Birth Seasonality Patterns in Central and Eastern Europe during 1996-2012

Abstract

Fertility is characterised by seasonal and cyclical variations and also by another trend by geographic region and time span. This study aims to identify a birth seasonality model for post-communist Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and to analyse the features of birth seasonality model by CEE countries during the period 1996-2012. The method used to analyse the seasonal pattern of live births is the decomposition of time series using the moving average filter and the identification of seasonal variation by calculating seasonal factors. The results show that seasonality of live births in CEE countries is characterised by two peaks, one in July and another in September, except the Baltic countries and the Czech Republic.

Keywords

• birth pattern
• seasonality
• seasonal factors
• similarities
• Central and Eastern Europe