Abstract
The formerly socialist countries of Europe have experienced a remarkable demographic transformation since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. On many dimensions of fertility and family formation, much of the region now looks like Western Europe: below-replacement fertility rates, rising age at first marriage and first birth, and high and increasing nonmarital births characterize many countries formerly distinguished by replacement-level fertility and early, near-universal marriage and childbearing. Some of these changes appear to be driven by increased opportunities and rising returns to education for women, but much research on these issues remains to be done.