Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2017, Vol. 15

Two main factors arguably account for the fact that the negative gradient of fertility by educational attainment, which has been prevalent in developed countries in most of the 20th century, has recently become weaker in most Western countries: rising inequality and educational composition shifts that change the selectivity of educated mothers in terms of their preferences regarding career and children. In this paper I review how four drivers of inequality mediate the childbearing behavior of women of different educational backgrounds: first, the impact of rising employment polarization; second, the slowdown in gender convergence in labor participation and wages since the late 1990s; third, the fertility behavior of newly-arrived immigrants contingent on economic opportunities in destination countries; and fourth, widening gaps in resources children receive from parents with different levels of educational attainment. These gaps can have lasting intergenerational impact both in economic and social outcomes such as fertility and union formation.

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The decline in fertility has been linked to changes in educational attainment, particularly among women. Most studies on this topic have, however, focused on the impact of education on fertility timing. In this study, we examine the association between education and completed fertility; specifically, whether the educational gradient differs between women and men and between younger and older birth cohorts. Importantly, we investigate whether the educational gradient varies across European welfare systems. In our analysis, we applied multilevel modelling to individual-level data on fertility quantum in 25 countries from the European Social Survey. Overall, women and older cohorts had higher completed fertility rates than men and younger cohorts. The total number of children born to each individual decreased with increasing educational levels. This negative gradient was stronger among women than among men, and was weaker among younger than among older cohorts in western Europe. At the macro level, we found the weakest negative educational gradients in the social-democratic countries and in the post-Soviet states. The negative gradient was strongest in the Mediterranean countries and in the postcommunist countries.

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This paper utilizes an untapped data source containing information about completed fertility rates and many explanatory variables to elaborate the education-fertility link. Indicators of the theory of value change and rational choice theory are tested as possible explanations for this relationship. A Poisson regression is used to analyze data from the fourth wave of the European Values Study, with the number of children as the dependent variable. The association between education and fertility is found to be generally negative and stronger for women. The findings also indicate that opportunity costs and liberal values are stronger predictors of fertility among women than among men, and largely explain the more negative effect of education on women. Additional analysis of different welfare regimes reveals that the multivariate association between education and fertility remains significant only for the post-communist countries of Europe.

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A key demographic trend of the past decades has been the increasing share of first births occurring outside marriage. In analysing the factors associated with this trend, scholars have tended to focus on the characteristics of only one of the parents, typically the mother. This study examines the pathways to parenthood from a couple’s perspective, focusing on the role of educational pairings; i.e. the combination of his and her education. Using a multistate approach, we examine the connection between educational pairings and the occurrence of the first birth inside or outside marriage for 12 European countries. We find that the presence of at least one highly educated partner lowers the likelihood of a non-marital first birth. Strikingly, it does not matter whether it is he or she who has the highest level of education.

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Non-marital childbearing, especially within cohabitation, has become increasingly common in Britain, as in other Western countries. Nonetheless, births outside of marriage occur more frequently among individuals who are relatively disadvantaged in terms of income potential. Building upon previous research in family formation patterns, we examine differences by education and employment status in the proportion of marital and non-marital first births among British women and couples over the past two decades. In particular, we explore trends in educational differences in non-marital first births among women, and the relationship between the partners’ joint educational attainment and childbearing within cohabitation or within marriage. We find that there has been a steady increase in the share of first births to cohabiting couples of all educational groups, but that there has been no significant change in the share of births to unpartnered women. Overall, our results show that the differences by educational attainment in the likelihood of having a non-marital first birth did not increase significantly during the observed period. The findings also indicate that among cohabiting couples, the male partner’s education was negatively associated with childbearing, but that this relationship varied according to the woman’s educational attainment.

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The paper investigates fertility differentials by educational pairing in a cohort perspective. Based on Greek census data, the analysis generates empirical results in demographic areas that have yet to be fully explored, such as the quantum of completed cohort fertility by the partners’ educational levels (particularly among homogamous, hypergamous, and hypogamous couples), permanent childlessness among highly educated couples and the completed fertility patterns by birth order across different educational pairings. The findings confirm the shift from the traditional pattern of educational hypergamy (women marrying up) to hypogamy (the woman is more educated than the man) and to medium and high educational homogamy. They also document that the differentials in fertility patterns by couples’ levels of education appear to be related more to the tempo than the quantum of fertility, with the notable exception of the less educated homogamous couples; the completed fertility levels are significantly higher among this particular educational pairing than among the other educational pairings. The study suggests that educational pairing is likely to be an important topic in the investigation of human reproduction, particularly given that the increase in female educational levels and the shifts in traditional gender roles are leading to changes in fertility decisionmaking processes.

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The existing research on education and fertility has been enriched by studies that take into account educational field in addition to educational level. The present paper adds western Germany, which has exceptionally high levels of childlessness, to the list of cases for which comparable research has been conducted. The association between educational attainment, childlessness, and ultimate fertility among women born between 1955 and 1959 is examined using data from the 2008 German Microcensus. Despite the strong association with the level of education, childlessness also varies by educational field in western Germany. Consistent with findings from other countries, the results show that women educated in teaching and health care have the lowest rates of childlessness at each educational level, while women educated in administration, economics or social sciences have the highest levels of childlessness. Educational field and level account equally for variation in ultimate fertility.

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High fertility among immigrant groups is often analysed as an expression of specific cultural factors and/or lower social status. I hypothesise that differences in educational attainment explain the fertility differentials across immigrant groups and generations in the UK. Building on previous work, and using household survey data and the Own-Child reverse-survival method, the paper presents for the first time total fertility and age-specific fertility estimates by broad categories of educational attainment for immigrant and second-generation British Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, and Chinese women. I use these estimates to analyse how education influences childbearing across British Asian ethnic groups, and compare the fertility patterns of these groups to those of the whole UK population. High levels of educational attainment contribute substantially to the low overall fertility levels of Indian and Chinese women. Higher education also contributes to the lower fertility levels of the second-generation British Pakistani and Bangladeshi women relative to those of the immigrant generation. Some differences between groups remain after decomposing by educational level, which suggests that there are additional influencing factors. The results are discussed in the context of social theories on the incorporation of immigrants and minorities.

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Unlike achieved fertility, fertility intentions are often positively correlated with education. However, the conditions under which such a positive relationship exists are not yet well known. Using 86 pieces of research covering 13 European countries that were published between 1990 and 2011, we assess in a quantitative manner the temporal and cross-country variation in the relationship between educational attainment and reproductive intentions. Because of the sequential nature of reproductive decisions and the gendered nature of each individual’s life course, we look separately at childless women and women with one child, and compare women with men. Our findings show that both first and second birth intentions and educational attainment are positively correlated, but that this relationship – which is stronger for men than for women – tends to disappear when the normative value of a two-child family is reached. Structural labour market characteristics explain a good portion of the cross-country variance: the educational slope of first and second birth intentions is steeper in countries with large shares of women in vulnerable employment situations or in part-time employment, and is flatter in countries with gender-equal labour force participation and large shares of women in highly qualified employment.

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