Abstract:
Demographic research has repeatedly demonstrated differences in fertility on the subnational level, especially between urban and rural regions. The most recent literature focuses on historical developments of total fertility, cohort fertility, or indicators of late fertility (35+). The present paper complements these analyses by focusing on earlier births (i.e., births at ages below 25) and by analysing both regional and individual level data. In particular, I assume that metropolitan areas as centres of contemporary knowledge societies and service economies offer educational and economic opportunities that lead to immigration but are hardly compatible with early fertility, resulting in urban-rural differences in fertility behaviour. On the regional level, I use data for 35 Austrian NUTS 3 regions from 2013 to 2021. Regional analyses focus on the share of age- specific fertility in total fertility. On the individual level, I analyse transitions to first births among the 1984 cohort o f women in Austria. Data stems from Statistics Austria and the Austrian Labour Market Data Base. Dynamic spatial models demonstrate that within-region decreases of early fertility can be largely explained by increases in students, tertiary education, and employment in the service sector. Immigration has heterogenous effects. Higher proportions of third country citizens are associated with higher early fertility but higher proportions of EU/EFTA citizens with lower early fertility. Between-region heterogeneity is at least partly explained by proportions of highly educated and foreign populations. Discrete-time survivor models provide additional insights, showing low levels of early transitions to parenthood among women who moved to cities and women working in knowledge-intensive service activities, and high levels in specific immigrant groups, in particular women with Turkish citizenship, and among women working in blue-collar service jobs.