CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 260Social Policies and FamilyFamily Dynamics and RelationshipsGender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

Consequences of Family Policies on Childbearing Behavior: Effects or Artifacts?

Open access
Neyer, Gerda, Andersson, Gunnar·2008·Population and Development Review
DOI 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2008.00246.x
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

This article argues for a more careful consideration of theoretical and methodological approaches in studies of the effects of public policies, labeled here as family policies, on childbearing behavior. We employ elements of comparative welfare‐state research, of the sociology of “constructed categories,” and of “the new institutionalism” to demonstrate that investigations into policy effects need to contextualize policies and need to reduce their complexity by focusing on “critical junctures,”“space,” and “uptake.” We argue that the effects of family policies can only be assessed properly if we study their impact on individual behavior. Event‐history models applied to individual‐level data are the state‐of‐the‐art of such an approach. We use selected empirical studies from Sweden to demonstrate that the type of approach that we advocate prevents us from drawing misleading conclusions.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2008.00246.x

Cites

99 of 99 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The potential effect of family policies on actual behavior depends on how a policy is perceived in the minds of people and what it signals with respect to their current and future life course.

    “The potential effect of family policies on actual behavior depends on how a policy is perceived in the minds of people and what it signals with respect to their current and future life course.”

    From Family Policies in Low Fertility Countries: Evidence and Reflections (2025) · cites this paper as Neyer and Andersson 2008, 7

  • Family policies always act on two levels: on the level of facts and on the level of perception.

    “[family policies] always act on two levels: on the level of facts and on the level of perception…”

    From Family Policies in Low Fertility Countries: Evidence and Reflections (2025) · cites this paper as Neyer and Andersson 2008, 7

  • Institutional approaches assume that the institutional context shapes the links between gender, education and fertility.

    “These approaches assume that the institutional context shapes the links between gender, education and fertility (Neyer and Andersson 2008; Kravdal and Rindfuss 2008; Neyer et al. 2017).”

    From Education, Gender, and Cohort Fertility in the Nordic Countries (2019) · cites this paper as Neyer and Andersson 2008

  • When reforms large enough to be 'critical junctures' are evaluated in analytical designs that capture a large share of the total reform effect, fertility responses are systematically larger.

    “When reforms large enough to be”

    From Can Policies Stall the Fertility Fall? A Systematic Review of the (Quasi‐) Experimental Literature (2021) · cites this paper as Neyer and Andersson 2008

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Neyer, G., & Andersson, G.
Affiliations
  • Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (DE)
  • Stockholm University (SE)
Venue
Population and Development Review
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2008-12
Volume
34
Issue
4
Pages
699-724
ISSN
  • 0098-7921 (ISSN-L)
  • 1728-4457
DOI
10.1111/j.1728-4457.2008.00246.x
OpenAlex
W2084639465
Cited by
260
References
99
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 22 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 16
FWCI
52.09
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Population and Development Review (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Policies and Family
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
Keywords
family policy, childbearing behavior, fertility, policy impact, welfare state, new institutionalism, critical junctures, policy uptake, event history models, microdata, Sweden

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review