Wittgenstein Centre Conference 2024

19 - 21 November 2024, Vienna, Austria

Family formation is occurring at ever later ages around the world. Delayed reproduction brings new challenges for individuals and couples. They are confronted with higher risks of infertility and other constraints as they navigate their parenthood plans. The trend to later reproduction is likely to continue and to have far-reaching societal consequences in the future, potentially contributing to lower fertility rates and higher prevalence of infertility in societies already experiencing low fertility.

This conference focused on shifting trends, drivers and consequences of delayed reproduction, paying special attention to biological constraints as well as to the impact of assisted reproduction technologies and their potential role in shaping future fertility trends.

Keynote speakers:

Jacky Boivin (Cardiff University)
Anna Rotkirch (Population Research Institute)
Lucy van de Wiel (King’s College)

Chairs: Isabella Buber-Ennser and Marcus Hagley

• Jacky Boivin, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
  Fertility Education: What are we trying to do when we teach 12-year-olds about IVF?
  video on YouTube

Session Chairs:  Isabella Buber-Ennser and Marcus Hagley

• Daniele Vignoli, Ester Lazzari, Valentina Tocchioni, Marco Cozzani
  Social Norms towards ART in Italy: A Vignette Study
  abstract | slides | video on YouTube
   
• Shalini Singh
  Too old to be sure: Swinging fertility timing intentions of childless men and women over the life course
  abstract |  video on YouTube
   
• Arnstein Aassve, Alícia Adsera, Letizia Mencarini, Chen Peng
  Gendered Family Preferences: Higher Education and Inter-generational Divergence in Eight Low Fertility Countrie
  abstract
   
• Francesca Luppi, Andrea Bonanomi, Alessandro Rosina
  Culture, uncertainty, and expected social support: a comprehensive perspective on what’s behind young adults’
  fertility preferences
  abstract | slides | video on YouTube
   
• Mengni Chen, Yu-Chin Her
  Late transition to parenthood in Hong Kong
  abstract | slides | video on YouTube
   
• Vegard Skirbekk, Henrik-Alexander Schubert, Catherine E. Bowen
  Sustained Postponement of Reproduction Theory (SPORT)
  abstract

Session Chairs: Krystof Zeman and Ingrid Setz

• Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, Anna Lovasz, Anna Matysiak
  The occurrence and timing of second births: country differences and the role of institutional factors
  abstract | slides | video on YouTube
   
• Kristen Lagasse Burke, Carolyn E. Waldrep
  Building a Family while Paying Student Loans: The Evolution of Fertility Intentions and Behaviors in Early Adulthood
  abstract | slides | video on YouTube
   
• Lili Vargha
  Fathers’ and mothers’ joint longitudinal employment patterns around first birth in Germany, 1990-2020
  abstract | slides  | video on YouTube
   
• Yu-Chin Her, Mengni Chen
  Having Fun or Having Kids? Human Values and Childbearing Attitudes in Europe
  abstract | slides  | video on YouTube

• Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Meimanat Hosseini-Chavoshi, Hajieh Bibi Razeghi and Tomas Sobotka
  Postponement of marriage and delayed childbearing in MENA countries with special focus on Iran
  abstract
   
• Tomislav Belić
  A Spatial Perspective of Birth Delay in Croatia: Is Rural Population Decline a Limiting Factor of National Fertility Rates?
  abstract | poster
   
• Marek Endrich, Fabrizio Natale, Philipp Ueffing
  Determinants of the postponement in childbearing across European countries
  abstract
   
• Kristijan Fidanovski
  Child Benefits and Fertility Behaviour in Europe: The Role of Generosity Variation by Child Age and Birth Order
  abstract | poster
   
• Martin Gädecke
  Household Income, Gender Role Attitudes and Fertility Intentions in Australia.
  abstract | poster
   
• Binjie Jing
  How Does the Education-occupation Mismatch Reorganize the Mechanism of Education Affects Fertility?
  abstract
   
• Chiara Baldan, Annalisa Donno, Maria Letizia Tanturri
  Understanding Childlessness Through Life Trajectories: Evidence from Italy
  abstract
   
• Alessandra Burgio, Cinzia Castagnaro, Daniele Vignoli, Agnese Vitali
  The Contribution of Medically Assisted Reproduction to Fertility in Italy
  abstract
   
• Xijia (Thea) You
  Delaying Childbearing: Navigating Fertility Temporality and Agency in Contemporary China
  abstract | poster

Session Chairs: Monika Mynarska and Adèle Lemoine

• Kathleen Broussard
  The Meaning and Measurement of Unrealized Fertility
  abstract | slides  | video on YouTube
   
• Ester Lazzari, Éva Beaujouan
  The gap between desired and achieved family size in Europe: The role of infertility
  abstract | slides  | video on YouTube
   
• Anna Barbuscia, Roberta Rutigliano
  The role of education in shaping individual fertility gap in Spain and the Basque country: a longitudinal analysis
  abstract | slides  | video on YouTube
   
• Jitka Slabá, Anna Šťastná, Jiřina Kocourková (Flash talk)
  The Impact of Interfering Reproductive Events on the Spacing Between First and Second Live Births
  abstract | slide  | video on YouTube
   
• Ilaria Pietropoli, Rebecca Soldo, Agnese Vitali (Flash talk)
  Childless couples in advanced parental age and their fertility intentions: a study for Italy
  abstract | slide  | video on YouTube

Reproductive futures: Shifting the limits of late fertility? How will technology change reproduction?

Should we be worried about the consequences of very late and increasingly medicalised reproduction?

Chair: Anna Wallner (die Presse)

Panel Discussants:
Jacky Boivin, Cardiff University
Erich Griessler, IHS – Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna
Marlene Hager, Medical University of Vienna
Anna Rotkirch, Population Research Institute
Lucy van de Wiel, King’s College

Chairs: Tomas Sobotka and Melanie Wagner

• Anna Rotkirch, Population Research Institute, Finland
  'I think about it all the time' Childbearing cues in low fertility societies
  slides | video on YouTube

Session Chairs: Tomas Sobotka and Melanie Wagner

• Cristina Suero, Éva Beaujouan
  No time to lose? Stable partnership as a prerequisite to childbearing across ages
  abstract | slides   |  video on YouTube
   

• Christine Schnor, Denise Musni
  Solo mothers - older than all other mothers: First-time mothers’ heterogeneity in age and education, by
  partnership situation and conception mode
  abstract  | slides

•  
• Cuiling Zhang, Can Jia, Danyin Wang
  Delayed Marriage and Childbearing: the Key Perspective to Understand the Period Fertility Decline and the
  Up-warding Childlessness Rate in China Since Last Decade
  abstract | slides  |  video on YouTube
   
• Julia Leesch, Nicole Hiekel
  Changing partner markets – changing pathways to parenthood?
  abstract |  slides 
   
• Linus Andersson, Marika Jalovaara, Natalie Nitsche, Alessandra Trimarchi
  Couple’s educational composition and cohort fertility
  abstract | slide  | video on YouTube
   
• Fabian Siuda
  Childlessness and Inter-Temporal Fertility Choice
  abstract | slides  | video on YouTube
   
• Annette Baudisch, Antonino Polizzi
  Integrating fertility frameworks
  abstract | slide  | video on YouTube

Session Chairs: Trude Lappegård and Marie-Caroline Compans

• Jasmin Passet-Wittig, Nadja Milewski
  Infertility, pregnancy loss, and live births: Complexity of reproductive events varies by women’s age and education
  abstract
   
• Aoxing Liu, Evelina T. Akimova, Xuejie Ding, Sakari Jukarainen, Pekka Vartiainen, Tuomo Kiiskinen, Sara Koskelainen,
  Aki S. Havulinna, Mika Gissler, Stefano Lombardi, Tove Fall, Melinda C. Mills, Andrea Ganna
  Evidence from Finland and Sweden on the relationship between early-life diseases and lifetime childlessness in
  men and women
  abstract
   
• Manuel T. Valdés, Cristina Suero, Fabrizio Bernardi
  Exploring the educational gradient on the timing of the transition to the first child: variation across 52 provinces
  in Spain
  abstract | slides   | video on YouTube
   
• Alice Rees, Christine Schnor
  Exploring lifetime childlessness in Belgium: the interplay of partnership trajectories and socioeconomic status
  abstract

Chairs: Cristina Suero and Shalini Singh

• Lucy van de Wiel, King’s Colleg, United Kingdom
  Delayed reproduction: Frozen eggs and (il)liquid capital
  Abstract

Session Chairs: Cristina Suero and Shalini Singh

• Marie-Caroline Compans
  Alignment, anticipation, adaptation or lagging behind? Age-based regulations in assisted reproduction and late fertility
  abstract | slides | video on YouTube
   
• Marta Seiz
  Late childbearing and perinatal health in Spain: does higher maternal education moderate the impact?
  abstract | slides  | video on YouTube
   
• Denise Musni, Christine Schnor
  Compensating for the Absent Father: How single and partnered MAR mothers differ in income and proximity to parents, evidence from Belgium
  abstract | slides   | video on YouTube
   
• Alice Goisis, Alina Pelikh, Maria Palma, Pekka Martikainen, Niina Metsa-Simola, Hanna Remes (flash talk)
  Having a live birth through Medically Assisted Reproduction: a socially stratified perspective
  abstract | slides   | video on YouTube
   
• Alessandra Minello, Anna Caterina Leucci, Livia Elisa Ortensi (flash talk)
  The body well-being and fertility trade-off. How childbirth experience affects fertility trajectories
  abstract | slide  | video on YouTube

Session Chairs: Dilek Yildiz and Afua Durowaa-Boateng

• Ingrid Setz, Marie-Caroline Compans, Éva Beaujouan
  The diffusion of late fertility across European regions
  abstract | slides
   
• Karel Neels, Éva Beaujouan
  When Tempo Affects Quantum: Integrating Reproductive Age Limits into Dynamic Microsimulation Models of First Birth Delay and Cohort Completed Fertility
  abstract | slides   | video on YouTube
   
• Rolf Granholm, Anne Gauthier, Gert Stulp
  Medically assisted reproduction in the Netherlands: Estimating the contribution and limits of MAR use to completed cohort fertility using microsimulation
  abstract | slides  | video on YouTube

Éva Beaujouan (University of Vienna)
Marie-Caroline Compans (INED)
Tomáš Sobotka (VID/Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Cristina Suero (University of Vienna)
Dilek Yildiz (IIASA)

For any questions regarding the conference, please contact conference.vid(at)oeaw.ac.at