Extended Abstract

Topic The main purpose of this paper is to describe the course of the family formation process among the adult population in Denmark in the early phase of the adulthood; a period of the life course where most of the demographic events happens, e.g. partnership formation, childbirth, marriage and divorce. The overall goal of the study is to determine whether it is possible to speak of a normal family formation pattern as a “stabile” family history during the life course as opposed to more “turbulent” patterns with regards to this process. The main emphasis lies on family histories as they progress for approximately 85.000 men and women born in 1962, from the year this birth cohort turns eighteen and until they turn fortythree. Analyses are based on data from Danish public registers, containing information on the entire Danish population in a twenty-three year period, from 1980 to 2003. Some of the questions this paper seeks to answer are how the family course in relation to couple formation and dissolution as well as phases of single living is structured and whether it is correct that a sequence of pre-marital cohabitations are common before having children, the socalled serial monogamy, or if this family formation sequence is limited to a specific group of people. Overall, analyses are thought to determine whether the changed conditions for families and new patterns for household compositions during the Second Demographic Transition have made it possible to identify new patterns of the family formation process with regards to the course of events. Where most studies seem to focus on one or a few of these key demographic events, this paper aims to describe and capture not only the number of these classic demographic events during this part of the life course but also the sequence in which they happen as well as the time between the events. Furthermore analyses take into account the timing of the events in relation to other common life event in this phase of the life course, e.g. completion of education. The analyses presented in this paper is a part of an ongoing PhD project in which the description of the family formation patterns during the twenty-three years and the determination of “stabile” and “turbulent” family formation patterns forms the basis of further analyses. In the planned future analyses the aim is to include a number of socio-demographic variables that are known to influence the demographic behaviour. This part of the study seeks to determine whether these factors have the same importance when the entire course of the family formation process is taken into account.