Women and men: differences in fertility and reproductive behavior indicators

The search for the reasons that determine birth rate dynamics remains relevant from the practical and theoretical viewpoints. The aim of our research is to assess whether Russia’s population complies with the stable population model in terms of stability of sex structure. We make an attempt to calculateand assess reproduction indicators for male population. Having revealed that such calculations have methodological limitations, we propose a way to overcome them. According to calculations, in 2019 in Russia, the total fertility rate for women (1.504) was 9.1% higher than for men (1.378). The difference in the gross reproduction rate was 3.1% (0.730 for women and 0.708 for men), in the net reproduction rate - 6.0% (0.719 for women, 0.678 for men). The difference in the value of the rate of natural increase in women and men is 5.0% (-11.5 and -12.1%, respectively). Due to the presence of two quantitatively different reproduction modes in the female and male generations, we doubt it would be possible to implement a stable population model. The age-related model of fertility in men, as well as in women, is shifting toward older ages (in the groups aged 25-29 and 30-34). The average age when men become fathers has also increased: from 31.51 years in 2011 to 32.40 in 2019. We also analyze the fertility rate model according to the age of the mother and father. We have determined that in most cases (70% in 2019) the father is older than the mother, in 19% of cases the mother is older than the father, in 11% - both parents are of the same age. Fathers are 1-4 years older than mothers in 44-64% of cases (depending on the age of the mother). It is noteworthy that the difference in the age of parents is higher when children are born out of wedlock. In the future, we find it interesting to study gender-related differences in reproductive motivation and other determinants of male and female fertility.