While the demographic picture in the years immediately following World War II was dominated by international migration, the most important factor affecting population developments in Eastern Europe after 1950 was the changes in procreative behaviour. Figure 3.1 presents trends in total fertility rates (TFRs).4 A general decline in the rates is the most obvious impression one gets from the figure.
At the beginning of the post-war period, TFRs in Eastern European countries were very dissimilar, as individual countries were at different stages of demographic development. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Eastern Europe showed relatively moderate, short-lived increases in fertility levels, in contrast to the large-scale 'baby boom' experienced by most Western countries between the late 1940s and early 1960s. Over this period, European socialist countries went through their demographic transitions at accelerated rates by historical
4 For a tabular presentation of TFRs in Eastern European countries during 1950-90 see Table A3.1 in the Appendix.
Figure 3.1: Total fertility rates
Eastern European countries (excluding Albania), 1950-90
Bulgaria Poland ' Romania Yugoslavia t 2.6 Year East Germany --- Hungary * USSR Yugoslavia C 2.6 Year
Sources: UN (1977, 1992d, 1993b), Blayo (1987, 1991), Vishnevsky (1988), Dishnica and Galanxhi (1991), Ely (1991), Festy (1991), Meksi and laquinta (1991), Lutz and Scherbov (1994).
Standards. The years 1950-65, in particular, were characterized by considerable declines in TFRs, as well as by reductions in total numbers of births and also substantial changes in the timing of reproduction. In countries with the highest fertility levels in 1950, the decline was more rapid and thus produced a strong 'catch-up' effect. Albania, Poland, and Yugoslavia tended to have the highest regional TFRs throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, while Hungary and Bulgaria had the lowest. With the late 1960s, temporary upswings in fertility appeared, although they did not develop into a lasting phenomenon in any country, except possibly Albania. By 1970, the region had one of the lowest fertility rates in the world (UN, 1976). Fertility changes occurring in Eastern Europe during the period 1970-90 were less dramatic, but they were unique in that they brought overall fertility to levels lower than ever previously experienced in the region. Towards the late 1970s a certain homogeneity in fertility levels emerged within Eastern Europe, but in the 1980s there was again a divergence of period fertility trends. However, regardless of the fertility level around 1950 and the timing and tempo of reductions in individual countries, period TFRs recorded in the region in 1990 were relatively low, and, with the exception of Albania, the USSR and Poland, below 2.0.5
Nevertheless, as Figure 3.1 shows, the pattern of decline of fertility in Eastern Europe was not simple. Indeed, it is arguable whether there was a common regional pattern of fertility change. Individual countries show fairly divergent trends in their fertility levels and little synchronization with each other in the pace of change. This is partly a result of variant regional reproductive norms and partly a result of the short-term effects of population policy measures implemented in particular countries. Omitting some short-term variation in the levels of fertility, and ignoring Albania, for which there are not enough data available, one may nevertheless distinguish four types of settings in which fertility developments showed certain similarities:
(a) Yugoslavia is the only country in Eastern Europe where the downward trend in the TFR over the period in question was generally smooth and consistent.
5 Demographic developments which characterized the situation in Eastern Europe, perhaps apart from East Germany, during the 1970s and the 1980s, have largely separated the East from the rest of Europe as well as from other countries that have completed their fertility transitions. By the late 1980s, all developed countries with the exception of Albania fell into the low-fertility category (TFR<2.5). In most of the industrialized world, however, the TFR was well below 2.0, ranging from 1.3 in Italy to 2.1 in New Zealand and Ireland (UN, 1990b, 1992d; Monnier and Rychtarikova, 1991). Thus, even those Eastern European countries that were already below the 2.0 level still had somewhat higher fertility than other developed countries.
Between 1950 and 1990, Yugoslavia experienced a virtually uninterrupted decline in the TFR from 3.7 to 1.8.6
(b) Bulgaria and Poland may be classified as countries in which the decline in fertility levels persisted during most of the post-war period, but in which some significant departures from this trend nevertheless occurred. During 1950-67 Bulgaria registered a fairly uniform decline in its TFR from 2.9 to 2.0. In the period 1967-74 the TFR oscillated between 2.0 and 2.3, but later the secular decrease was reasserted and by 1990 the TFR was 1.7. Poland recorded a rapid fall in its TFR from 3.7 to 2.2 in the period 1950-69; yet in the following 14 years the TFR fluctuated around 2.3, and the fertility decline resumed only after 1983.
(c) In Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and the USSR the post-war fertility decline not only fluctuated but in some years virtually reversed. Czechoslovakia experienced such a change between 1968 and 1974, when its TFR increased from 2.0 to 2.5. East Germany recorded slight increases in its TFR during 1958-64, but a true turn came between 1975 and 1980 when the TFR jumped from 1.6 to 2.0. In Hungary, one major increase occurred between 1951 and 1954 when the TFR rose from 2.5 to 3.0; and a similar change took place between 1962 and 1975 when it increased from 1.8 to 2.4. In the USSR, the TFR dropped during the period 1954-80 from 2.9 to 2.2; but between 1980 and 1987 there was an increase to 2.5. The downward trend reappeared only after 1987.7
(d) Romania followed by far the most aberrant track. It began with one of the highest fertilities, befitting one of Europe's least developed societies, which during the 1950s and early 1960s spontaneously declined to very low levels. This provoked, from 1966, the harshest pronatalist population policy in modern demographic history. Between 1966 and 1967, Romania's TFR increased from 1.9 to 3.7; that is, by more than 90 per cent. After 1967, the level of Romanian fertility resumed its long-term decline, although it was twice interrupted by short lived increases in 1973-74 and 1983-86.
6 However, the overall figures mask differences in fertility developments within the country, particularly contrasts between the more developed provinces in the north and the rather backward areas in the south. According to Avramov (1991), during the period 1985-90 TFRs ranged from 1.7 in Croatia, Slovenia, and Voivodina, 1.8 in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 2.0 in Montenegro and 2.2 in Macedonia and Serbia to 4.0 in Kosovo, which has a large Albanian minority.
7 However, the figures for the Soviet Union as a whole obscure inter-ethnic and inter-regional fertility differentials of great magnitude. Soviet data for 1990 show that the TFR in the USSR varied from 1.9 in Ukraine to 5.1 in Tajikistan (Lutz and Scherbov, 1994).
One way to summarize these rather dissimilar patterns of fertility decline in Eastern Europe is to subject the series of TFRs displayed in Figure 3.1 to linear regression analysis. The goal of this type of analysis is to find for each country the straight line that best fits the observed trend in the TFR.8 Table 3.4 shows the results of applying regression analysis to the series of total fertility rates for individual Eastern European countries. The values of R2 and adjusted R2 show variation from country to country in the degree to which trends in the TFR during the period 1950-90 can be approximated by a regression line. Regression lines give fairly adequate approximations of fertility trends in Yugoslavia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria, where they are capable of 'explaining1 65 per cent or more of the variance in the TFR during 1950-90. Not surprisingly, Albanian data can also be quite effectively approximated with a straight line, partly because there are only a few observations available for the period in question. When applied to the USSR, Hungary, and Romania, linear regression captures comparatively low proportions (50 per cent or less) of variance in the TFR, and thus the regression lines do not provide adequate statistical descriptions of fertility change in these countries during the post-war decades.
Table 3.4: Summary statistics for linear regression analyses of trends in TFR in Eastern European countries, 1950-90
Country N Slope of regression line R2 Statistics of fit: adj. R2 t-stat. P Albania 16 -0.109 88.9 88.1 10.6 <.001 Bulgaria 41 -0.014 66.2 65.3 8.7 <.001 Czechoslovakia 41 -0.023 70.3 69.5 9.6 <.001 East Germany 41 -0.024 73.3 72.6 10.3 <.001 Hungary 41 -0.018 46.8 45.4 5.9 <.001 Poland 41 -0.041 75.7 75.1 11.0 <.001 Romania 41 -0.016 17.9 15.8 2.9 <.005 Yugoslavia 41 -0.038 89.5 89.2 18.2 <.001 USSR 35 -0.012 52.1 50.6 6.0 <.001
Sources: see Figure 3.1.
Graphical presentation of regression lines (Figure 3.2) highlights similarities between certain countries. From this simplified perspective, it appears that the fertility declines in Poland and Yugoslavia proceeded in an analogous fashion:
8 The required least squares regression line should correspond to the equation approximated TFR = B0 + B 1 x (year of observation), where is the slope of regression line and B0 is its intercept. To show how adequate the regression line is for approximating the relationship between TFR and calendar time in a given set of data, two coefficients of determination (R2 and adjusted R2) can be calculated. For details about linear regression analysis see Greene (1991).
both started from relatively high levels and had a rather fast average tempo. For Czechoslovakia and East Germany, the slopes of the regression lines indicate moderate intensities of fertility decline. The trend lines estimated for the remaining countries have much gentler slopes. The USSR and Bulgaria appear to have experienced the lowest overall declines in the TFR over the period in question.
Figure 3.2: Regression lines for total fertility rates Eastern European countries (excluding Albania), 1950-90
Bulgaria Poland 3.2 - • ■ Romania 5J 3.0 - Yugoslavia 2.8 " E 2.6 - 2.0 - Czechoslovakia East Germany 3.4 - --- Hungary * • USSR Ü 3.0 - Yugoslavia E 2.6 - 2.4 - 1.6 -