Social Capital and Fertility Intentions: The Case of Italy, Bulgaria, and West Germany

Despite the many differences that exist between Italy, Bulgaria, and Germany, the threecountries are among those with the lowest fertility rates in Europe. However, they differ inthe level of public support for families and the role of informal supportive networks indaily life. Italy and Bulgaria, on the one hand, share very low levels of public support. Inboth countries, consequently, informal supportive networks based on family relationshipsand kinship have a strong tradition and a high relevance for getting things done. InGermany, however, support by family policy is much stronger and the importance of suchsupportive networks is weaker. The paper addresses the question whether these differentconstellations of public and informal social support have an impact on reproductivedecision-making. In particular, it concentrates on the impact of supportive networks onintentions to have a second child. Analyses based on data from the “Generations andGender Programme”, a comparative survey that was conducted recently in all threecountries, provide mixed results. While there is a significant influence of access toinformal support on the intention to have a second child in Bulgaria and no significanteffect in West Germany, findings for Italy obviously contradict theoretical propositionsand suggest that future analysis takes more comprehensive account of the work strategy ofthe mothers in the context of the current Italian labour market characteristics