Partnering behavior is central to understanding fertility. Influential concepts, including singlehood, serial monogamy, and multiple-partner fertility, are frequently used to analyze partnering and childbearing dynamics. These concepts are evoked to understand individual and population-level patterns but are mainly analyzed at the individual level. We propose a measure for gauging the interplay between partnerships and childbearing at the population level, namely cohort fertility rates (CFR) as the sum of births under various partnership contexts. Surprisingly, demographers rarely measure and do not have a clear picture of the extent to which childbearing in different partnership contexts contributes to completed fertility. We analyze Finnish register data to decompose CFR into births across union status, union order, and reproductive partner order. Contrary to the discourse of partnering in the Nordics, births within first unions to first reproductive partners account for about two-thirds of CFR. Births in higher-order unions to first reproductive partners account for one-fifth. Single births and births with higher-order reproductive partners have a modest impact. This ranking holds across sex and educational level. We argue that the proposed measures offer a novel appraisal of population-level implications of partnerships and childbearing dynamics and provide an opportunity to understand cross-country variation in fertility patterns.

中文翻译：

---

家庭动态的新宏观视角：出生的伙伴关系背景对群体生育率的贡献

伴侣行为对于理解生育能力至关重要。有影响力的概念，包括单身、连续一夫一妻制和多伴侣生育，经常被用来分析伴侣和生育动态。唤起这些概念是为了理解个体和群体层面的模式，但主要是在个体层面进行分析。我们提出了一种衡量人口层面的伙伴关系与生育之间相互作用的措施，即队列生育率（CFR），即各种伙伴关系背景下出生人数的总和。令人惊讶的是，人口统计学家很少衡量也不清楚不同伴侣关系中的生育对完成生育率的贡献程度。我们分析芬兰的登记数据，将 CFR 分解为不同工会状态、工会顺序、和生殖伴侣顺序。与北欧关于伴侣关系的说法相反，第一次结合与第一个生殖伴侣的生育约占 CFR 的三分之二。第一生殖伴侣在高阶结合中出生的孩子占五分之一。单胞胎和高阶生殖伴侣的生育影响不大。该排名适用于性别和教育水平。我们认为，拟议的措施为伙伴关系和生育动态对人口水平的影响提供了新颖的评估，并提供了了解生育模式的跨国差异的机会。第一生殖伴侣在高阶结合中出生的孩子占五分之一。单胞胎和高阶生殖伴侣的生育影响不大。该排名适用于性别和教育水平。我们认为，拟议的措施为伙伴关系和生育动态对人口水平的影响提供了新颖的评估，并提供了了解生育模式的跨国差异的机会。第一生殖伴侣在高阶结合中出生的孩子占五分之一。单胞胎和高阶生殖伴侣的生育影响不大。该排名适用于性别和教育水平。我们认为，拟议的措施为伙伴关系和生育动态对人口水平的影响提供了新颖的评估，并提供了了解生育模式的跨国差异的机会。