ASPECTS OF FAMILY FORMATION AND ILLEGITIMACY IN THE REGIONS OF AUSTRIA

In Austria, the frequency of extra-marital birth has traditionally been high, but large local and regional variations have persisted to the present day. However, when all pre-marital conceptions are taken into account this variation is somewhat reduced, and two different models of family formation are found. In the Eastern parts of Austria, in Lower Austria, and especially in the Burgenland the rule is that pre-marital conceptions are legitimised by the marriage of the parents before the child is born, and marriage is more frequent and occurs at younger ages than elsewhere. In Central Austria, Carinthia, and the Salzburg region, marriage tends to occur later and less frequently and often legitimizes one or more children who have already been born to the union. During the last 20 years, the numbers of both marriages and illigitimate births have fluctuated considerably in Austria, partly because of changes in the tax treatment of parties to first marriages, and because of the payment of social benefits to lone mothers. In the second part of this paper, we consider how people in different regions have reacted to successive measures that favoured marriage or lone parenthood. It is shown that not only have illegitimate births increased again in regions where they have traditionnally been frequent, but that they have also become more common in areas where previously such tradition had not existed.