The impact of improved housing conditions on the convergence for urban and rural fertility in post-Soviet Russia

Housing conditions, or housing availability, is considered in modern research as an important but controversial factor in fertility changes in modern research. In a study using an ordinal logistic model, quantitative estimates of the impact of housing conditions on fertility convergence in post-Soviet society were obtained, separately for urban and rural populations. We have been established that housing availability has a statistically significant impact on the formation of regional convergence clubs of age-related fertility, and this influence varies significantly in importance and intensity depending on the age group of women and their place of residence. The total living area available to the average Russian resident in 1989 had a significant impact over the next 30 years on the formation and disintegration of regional age-specific fertility convergence clubs only in the younger age groups (15–19 and 20–24 years old) of urban and rural populations, as well as in the group of 25–29-yearold rural population. On the contrary, the growth rate of the total area per inhabitant in 2020/1989 manifested itself as a factor in the formation and disintegration of such clubs only in the middle age groups: 25–29 years for the urban population and 30–34 years for the rural population.