The effects of socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of regions on the spatial patterns of the Second Demographic Transition in Finland

Abstract

Abstract The article studies to what extent regional socioeconomic and cultural characteristics explain spatial patterns in the Second Demographic Transition in Finland. The country's 75 functional regions are used as area units. A summary indicator of the transition based on divorce and cohabitation is used as the dependent variable. The results show that the spatial pattern is mainly determined according to the regional level of urbanization, but the effect is mediated by cultural characteristics (secularization and support for the socialist and green parties). The cultural characteristics have only a modest independent effect. 1. Introduction This paper was inspired by the studies conducted by Lesthaeghe and Neels (2002) and Lesthaeghe and Neidert (2006) on the determinants of the spatial patterns in demographic transitions in three European countries and the United States. The former study was based on data covering French departements, Belgian arrondissements and Swiss cantons, and analyzed the associations between the indicators of the first and second transitions with historical and contemporary socioeconomic and cultural covariates. The indicators for the second transition were somewhat different in the three countries, and included the divorce rate, non-marital fertility and cohabitation. Most of the explanatory variables (17 from 22 in all countries together) were cultural indicators pertaining to the waves of secularization, voting results, and linguistic divisions. The data included two socioeconomic covariates for France and Belgium and one for Switzerland. Lesthaeghe and Neels (2002) used canonical correlation analysis and found a clear statistical association between indicators of both the first and second demographic transitions and cultural characteristics. The authors presumed that urbanity, high levels of education, and high levels of female labor-force participation would be among the structural predictors for the second transition. This was found to hold best in Switzerland, where the transition was most clearly connected with urbanity and economic development. The link was much weaker in France, and virtually absent in Belgium. In France, both demographic transitions were strongly related to the overall secularization dimension, but both the demographically innovative part of France and areas that were demographic followers contained rural and urban/industrial areas. According to the results for Belgium, the rural-urban distinction in the later 20th century played no role whatsoever in the indicators of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT). In all three countries the link between the ideational (cultural) covariates and both transitions was strikingly pronounced. The explanation, according to the authors, is that the secularization dimension, as it emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, maintained its spatial features until at least the 1960s, and that further ideational developments related to individual autonomy were grafted onto it. Lesthaeghe and Neidert's (2006) study identified the second-demographictransition dimension in the United States by means of a factor analysis of 19 demographic characteristics of states. The transition factor turned out to be strongly correlated with a high level of income and urbanization, a high proportion of Catholics, and a high proportion of adults with at least a college degree. However, the main finding of the study was a still stronger correlation between this factor and the vote for George W. Bush in two presidential elections. Controlling for the effects of the socioeconomic characteristics, the religious affiliations and the ethnic compositions of the populations of the states did not explain this association. According to Lesthaeghe, Neidert and Surkyn (2007), both economic and cultural factors are necessary for a multi-factorial explanation of the Second Demographic Transition, but their respective weights and roles may vary across societies. …