This article analyses the recent period changes in fertility in industrialized countries from the point of view of the varying degrees of fertility postponement at younger ages and subsequent partial recuperation at later ages. It does so through both period and cohort indicators.
The outcome is that current period total fertility rates (PTFRs) are largely diverging because of differential recuperation in the various western countries and Japan, and because of the strong reaction to the economic and social overhaul since 1989 in Eastern Europe. A simple end of postponement would not bring the PTFRs back to replacement level fertility in the vast majority of countries, unless this is being accompanied by much larger rises in fertility past age 30 than witnessed so far.
The article concludes with a pattern description and updating of trends concerning the destandardization of household formation. The data from the 1990s round of Fertility and Family Surveys provide the update. Common and more ideosyncratic causes of the shifting forms of household formation are being discussed. Also here the conclusion is that this destandardization is likely to progress further, particularly in Eastern Europe and Japan.
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