Partnership pathways associated with lifetime childlessness in Belgium and Finland

Abstract

In recent decades, many European countries have witnessed both a rise in ultimate childlessness and increasing diversity in partnership trajectories. This paper investigates patterns of partnership trajectories associated with childlessness in Belgium and Finland from a life-course perspective. Using sequence and cluster analysis on register data, we examine the partnership histories of Belgian (N=19,590) and Finnish (N=13,368) men and women born in 1975, following them from age 18 to 45. We identified five typical partnership clusters among the Belgian childless and four among the Finnish. Three clusters—Never Partnered, Partnership Instability, and Marriage—are common to both countries. Most childless individuals in both countries remain unpartnered or face partnership instability. A turbulence index was then computed to assess the difference of turbulence of the sequences between the two countries. This paper contributes to the literature on childlessness by examining the heterogeneity of partnership biographies and cross-country differences using high-quality administrative data.