The links among living arrangements and fertility in Germany. The role of Living Apart Together (LAT) on fertility intentions and realized fertility

Nicoletta Signoretti, Sapienza Università di Roma

Background and aim: In Germany, there are couples who are neither married nor living together. They are called “Living Apart Together (LAT)”. LAT are characterized by high degree of instability and of low fertility. This study extends prior researches on the links among LAT and realized fertility. Hypothesis: H1) LAT: more common among young people with liberal attitudes; H2) The “leap of faith” needed for moving from LAT to cohabiting is greater than the from cohabitating to married; H3) Negative correlation between LAT relationships and desire of a(nother) child; H4) LAT relationships have a negative impact on the realized fertility. Material and methods: This study uses data collected by the German Family Panel (Pairfam). To define LAT relationships and who is gladly, regretfully or undecidely apart, were selected people who have an intimate and ongoing relationship. Dummy and categorical variables were generated for GLM (with the software Rstudio) to investigate the interactions among LAT (536 units in wave1) and desired and realized fertility. “Backforward elimination method” has been employed to obtain the minimal adjusted models for each GLM. Results: The youngest anchors, cohort 1991-93 was omitted. (H1) Being LAT is positively correlated with independent attitude and young; (H2) The leap of faith needed to change from LAT to cohabiting is lower (49%) than from cohabiting to married (54,7%). (H3): The 57% of couples in LAT don’t want a(nother) child. Desired fertility is negatively correlated with “gladly apart”. (H4) Realized fertility is positively correlated with desired fertility and negatively with LAT relationship. Discuss and conclusions: LAT seems to be a kind of relationship per se, most keeps being LAT, especially “gladly apart” that are negatively correlated with desired fertility. This proves the importance to take in account LAT in fertility’s study.