Births and the City: Urban Cycles and Increasing Socio-Spatial Heterogeneity in a Low-Fertility Context

Analysis of fertility trends along urban gradients contributes to assess socio-demographic change at larger scales and the new geography of metropolitan growth at smaller scales. At larger scales, urban fertility was systematically lower than rural fertility; at smaller scales, suburbs were found to have higher fertility than central districts and the neighbouring rural areas. However, fertility divides have rarely been re-contextualised in a long-term perspective, considering the influence of exogenous factors that change over time with urban cycles. Assuming that spatial fertility variations are contextual to the development stage of a given region, the present study goes beyond the traditional ‘urban-suburban-rural’ divide and provides a long-term vision that integrates small-scale fertility variations and city life cycles. The study investigates spatial trends in a fertility index along a cycle from urbanisation to re-urbanisation in a low-fertility European context (Athens, Greece) using a multi-scale analysis framework. The empirical findings of this study demonstrate that rural fertility was systematically lower than urban fertility apart from a short time interval (1950s). Fertility in urban locations was the highest during earlier stages of urbanisation. In suburban locations, fertility increased during late suburbanisation, stabilising (or declining slightly) with counter-urbanisation. Re-urbanisation was associated with a greater spatial heterogeneity in fertility rates. By documenting a differential response of fertility to urban cycles, our study re-frames the relationship between natural population dynamics and metropolitan transitions, concluding that regional fertility divides are temporary outcomes of a specific ensemble of socio-economic forces underlying a given urban model.