Budapest, 26/27 May 2010
The REPRO Consortium meeting in Budapest was mainly dedicated to
discussing the work accomplished in all work packages with the Steering
Board members. The policy implications of the main findings and the
interrelations between the studies conducted in the different work
packages were given special attention. Another important item on the
agenda was the Policy Brief on the main findings of the REPRO project
prepared by Dimiter Philipov and Maria Rita Testa.
- Olivier Thévenon (WP 2) gave an overview of the macro
perspective on fertility trends and institutional context. He was asked
to enlarge and refine the policy analysis and to make the extensive
data collection available to other scholars in the future.
- Jane Klobas (WP 3) presented her analysis on fertility
decision-making. She gained many insights and will focus on a coherent presentation of them in her future work.
- In the session on work package 4, Zsolt Spéder presented a
paper on the realisation of fertility intentions and the postponement
black-box. Maria Iacovou summarised the latest findings of her work on
the fact that people have fewer children than expected. Both presenters
were advised to clearly indicate that their studies do not consider
fertility-related behaviour (sexual relationship, timing of
intercourses, contraception, abortion, etc.) but only the outcome of
this behaviour, i.e. births.
- In the overview of work package 6, Aart Liefbroer reported
about macro-level determinants of fertility decision-making, Maria Rita
Testa presented her analysis on child-number and child-timing
intentions in a micro-macro European framework and Eva-Maria Merz
outlined her study on the role of individual and country factors with
respect to fertility across Europe. They were advised to refine the
selection of the macro indicators and to make it consistent with the
macro factors adopted by Olivier Thévenon.
- In his paper on the purpose, issues and messages of policy
recommendations, Tomáš Sobotka discussed the optimal way of conveying
the main message from REPRO’s analytical work to policy-makers. Anne
Gauthier pointed out that the aim of the REPRO project was not to test
the efficacy of different policies but to provide empirical evidence to
help policy-makers formulate the most suitable policy measures. The
Steering Board encouraged the REPRO partners to continue their
collaboration after the REPRO project.
All Steering Board members were invited to participate in the final
conference of the REPRO project entitled “From intentions to behaviour:
reproductive decision-making in a macro-micro perspective”, which will
be held in Vienna/Austria in the beginning of December 2010.