Births and the City: Urban Cycles and Increasing Socio‐Spatial Heterogeneity in a Low‐Fertility Context

Abstract

AbstractAnalysis of fertility trends along urban gradients contributes to assess socio‐demographic change at larger scales and the new geography of metropolitan growth at smaller scales. At larger scales, urban fertility was systematically lower than rural fertility; at smaller scales, suburbs were found to have higher fertility than central districts and the neighbouring rural areas. However, fertility divides have rarely been re‐contextualised in a long‐term perspective, considering the influence of exogenous factors that change over time with urban cycles. Assuming that spatial fertility variations are contextual to the development stage of a given region, the present study goes beyond the traditional ‘urban‐suburban‐rural’ divide and provides a long‐term vision that integrates small‐scale fertility variations and city life cycles. The study investigates spatial trends in a fertility index along a cycle from urbanisation to re‐urbanisation in a low‐fertility European context (Athens, Greece) using a multi‐scale analysis framework. The empirical findings of this study demonstrate that rural fertility was systematically lower than urban fertility apart from a short time interval (1950s). Fertility in urban locations was the highest during earlier stages of urbanisation. In suburban locations, fertility increased during late suburbanisation, stabilising (or declining slightly) with counter‐urbanisation. Re‐urbanisation was associated with a greater spatial heterogeneity in fertility rates. By documenting a differential response of fertility to urban cycles, our study re‐frames the relationship between natural population dynamics and metropolitan transitions, concluding that regional fertility divides are temporary outcomes of a specific ensemble of socio‐economic forces underlying a given urban model.