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Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2026Special issue: Delayed reproduction
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400 https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at |
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2026, pp. , 2026/03/18
Special issue: Delayed reproduction
Contemporary women delay childbearing because achieving the normative prerequisites takes longer than previously due to structural changes such as increasing educational requirements for jobs, rising housing costs and growing employment precarity. Policymakers tend to be concerned about delayed reproduction because of its presumed link with lower completed fertility and potential economic consequences. From a humanistic perspective, a more fundamental issue related to delayed reproduction is that of reproductive justice. Rather than only increasing the number of desired births, reproductive justice prioritises ensuring that people are able to have the children they desire when they want to have them. One possible way to address delayed reproduction is to increase the use of medically assisted reproduction (MAR). Although increased use of MAR has the potential to enable more people to have the children they desire, it may also have undesired implications for reproductive justice because access to MAR is highly stratified.
Keywords: Delayed childbearing; Reproductive justice; Medically assisted reproduction; Social inequality