Belarusian family in the context of future challenges

Abstract

Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) is an international comparative study aimed at examining demographic, social and economic aspects of population life to identify how emerging challenges affect changes in family and demographic dynamics, including marriage, fertility, divorce, gender roles and intergenerational relations. The programme’s main research tool is the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) — a panel study that provides detailed data on daily life, family relationships and social-economic status. Based on the latest available wave of the GGS II survey, the authors examined the data on several countries as representing four profiles (to ensure a representative description of each): the first profile includes Austria and Germany, the second — Norway and the United Kingdom, the third — Estonia and Croatia, and the fourth — Belarus. Belarussian demographic development follows global trends: birth rates are rather evenly distributed across age groups; there is a noticeable shift in childbearing toward later reproductive ages and a persisting gap between the declared ideal number of children and actual fertility rates. Childlessness remains the least preferred model, while the two-child family is the most desired model in all countries under study; however, in Belarus and Estonia younger generations show a trend of declining desired number of children. Such factors as education, financial stability, housing conditions and state support contribute to postponing childbirth, which affects the total number of children born.