The Danish National Research Foundation has in 1997 given a grant to establish a Danish Center for Demographic Research at the University of Odense. The Center is funded from 1998 to 2002 and will during that time act as an international research center with a strong Ph. The Center is hosted by the University's Department for Statistics and Demography, an interdisciplinary institution which started its activities in September 1997 with the aim of promoting research on major issues within statistics, econometrics and demography. The Center will concentrate research to the topics mentioned below including construction of new data bases which will support research within these and other areas. Fertility and Family Dynamics in Denmark and Elsewhere in Recent Decades Fertility in recent decades has fallen to historical lows in Denmark and in other European countries.
Scholars differ about whether low fertility is a temporary or persistent phenomenon.
Families are undergoing dramatic changes, with shifting patterns of marriage, divorce, and cohabitation. The trends are being influenced by high levels of international migration. In the Third World patterns of declining fertility will determine the future size and composition of the world's population. Much of the research is likely to focus on variation over time and across individuals in Danish fertility and family dynamics using the existing Danish Fertility Data Base and databases created within the project. The Danish data will readily permit a variety of standard but nonetheless important analyses of cohort vs. period effects, of changing household and family patterns, of the impact of changing patterns on fertility, and of the likely future trends in Danish fertility and family dynamics.