that, in terms of fertility behavior, the “two Germanies” havefinally reunited, signifying one step towards the social unification of the two formerly
separated countries.
However, we can also approach this fertility development from anotherperspective: East German period fertility has been constantly rising in recent years, while
the West German rate seems to have frozen at a level of 1.4 children since the 1970s.
What might look like a convergence of behavior could actually be a cross-over; in the
future, East Germany may leave West Germany behind. If we disregard Berlin −which
population mainly belonged to West Germany before unification− we can even conclude
that East Germany has already overtaken the West (Figure 1). Is it really plausible thatwomen are having more children in the East than in the West despite the relatively poor
economic conditions in the East? Will the total fertility rate in both parts of the country
move in tandem in the future? Or can we expect that the East German TFR will increase3

even further in the future, while the West German rate will remain at a constantly low
level, as it has since the 1970s?
Given the complexity of the period TFR, these seemingly simple questions arerather difficult to answer. Ideally, the TFR is a measure for the total number of children awoman bears over her lifetime. Being a period measure, it is, however, seriously distorted
by changes in the ages at which women have their children (Ni Bhrolchain 1992;
Bongaarts and Feeney 1998). Additionally, it is an indicator that summarizes fertility
across all birth orders. Both aspects − namely, differences in the timing of birth anddifferences in the order-specific behavior − are important for understanding fertility
dynamics in contemporary societies. Prior studies have revealed that East and West
Germans differ considerably in the ages at which they have their first child. In addition,differences in transition rates to second- and third-order births have been reported(Kreyenfeld 2003; Huinink 2005; Mayer and Schulze 2010). What might look like a
convergence of behavior, based on the development of the TFR, might in fact be pure
coincidence. Instead, the similarity of the TFR value might conceal divergent patterns of
behavior.
This article seeks to shed some light on recent fertility trends in East and West
Germany. The East German case might be instructive for several reasons. First, it might
help us to understand the fertility changes that have occurred across Eastern Europe inrecent decades. The fertility response in East Germany was drastic and immediate, andreflects the speed at which the societal and economic transformation took place. As such,
East Germany might provide an indication of what direction fertility in other Eastern
European countries will take. For the purposes of our research, it is also a considerable
advantage that East Germany can be directly compared to West Germany, which is
subject to the same legal and political institutions. Therefore, it is much easier to make4

sense of the fertility development in East Germany than in other former communist
countries. The East German case also challenges our ideas about the relationship between
economic conditions and fertility. It seems like a paradox that East German period fertility
has caught up with the West German rate, even though the economic situation is stillmuch less favorable in the eastern part of the country. Furthermore, the greatest increasein the period fertility rate is observed for the late 1990s, a period in which the economic
situation tended towards stagnation. The West German case is of interest because it isamong the countries with the longest continuous history of low fertility in the world, andperiod fertility measures show no sign yet of increase, in contrast to recently rising
fertility in the vast majority of low fertility populations (Goldstein et al. 2009).
In this paper, we try to shed light on these issues by (a) giving an account of thefactors that might explain persisting East-West differences in fertility dynamics, (b)conducting an order-specific fertility analysis of fertility trends, and (c) projecting
completed fertility for the recent cohorts. We draw on two new data sources for these
purposes. First, we use fertility data which has just been made available in the Human
Fertility Database (2011). We also draw upon the Perinatal Statistics, which enable us to
conduct an order-specific fertility analysis for Germany. In contrast to German vitalstatistics, which until recently did not distinguish children by biological order, thePerinatal Statistics provide a clear indication of the parity of the mother at each birth(Kreyenfeld et al. 2010b). This enables us to give a more detailed account of the orderspecific fertility behavior in the two parts of Germany. Furthermore, it enables us togenerate a tempo-adjusted TFR, which has not been available for this country previously.

[Figure 1 about here]5

Convergence in Constraints and Attitudes?
When fertility rates declined in the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall, a lively
debate ensued about the causes of the sudden drop in birth intensities. The collapse of thecommunist system seemed an ideal field experiment that would enable us to understandhow individuals respond to radically changing economic and social constraints (Witte andWagner 1996: 387). A dominant view at that time was that the decline in fertility was asign of a societal “shock,” a “crisis,” or even an indication of societal “anomie” (Eberstadt
1994; Adler 1997; Philipov and Dorbritz 2003). Meanwhile, other researchers reflected
upon the new personal opportunities that opened up after unification. Individualization,
self-actualization, and career advancement were assumed to be strong forces that led
young East German women and men to postpone their fertility plans (Beck-Gernsheim1997). Disagreement arose, however, around the question of what the future would bring,particularly if East German fertility were to continue to remain below West German
levels, and around the issue of whether East Germans would eventually “westernize” their
behavior (Conrad et al. 1996: 332). Today, 20 years after unification, we can look backand must conclude that many of the assumptions and interpretations of the past have been
proven wrong.
The first mistake was regarding the speed of the transformation process. The
Unification Treaty, which was ratified on October 3, 1990, had nullified the legal andpolitical system of the German Democratic Republic, replacing it with the West German
system. While this legal transformation was amazingly profound and swift, thetransformation of the East German economy followed another path. The prior hope of asteady convergence of economic conditions had been abandoned by the end of the 1990s,
when growth in wages and productivity showed indications of slowing in East Germany(Emmerich and Walwei 1998, Brenke and Zimmermann 2010). Up to today, East

6

Germany grapples with high unemployment rates. Moreover, East German wages havenever reached parity with the West, nor have East Germans acquired private property to
an extent that even remotely approaches West German levels. Given these continuing
gaps in earnings and wealth, it is unsurprising that distinct differences remain in how Eastand West Germans feel about their economic situation and the security of their jobs
(Table 1).
Researchers also failed to predict accurately how slowly the two societies would
converge in terms of value structures, attitudes, and beliefs. At the time of unification, it
was argued that, because the two regions shared a common cultural heritage, East andWest German attitudes and values would swiftly converge. However, this assumption
failed to adequately take into account how profound the exposure to 40 years ofcommunism had been. The oppressive policies of the communist government had
effectively erased religion and religious practice from everyday life. A very distinct
legacy of this communist past is the fact that East Germany is today one of the mostsecularized areas in the world (Pollack 2002). In 1992, a large majority of the population(66 percent) in the East stated that they had no religious affiliation, compared to only 12
percent in the West. Since then, the share of the population with a religious affiliation has
declined even further in the East, partly due to the adoption of West German tax
regulations, which include a “church tax.”2
Also in some other respects, the East German population remained distinct from2

While a church tax also existed in the former East Germany, the collection of the tax was notenforced. This changed after unification, when the West German tax system was introduced in the
East and the tax offices were authorized to collect the church tax together with the other taxes. As aresult, the economic costs of having a religious affiliation increased after 1990. This is believed to
one of the reasons why the share of people with a religious affiliation declined further after
unification, despite the fact that the church now enjoyed greater freedom.

7the West German one. This applies to the education stratification of the population whichis still more homogenous in the East than in the West due to a relatively low share ofuniversity graduates, on the one hand, and a small share of East Germans with a very low
level of education on the other hand (Huinink et al. 1995). Differences in the social strataof the two societies can also be noted for the ethnic composition of the two parts ofGermany. Related to the contrasting migration policies of the former GDR and FRG, theshare of foreign born is still substantially lower in the eastern than in the western part ofthe country. This aspect is also relevant for understanding fertility in East and West
Germany as foreign migrants to Germany have elevated fertility levels compared to thenative population (Milewski 2010).
Another striking difference between the two parts of the country is the divergencein opinions regarding maternal employment. West Germans are notoriously concerned
about the adverse effects of maternal employment on the well-being of their children –thestrong disapproval of so-called “Rabenmutter” (Raven Mother) who neglects her infant–while East Germans generally do not share this worry (Scott 1999; Treas and Widmer
2000). The difference in attitudes towards maternal employment corresponds to a muchhigher share of mothers working full-time. In 2008, only 19 percent of West German
mothers were employed full-time, compared with 50 percent of East German mothers(Table 1). The employment patterns of East and West German women differ in suchfundamental ways that it is possible to wonder how such a divergent pattern can exist in
one country. However, the availability of public day care also plays an important role inthis context. Several researchers have asserted that unification was accompanied by a“sharp decline in the availability of childcare in the East” (Rindfuss and Brewster 1996:273), and by a privatization of day care centers (Adler 1997: 44). In fact, however, there
was no sharp reduction in the availability of public child care in the East. Instead, East
Germans are still privileged in the sense that work and family life are quite compatible in8this part of the country, due to the wide availability of public day care places, including
places for children below age three.
Thus, the prior prediction that the societies would swiftly converge has not yetmaterialized. It is, however, important to note here that assumptions that East Germany
needed to be “modernized” or “westernized” were oversimplified. While the East German
economy has indeed lagged behind, the East German family model is many respects more“advanced” than the West German model. East German women mostly work full-time,they have access to a wide range of day care facilities, and their male partners are more
likely to take on housework and child care tasks than their more traditional counterparts inthe West (Trappe and Sørensen 2006). Thus, East German society has reached a level ofgender equality that West Germany is still striving to achieve.
The most significant error that researchers made, however, was related to theinterpretation of demographic indicators. Some researchers had diagnosed a crisis-related
East German fertility behavior from simply looking at the drop in the period total fertility
rate. The convergence of East German TFR values towards West German levels at the endof the 1990s was consistently interpreted as a convergence of fertility behavior patterns inEast and West Germany. Retrospectively, we must conclude that this perception was
wrong. It arose out of an interpretation of basic demographic indicators that failed to take
into account the differences in East and West German behavior prior to unification, which
we now turn to in the next section.

[Table 1 about here]

9

A Journey Back in Time: Fertility in the FRG and in the GDR
Until the demise of the communist system, there were several marked differences in
fertility behavior between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German
Democratic Republic. First, the lifetime fertility of the East German cohorts was slightly
higher than that of their West German counterparts. Second, differences existed in thetiming of first parenthood. In East Germany, the mean age at first birth fluctuated aroundage 22, and the levels of lifelong childlessness never grew to more than five to ten
percent. In West Germany, however, behavior changed profoundly starting with thecohorts born in the 1950s. Women postponed first-time motherhood, and childlessness
increased steadily to about 20 percent for the more recent cohorts (Table 2).
Despite the strong differences in first-birth patterns, the rates of progression to asecond child were rather similar in the two parts of Germany. About 70 percent of thewomen who had a first child went on to have a second child (Table 2). A major
characteristic of East German fertility was, however, a low progression rate to a thirdchild. This pattern is surprising, given that the pro-natalistic policies of the GDR provided
various incentives to have a larger family (Frerich and Frey 1993). A common
explanation for the low third-birth intensities is the all-encompassing labor market
integration of women in the GDR. The normal weekly work schedule was more than 40hours, and more flexible work arrangements (such as part-time work) that might havebeen more compatible with larger families were not available, and were not tolerated by
the GDR government (Höhn and Schwarz 1993). In addition, the limited access to private
housing has been cited as a possible reason for the unwillingness of East Germans to havea third child (Frerich and Frey 1993; Kreyenfeld 2008).

[Table 2 about here]10Fertility in the Wake of Unification
In 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall, two different “fertility regimes” existed in
the two parts of Germany. The most important difference between the two systems is in
the age at first-time parenthood. In 1989, West German women were roughly age 27 when
they had their first child, while their East German counterparts were, at age 22, five years
younger (Kreyenfeld 2002; 2003). Given these differences, a convergence of East andWest German behavior would have meant that the age at parenthood in the East would
have to increase dramatically. As a result, the annual fertility rates would have been
suppressed temporarily by tempo effects.3
Unfortunately, the opportunities for conducting the order-specific fertility analysis
that would have helped us to tease out these tempo distortions have been limited. With
German unification, the legal framework of the GDR was replaced by West German
regulations. This also applied to regulations that governed the collection of demographic
data. While the GDR statistics recorded births by biological order, the statistics in theWest did not take note of biological birth order. With the ratification of the Unification

3

In addition, massive East-to-West migration flows have occurred in the aftermath of unification. In

particular, young and highly educated women migrated, which has prompted researchers to speculate that
the East “are loosing births to the West” (Mai and Scharein 2009: 87). Any “loss of births”, however, would
not have affected birth rates unless movers and stayers differed radically in their fertility. But even if
movers and stayers differed (as it has been shown by Vatterrott (2011)), we would not find a large effect on
fertility rates. For example, if 2 percent of the population migrated, and the fertility rate difference between
migrants and non-migrants was 20 percent, then this would only change the regional rates by about 2
percent of 20 percent, or 0.4 percent.

11Treaty, the East and West German statistics were harmonized. As a consequence, orderspecific birth information was no longer available for the East, and vital statistics did notprovide answers to the questions of whether and how the age at first-time childbearing
had increased in East Germany.4
While there are no order-specific fertility indicators available from vital statistics,
there are several survey datasets that can be used to investigate fertility behavior. By
piecing together the various survey-based results, it is possible to get a more or lesscoherent picture of the changes in birth behavior in East Germany after unification. Most
importantly, these survey data indicate that East German women who were childless at
unification postponed parenthood to the higher ages typical of West Germany. Yet despite
the large increase in the age at first birth, East Germans remained younger when they had
their first child than their counterparts in the West (Kreyenfeld 2003). The relatively highfirst-birth intensities of East Germans are, however, in sharp contrast to their second-birth
behavior. It is clear from the analysis of survey data that second-birth rates have declined
below West German levels in the course of unification (Sackmann 1999; Huinink 2005;
Huinink and Kreyenfeld 2004; Kreyenfeld 2008; Arránz Becker et al. 2010). Particularly
women who just had their first child before the fall of the Wall were strongly affected intheir fertility behavior. Unification cut into the fertility careers of these women. On the
one hand, these women were still very young at first childbearing, and they could have
postponed having a second child to a later age. However, we can now conclude that manyof these women have forgone having a second child altogether (Kreyenfeld 2008).
Little is known about the behavior of subsequent cohorts. Qualitative studies tell

4

Since 2008, German vital statistics include order-specific birth information. The data quality of the
2008-data has, however, not been sufficient so that it has not been released. Order specific data havenow become available for the year 2009.

12

us that childless East Germans are more certain than West Germans that they want to havechildren over the course of their lives (Buhr et al. 2010). However, there are no studies
that deal with recent trends in East and West German behavior. Furthermore, the sample
sizes in the survey data are mostly small, and it is therefore not possible to estimate birthrates by single years. A tempo-corrected TFR, which has been generated for other Eastern
European countries, is consequently not available for Germany. This also means that
Germany has been missing consistently from cross-national studies that provide an
overview of recent fertility trends (Sobotka 2004; Goldstein et al. 2009). The related
question of how we should interpret the convergence of East and West German TFRvalues in 2008 remains unanswered.

Birth Order-Specific Developments between 2001 and 2008
In order to understand the recent convergence in East and West German fertility behavior,
the following analysis draws on two types of data sources. First, we use Perinatal
Statistics for the period 2001-2008 to provide us with insights into order-specific fertility
behavior in East and West Germany. The Perinatal Statistics are part of the hospitalstatistics, and they include clinical records for all children who were delivered in German
hospitals. They provide a clear indication of the parity of the mother at each birth. For theperiod 2001-2008, almost five million live births are available from these statistics. Basedon these statistics, order-specific fertility rates have been made available (for details, see
Kreyenfeld et al. 2010b). Second, we use cohort- and age-specific fertility rates for Eastand West Germany which have recently become available in the Human Fertility
Database (2011).55

Age- and cohort-specific fertility rates had been available for Germany previously. However, thedata in the Human Fertility Data Base (2010) take into account the changes in the definition of age

13

Figure 2 displays period TFR values by order based on the data from the Perinatal
Statistics. If we recall the development of the period TFR (Figure 1), we can see that there
is a convergence of East and West German values in 2008. Based on Figure 2, we can
now conclude that the recent convergence is attributable in large part to a drastic increasein the TFR for second-order births in East Germany. While the second-order TFR in the
East was only around 0.38 in 2001, it had increased to 0.45 by 2008, almost reachingWest German levels. This suggests that East Germany has overcome the “second-birth
crisis” that was diagnosed in the past. This is, however, not the case for third-birth rates.
Despite some increases in recent years, there is still an East-West difference in third-birth
behavior. If we also take into account that West German third-birth rates are quite low
compared to other European countries, we must conclude that the low third-birth rates arestill a major characteristic of the East German fertility regime.

[Figure 2 about here]

Table 3 provides the mean ages at childbirth by birth order for the period 2001-2008. This
table illustrates two remarkable developments. First, the postponement of the first birth
has not yet come to a halt. In both parts of Germany, the age at first birth has increased
steadily by about one year in the period 2001-2008. This means that the period TFR is
still distorted by tempo effects in both parts of Germany. Another remarkable trend thatcan be discerned from this table is related to the East-West-differences in the age at firsttime motherhood. At age 27.5 in 2008, East Germans are still more than one year younger
which have occurred in both parts of Germany over time. Furthermore, the HFD provides orderspecific fertility rates for East Germany in a computerized format, which has not been widely
available before (Kreyenfeld et al. 2010a).

14

when they have their first child than their West German counterparts. Regarding secondorder births, East-West differences are smaller than for first births, which suggests that
East Germans probably space their first and second children farther apart than West
Germans. It is notable, too, that the age at second birth has increased at a similar pace as
the age at first birth for the period considered here, which suggests that the TFR for
second-order births is also distorted by tempo changes. This does not, however, apply tothe same extent to third- and higher-order births. The pace of postponement is broadly
similar in the two parts of Germany, particularly for higher-order births, a phenomenon
that is important to note when formulating tempo-adjusted fertility rates.

[Table 3 about here]

Table 3 shows the tempo-adjusted TFR for East and West Germany. Here we used thestandard adjustment suggested by Bongaarts and Feneey (1998), which is commonlyreferred to as the “BF adjustment.” As the adjusted TFR is known to be quite volatile(Sobotka and Lutz 2009, see also Table A1 in the Appendix), we have generated theaverages for the periods 2001-2004 and 2005-2008. The adjusted TFR suggests that thefertility level in the two parts of Germany is, at about 1.6 children, roughly the same. This
seems plausible as it matches the cohort fertility of the cohorts who have just completedchildbearing. The parity-specific estimates also seem plausible. They indicate thatchildlessness in West Germany is around 20 percent, while it is still lower in the easternparts of the country.
However, some caution is warranted in the interpretation of the adjusted TFR. The
BF adjustment relies on the assumption that the shape of the fertility schedule remains
constant (Kohler and Philipov 2001; Goldstein et al. 2009). As can be seen from Figure
15

A1 in the appendix, this assumption does not hold. Particularly interesting is the shape ofthe second-birth rates in East Germany. It seems that there is not just a shift in the age
schedule, but that the birth rate at higher ages has increased, while it has remained
constant at younger ages. This could suggest that the increase in the second-birth rates are
not just tempo effects that are related to the behavior of women who had postponed thefirst birth, and who are only now having a second child (Lesthaegue and Willems 1999).
In the next section, we will look at the development of the cohort TFR, which relies on
different assumptions than those underlie the BF formula.

[Table 4 about here]

The Future of Fertility in East and West Germany
The results from the tempo-adjusted TFR for the period 2001-2008 suggest that East andWest German fertility has converged at a level of 1.6 children per woman. This is about
the cohort fertility rate of the West German 1963 cohort. The cohort fertility for the same
East German cohort is, at 1.7, slightly higher. In addition, for the younger cohorts, who
are still of childbearing age, we can see that East Germans have, up to today, morechildren on average than West Germans (Figure A2 in the appendix). However, thepotential of the East German cohorts to “recuperate” at higher ages is probably lower thanfor the West German cohorts. If we take into account that East Germans have a lower rateof childbearing at higher ages, this could mean that East German cohort fertility will soon
drop below the West German rate. We address this possibility in the following discussion.
Figure 3 provides projections on the cohort fertility for the two parts of Germany.
Our approach is to project cohort fertility based on recent age-specific trends. In contrast
16

to the popular “frozen rate” method, our method incorporates our knowledge that fertility
is being postponed, and uses linear extrapolation of age-specific rates.6 We believe thatthe projections of cohorts observed until at least age 38 are highly reliable because they
involve the projection of only a small fraction of the fertility of these cohorts. But the
projection for cohorts truncated at earlier ages is more uncertain. We have indicated thisin the figure by using dots to show the cohorts that are observed until at least age 43, solidlines to indicate the cohorts observed until at least age 38, and dashed lines for thoseobserved until at least age 33.
One conclusion that can be drawn from this figure is that there is a reversal in thelong-term downward trend in cohort fertility in West Germany. The cohorts born around1970 seem to mark the turning point. For the subsequent cohorts, cohort fertility again
increases. This trend reversal in cohort fertility corresponds to the first generations ofyoung women who were able to take advantage of more generous family policies in West
Germany, such as the expansion of public day for children below age three. This may be
mere coincidence but is nonetheless suggestive. Second, the figure shows East Germancohort fertility will temporarily drop below West German levels. For the East Germancohorts born between 1965 and 1970, we observe a continuous decline in fertility. Thismight be explained by the unfavorable economic situation that these cohorts have been
exposed to. However, it is also necessary to take a life-course perspective wheninterpreting East German cohort fertility rates. Many of the women of the cohorts born
between 1965 and 1970 had just had their first child before unification. This means that6

In order to project age-specific fertility trends, we used the last five years in the observed agespecific fertility rates. For each age, we used linear interpolation to predict the birth rate at a given

age by: f (t ) − f x (t − 5) fˆ x (t + n ) = f x (t ) + n x
 . The assumption behind this method is that5

the rate of increase of the last five years will continue in the future.

17

unification basically “cut” into the fertility careers of these women. Unification occurred
at a time when many of these women had just one child. Although they might have beenquite young when they had their first children, they did not “pick up” their fertility careers
at later ages, and often remained with one child only. This means that it is not only the
economic situation that has kept these East German women from having any further
children, but rather the combination of the economic situation and a reluctance to haveunusually large birth intervals.
For the East German cohorts who started their reproductive lives after unification(cohorts born 1971 and later), the situation is different. They had postponed first-timechildbearing to later stages in their lives, and thus to the end of the 1990s or the beginningof this century, when the economic situation in the East had eased to a great extent.
Compared to previous cohorts whose fertility careers had been “disrupted” by the
economic and social upheavals that followed unification, these cohorts could opt for asecond child without having to choose unusually high birth intervals. The increase in thesecond-order TFR fits this interpretation (Figure 2). The final increase in the East Germancohort fertility would be in line with this assumption, too.

[Figure 3 about here]

Summary and Conclusions
We began this paper with the observation that period fertility in East Germany has
overtaken that of the West. Superficially, this might appear to be evidence of aconvergence of fertility behavior of East and West Germans nearly two decades after
unification. However, we have argued that the similarity in current period fertility rates inthe two parts of Germany hides fundamental differences in demographic behavioral
18

patterns. What seems like a belated demographic unification of the two parts of Germany
covers up major contrasts.
The analyses presented in this paper have revealed the presence of marked
differences in order-specific fertility patterns. Motherhood in East Germany still occurs at
younger ages than motherhood in the West. On average, an East German woman is one
year younger when she has her first child than a West German woman. Furthermore,
having children is still a more universal experience in East Germany, as the shares ofchildlessness are lower in the East than in the West. Although the one-child family is stillslightly more prevalent in the East than in the West, the big increases in recent period
fertility are due to the convergence of second-birth rates. Third-birth rates in the East haveremained below West German levels. What we are seeing 18 years after unification is, weinterpret, the reemergence of higher period fertility in the East due to less childlessness
and a “catch-up” in the progression to second births.
The analysis of period fertility, even when it is broken down by parity, can lead tosome confusion between the level of fertility and changes in timing (Bongaarts andFeeney 1998; Sobotka and Lutz 2009). Using newly available able data from the Human
Fertility Database (2011), we were able to construct a new time series of cohort fertility.
Our method of cohort projection, which is well-suited for conditions of fertility
postponement, shows the following. First, as was already known, there has been a long
history of higher cohort fertility in the East than in the West that began before unification.
Second, there has been an important reversal in the decade-long trend toward lower
cohort fertility in the West. Third, although much of the decline in period fertility in the
1990s was due to postponement, the decline in cohort fertility in the East shows us that
there was also a real reduction in lifetime childbearing. Fourth, cohort fertility in the East
will most likely drop below West German levels for the cohorts born around 1970. These

19

cohorts are expected to have lower cohort fertility than their East German predecessors,
and also slightly lower fertility than their contemporaries born in the West. However, we
expect that the decline in East German cohort fertility will be temporary. Indeed, if age
specific trends continue unchanged –a big “if”– then East German cohorts born at the endof the 1970s would catch up with their West German counterparts.7
It is also important to note that in East Germany –as in other Eastern European
countries– postponement of births was an easy option for women because of the early anduniversal childbearing that existed before the Wall came down. Women who werechildless at unification were rather young, and they could postpone parenthood until the
economic and societal situation had stabilized, without fearing that they would reach thebiological limits of fertility. Direct exposure to their West German counterparts appears tohave shifted the normative age limits of fertility in East Germany. While the age at firstbirth increased only gradually in many Eastern European countries (Sobotka 2004;
Perelli-Harris 2006, 20008; Frejka and Sobotka 2008), East German women had the“normative freedom” to postpone their first birth towards higher West German ages.
What East Germany has in common with other Eastern European countries is,however, the low second-birth rate during the period after unification (Frejka and Sobotka2008). We have argued that low second-birth intensities, particularly for the cohorts born
between 1965 and 1970, could be attributable to the fact that some of these women had
their first child before unification. The upheavals that followed unification cut into thefertility careers of these women. Although they were very young when they had their firstchild, they did not have a second child at later ages, as this would have meant unusually

7

In Figure 3, we purposely truncate the projections with the cohort 1975 because we believe that
future forecasts are rather uncertain. However, if trends continue unchanged into the future thecohort fertility of the East would overtake that of the West.

20

long birth intervals. Recent increases indicate that the decline in second-birth rates was atransitory effect of unification.
The East German fertility development is also an example of how economic
conditions need not be the determining factor in fertility levels. Despite worse, and fairly
stagnant, economic opportunities, East Germans are still younger at first birth than womenin the West, motherhood is more universal and period fertility is slightly higher. Althougheconomic improvements may increase fertility even further in the East, the enormous
economic differences between East and West do not produce –as, for example, Myrsklä etal. (2010) would suggest– higher period fertility in the West.
The direct comparison of East with West Germany also points to the aspects of theformer communist regimes that might have been conducive to high fertility. A highdegree of family orientation fosters universal motherhood in the East. While the economic
conditions might have adverse effects on East German fertility, women’s labor market
behavior –buttressed by the wide availability of public day care– make the East Germansociety more gender-equal than the West German society (McDonald 2000; Adserà 2004).
The male breadwinner model, which remains prevalent in West Germany, is a precarious
family arrangement when economic conditions deteriorate. Furthermore, theincompatibility of childrearing and employment in West Germany have pressured many
women to choose between having children or pursuing a career –which has resulted inworld-record levels of childlessness. Gradually, the West German society is changing as
child care for children under age three is becoming more widely available, and as
maternal employment is slowly becoming more acceptable. As these changes take hold,West Germany’s fertility rates may be expected to gradually move upwards. If economic
conditions improve in the East, we expect continued increase in the East as well. In bothparts of Germany, increases in period birth rates are likely at some point in the near21

future, if and when the depressing effect of fertility postponement weakens.

Acknowledgements
The paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the German Society for
Demography 2010. We wish to thank the participants of this conference for their valuablecomments. We also want to thank Tomas Frejka, Heike Trappe, Felix Rößger and ourcolleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research for their criticalcomments on an earlier version of this paper. For editing, we thank Miriam Hils.

22

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Appendix[Table A1 about here][Figures A1 & A2 about here]29

Tables
Table 1: Socioeconomic Indicators in East and West Germany
West Germany

East Germany

~1990

~2000

~2008

~1990

~2000

~2008

6.2

8.4

7.8

10.2

18.5

14.5

26,69832,43835,22915,185

26,38729,257

40%

44%

44%

26%

32%

32%

Economic Indicators
Unemployment rate 1)
Annual earnings of employees (in euros)3)% households with housing property

2)

Economic Worries% worried about finances 4)

12%

13%

17%

30%

22%

26%

5)

12%

9%

10%

39%

20%

19%

% without religious affiliation6)

12%

13%

16%

66%

71%

74%

23%

20%

19%

74%

58%

50%

2%

3%

12%

56%

37%

41%

% worried about job security
Religion in SocietyChild Care and Maternal Employment% full-time employed mothers7)% of children ages 0-3 in day care

8)

Notes: 1) The unemployment rate refers to the years 1991, 2000, and 2009. It was calculated based on
dependent civilian workforce. Source: Bundesagentur für Arbeit (2010)2) Values refer to the annual earnings of the employees (“Arbeitnehmerentgelte je Arbeitnehmer, Inland”)
for the years 1991, 2000, and 2009. Source: Statistisches Bundesamt (2010a)
3) Values refer to the years 1991, 2000, and 2008. Source: Frick and Grimm (2010: 657)
4) Values refer to the years 1990, 2000, and 2008. The figure represents the share of respondents who arevery worried about their financial situation. Source: German Socio-Economic Panel, own estimations basedon sample A and C.
5) Values refer to the years 1990, 2000, and 2008. The figure represents the share of employed respondents
who are very worried about the security of their jobs. Source: German Socio-Economic Panel, own
estimations based on sample A and C.
6) Values refer to the years 1992, 2000, and 2008. Source: ALLBUS, own estimates
7) Values refer to the years 1991, 2000, and 2008. Estimations based on the German micro-census provided
by Esther Geisler. The sample includes mothers ages 18-45 who have at least one child who is age 18 oryounger and lives in the same household as the respondent. West Berlin was grouped to West Germany.
8) Values refer to the years 1990, 2002, and 2009. Values for the years 1990 and 2002 are “provision rates”(share of available day care places per 100 children). The values for the year 2009 are “usage rates” (shareof children in day care per 100 children). Source: Statistisches Bundesamt (1992, 2004, 2010b).

30

Table 2: Number of Children of West and East German Women, by Birth Cohort
West Germany

East Germany

1950-54

1955-59

1960-64

1950-54

1955-59

1960-64Childless

17%

19%

21%

9%

10%

12%

One child

25%

23%

22%

28%

27%

31%

Two children

38%

38%

38%

47%

47%

42%

Three children

14%

14%

13%

12%

12%

11%

Four and more children

6%

6%

5%

4%

5%

4%

PPR 0,1

0.83

0.81

0.79

0.91

0.90

0.88

PPR 1,2

0.70

0.72

0.72

0.69

0.70

0.65

PPR 2,3

0.34

0.34

0.32

0.25

0.27

0.26

Distribution (column %)Parity Progression Ratios

Note: Berlin is included in East Germany.
Source: Estimates based on data from the 2008 micro-census provided by the German Federal Statistical
Office (Statistisches Bundesamt)

31

Table 3: Mean Age at Childbirth by Birth Order
East Germany

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

1st child

26.12

26.35

26.60

26.85

26.97

27.07

27.29

27.47

2nd child

29.32

29.54

29.66

29.86

29.94

30.10

30.45

30.67

3rd child

31.42

31.64

31.62

31.62

31.63

31.83

32.07

32.21

4th+ child

33.15

33.23

33.09

33.00

33.10

33.21

33.08

33.34

All births

27.94

28.14

28.34

28.55

28.68

28.85

29.10

29.30

West Germany

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

1st child

27.43

27.57

27.74

27.95

28.10

28.26

28.49

28.69

2nd child

29.88

30.04

30.15

30.30

30.43

30.57

30.78

30.98

3rd child

31.46

31.57

31.65

31.79

31.87

31.96

32.19

32.35

4th+ child

33.06

33.09

33.19

33.26

33.32

33.41

33.49

33.56

All births

28.99

29.14

29.28

29.46

29.60

29.76

29.97

30.15

Note: Only ages 15-44 are considered. Berlin is included in East Germany
Source: BQS Perinatal Statistics (own estimates), for details see Kreyenfeld et al. (2010b)

32

Table 4: Tempo-Adjusted TFR (Ages 15-44)

East Germany

2001-2004

2005-2008

2001-2008

1st child
2 child
3rd child
4th+ child
Total

0.88
0.48
0.12
0.05
1.54

0.82
0.57
0.16
0.07
1.66

0.84
0.52
0.13
0.06
1.55

West Germany

2001-2004

2005-2008

2001-2008

1st child
2nd child
3rd child
4th+ child
Total

0.82
0.55
0.17
0.07
1.62

0.82
0.58
0.19
0.08
1.66

0.81
0.56
0.18
0.07
1.63

nd

Note: Only ages 15-44 are considered. Berlin is included in East Germany. The adjusted TFR for eachperiod was calculated by using the average TFR for a given period and changes in the age at birth during
this time period. The change in the age at childbirth was calculated by taking into account the age at the
beginning and at the end of the period (see Table A1 in the appendix). Source: Own estimates based on
BQS Perinatal Statistics

33

Table A1: Tempo-Adjusted TFREast Germany

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

1st child
2nd child

0.87

0.89

0.84

0.75

0.79

0.87

0.47

0.47

0.48

0.47

0.56

0.62

3rd child

0.12

0.11

0.12

0.13

0.16

0.16

4th+ child

0.05

0.05

0.06

0.07

0.06

0.07

Total

1.51

1.52

1.50

1.42

1.58

1.72

West Germany

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

1st child
2nd child

0.80

0.82

0.82

0.78

0.80

0.85

0.55

0.55

0.56

0.55

0.57

0.59

3rd child

0.17

0.17

0.17

0.17

0.19

0.20

4th+ child

0.07

0.07

0.07

0.07

0.08

0.08

Total

1.59
1.62
1.63
1.57
1.63
1.72
Note: Only ages 15-44 are considered. Bongaarts-Feeney Adjustment was applied (see Bongaarts andFeeney 1998).
Source: Own estimates based on BQS Perinatal Statistics

34

Figures

Figure 1: Total Fertility Rate in East and West Germany, 1980-2009

2.0

East Germany(without Berlin)West Germany

1.5

East Germany(with Berlin)

1.0

0.5

0.0
1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

Note: Until 1990, West Germany also includes West Berlin and East Germany includes East Berlin. After
1990, West Germany does not include any part of Berlin. For East Germany, we display separate graphswith and without Berlin. Due to a regional reform (which came into force in the beginning of 2001), it is notpossible to differentiate Berlin along the old territorial borders of East and West Germany any longer.
Source: HFD (2011)35

Figure 2: Order-Specific TFR (ages 15-44)
0.8First Birth
East Germany

0.6

West Germany
Second Birth
East Germany

0.4

West Germany
East Germany

0.2

Third BirthWest Germany

0.0
2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Source: BQS Perinatal Statistics (own estimates), for details see Kreyenfeld et al. (2010b)

36

Figure 3: Cohort Fertility Forecasts for East and West Germany

Fertility observed at least until...age 43...age 38...age 33

1.9

East Germany
1.8

1.7

1.6

1.5

West Germany

1.4

1.3

1.2

1.1

1.0

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

Birth cohort
Note: Cohort TFR estimated by linearly extrapolating the age-specific rate from the last five cohorts.
Observed fertility available until 2009 from HFD. Age is defined as age reached at the beginning of theyear.
Data source: Human Fertility Database – Germany (2011)37

Figure A1: Age-Specific Fertility Rates by Birth Order for East and West Germany
Panel A: First births, West Germany

Panel B: Second births, West Germany
60

60

2002

2002
2005

50

2008

2005

50

40

40

30

30

20

20

10

10

2008

0

0
15

20

25

30

35

15

40

Panel C: First births, East Germany

20

25

30

35

40

Panel D: Second births, East Germany
60

60

2002

2002
2005

50

2008

40

40

30

30

20

20

10

10

0

2005

50

2008

0

15

20

25

30

35

15

40

Source: BQS-Perinatal Statistics (own estimations)

38

20

25

30

35

40

Figure A2: Cohort Fertility Rates in East and West Germany in 2009
Cohort Fertility, Cohorts 1950-1964

Cohort Fertility, Cohorts 1965-1979

2.0

2.0
East Germany

1.5

1.5

East Germany

West Germany

1.0

1.0
West Germany

0.5

1950

0.5
1955

1960

1965

Birth Cohort

1970

1975
Birth Cohort

Source: HFD (2011)39