Total fertility in the Catholic countries of Southern Europe has dropped to remarkably low rates (=1.4) despite continuing low rates female labor force participation and high historic fertility. We model three ways in which religion affects the demand for children – through norms, market wages, and childrearing costs. We estimate these effects using new panel data on church attendance and clergy employment for 13 European countries from 1960 to 2000, spanning the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Using nuns per capita as a proxy for service provision, we estimate fertility effects on the order of 300 to 400 children per nun. Moreover, nuns outperform priests as a predictor of fertility, suggesting that changes in childrearing costs dominate changes in theology and norms. Reduced church attendance also predicts fertility decline, but only for Catholics, not for Protestants. Service provision and attendance complement each other, a finding consistent with club models of religion.

Marriage patterns can be well understood only if researchers employ measures of marriage rates that are appropriate for the question asked. In this paper, we provide evidence that the two classes of measures typically used in the literature, the number of new marriages per population and the share of individuals currently or ever married within an age range, generally lead to misleading inference when used to study the probability someone marries during his or her life or fertile life, how it evolves, and how it differs across populations. An alternative measure, the share of individuals ever married in a given cohort by a given age, is better suited for such studies. When researchers are interested in year-on-year changes in marriage probabilities of singles, age-specific marriage hazards are more reliable than population-based measures. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for studies of the drivers and consequences of marriage formation.

It is widely known that the Roma have been suffering persistent disadvantages. Yet, little empirical evidence exists. Using the censuses of 1977, 1992, 2002, and 2011, I provide a comprehensive overview of the past, present, and an outlook on the future of the Roma in Romania, home to a large and rapidly growing Roma community. Young Roma, in particular girls, are less likely to be attending school, indicating that lack of educational attainment is likely to persist. The Roma have worse housing conditions and face lower employment and higher unemployment levels. Amongst Roma, females are less likely to be employed than males. Oaxaca–Blinder decompositions of the ethnic and gender employment gaps reveal that the differences in employment cannot be fully explained by observables, such as age or education. Despite the seemingly dire picture, there are signs of improvement for more recent cohorts, as literacy rates have reached close to universal levels.