Volume 14 - Article 15 | Pages 331–380  

Education and childlessness: The relationship between educational field, educational level, and childlessness among Swedish women born in 1955-59

By Jan M. Hoem, Gerda Neyer, Gunnar Andersson

Abstract

In this paper we extend the concept of educational attainment to cover the field of education taken in addition to the conventional level of education attained. Our empirical investigation uses register records containing childbearing and educational histories of an entire cohort of women born in Sweden (about a quarter-million individuals). This allows us to operate with a high number of educational field-and-level combinations (some sixty in all). It turns out that the field of education serves as an indicator of a woman’s potential reproductive behavior better than the mere level attained.
We discover that in each field permanent childlessness increases some with the educational level, but that the field itself is the more important. In general, we find that women educated for jobs in teaching and health care are in a class of their own, with much lower permanent childlessness at each educational level than in any other major grouping. Women educated in arts and humanities or for religious occupations have unusually high fractions permanently childless.
Our results cast doubt on the assumption that higher education per se must result in higher childlessness. In our opinion, several factors intrinsic and extrinsic to an educational system (such as its flexibility, its gender structure, and the manner in which education is hooked up to the labor market) may influence the relationship between education and childlessness, and we would not expect a simple, unidirectional relationship.

Author’s Affiliation

• Jan M. Hoem - Stockholms Universitet, Sweden EMAIL
• Gerda Neyer - Stockholms Universitet, Sweden EMAIL
• Gunnar Andersson - Stockholms Universitet, Sweden EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Educational attainment and ultimate fertility among Swedish women born in 1955-59
Volume 14 - Article 16

Cohort fertility patterns in the Nordic countries
Volume 20 - Article 14

Generations and Gender Survey (GGS): Towards a better understanding of relationships and processes in the life course
Volume 17 - Article 14

Social differentials in speed-premium effects in childbearing in Sweden
Volume 14 - Article 4

A summary of Special Collection 3: Contemporary Research on European Fertility: Perspectives and Developments
Volume 10 - Article 13

Contemporary Research on European Fertility: Introduction
Special Collection 3 - Article 1

Lives saved, lives lost, and under-reported COVID-19 deaths: Excess and non-excess mortality in relation to cause-specific mortality during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden
Volume 50 - Article 1

Disentangling the Swedish fertility decline of the 2010s
Volume 47 - Article 12

Disentangling the complexity of family policies: SPIN data with an application to Lithuania and Sweden, 1995–2015
Volume 43 - Article 42

Parental leave policies and continued childbearing in Iceland, Norway, and Sweden
Volume 40 - Article 51

Life-table representations of family dynamics in the 21st century
Volume 37 - Article 35

Depressed fertility among descendants of immigrants in Sweden
Volume 36 - Article 39

The Contextual Database of the Generations and Gender Programme: Concept, content, and research examples
Volume 35 - Article 9

Marriage and divorce of immigrants and descendants of immigrants in Sweden
Volume 33 - Article 2

Immigrant fertility in Sweden, 2000-2011: A descriptive note
Volume 30 - Article 30

Recent fertility patterns of Finnish women by union status: A descriptive account
Volume 28 - Article 14

Economic Uncertainty and Family Dynamics in Europe: Introduction
Volume 27 - Article 28

Labor-market status, migrant status and first childbearing in Sweden
Volume 27 - Article 25

Should governments in Europe be more aggressive in pushing for gender equality to raise fertility? The second "NO"
Volume 24 - Article 10

Levels of recent union formation : Six European countries compared
Volume 22 - Article 9

The negative educational gradients in Romanian fertility
Volume 22 - Article 4

High Suburban Fertility: Evidence from Four Northern European Countries
Volume 21 - Article 31

Overview Chapter 8: The impact of public policies on European fertility
Volume 19 - Article 10

Summary and general conclusions: Childbearing Trends and Policies in Europe
Volume 19 - Article 2

Preface: Childbearing Trends and Policies in Europe
Volume 19 - Article 1

Marriage formation as a process intermediary between migration and childbearing
Volume 18 - Article 21

The reporting of statistical significance in scientific journals: A reflexion
Volume 18 - Article 15

Childbearing dynamics of couples in a universalistic welfare state: The role of labor-market status, country of origin, and gender
Volume 17 - Article 30

Migration and first-time parenthood: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan
Volume 17 - Article 25

Understanding parental gender preferences in advanced societies: Lessons from Sweden and Finland
Volume 17 - Article 6

Anticipatory analysis and its alternatives in life-course research: Part 2: Marriage and first birth
Volume 15 - Article 17

Anticipatory analysis and its alternatives in life-course research: Part 1: Education and first childbearing
Volume 15 - Article 16

Why does Sweden have such high fertility?
Volume 13 - Article 22

Childbearing patterns for Swedish mothers of twins, 1961-1999
Volume 11 - Article 15

Demographic trends in Sweden: An update of childbearing and nuptiality up to 2002
Volume 11 - Article 4

Children's experience of family disruption and family formation: Evidence from 16 FFS countries
Volume 7 - Article 7

Life-table representations of family dynamics in Sweden, Hungary, and 14 other FFS countries: A project of descriptions of demographic behavior
Volume 7 - Article 4

Fertility developments in Norway and Sweden since the early 1960s
Volume 6 - Article 4

Demographic trends in Sweden: Childbearing developments in 1961-2000, marriage and divorce developments in 1971-1999
Volume 5 - Article 3

Childbearing Developments in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from the 1970s to the 1990s: A Comparison
Special Collection 3 - Article 7

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Early unintended childbearing and unsecured debt in the United States
Volume 53 - Article 27    | Keywords: demography, fertility, gender, life course, mothers

Neighbors’ social attitudes predict variations in live births among the Amish of Holmes County, Ohio, United States
Volume 53 - Article 25    | Keywords: Amish, diffusion, fertility, household, proximity, religion, spatial analysis

Analysing migrant fertility using machine learning techniques: An application of random survival forest to longitudinal data from France
Volume 53 - Article 21    | Keywords: fertility, immigrants, machine learning, random survival forest, survival analysis

The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis
Volume 53 - Article 10    | Keywords: employment, fertility, immigrants, multi-channel sequence analysis, partnership, United Kingdom

Where do we go from here? Partnership-parenthood trajectories of cohabitation as first union during young adulthood in the United States
Volume 53 - Article 9    | Keywords: cohabitation, family inequality, fertility, marriage, race/ethnicity, transition to adulthood, union formation, United States of America