In the past decades the insufficient fertility level have been causing an increasing problem in the EU. The actuality of this issue is proved by the phenomenon of natural decreasing. Since 2012 the EU itself has not been able to maintain its population because the number of life births does not reach the level of mortality._x000D_
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In my resarch I reveal the change of indicators connecting to the childbearing attitudes between 2010 and 2020 at the geographic level of NUTS 2 regions in the EU. By this means it is possible to depict the development trajectories of regions and also the scale of inequalities that emerged in the spatial structure of fertility in this period._x000D_
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As for the trajectories the dependent variables are the total fertility rate, the average age of mothers at childbirth (due to the postponement effects) and finally an indicator for measuring the polarisation within the regions that is based on the method of so called modal or bimodal fertility curves._x000D_
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Among the independent variables – according to the demographic literature (DeRose, 2021; Lesthaeghe & Willems, 1999) – we can find the economic background (GDP per capita, unemployment), the reconciliation of childbearing and working (the proportion of women with tertiary qualification, the possibilites of pre-school education) as well as the urban-rural contrast (population density) as socioeconomic dimensions._x000D_
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In the second phase of my research I applyied for such regional analytic methods like the Hoover or the Dual indexes for determining the changes in the inequalities as for fertility rate between 2010 and 2020. _x000D_
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Accordingly my research questions are: what kind of transition can be observed in the fertility pattern at the level of NUTS 2 regions in the EU? What regions showed the most extreme fertility trends? What factors explain these extremities?

Péter Uhljár
Corvinus University of Budapest, Department of Geography and Planning

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ID Abstract: 504