Volume 37 - Article 12 | Pages 325–362
Childlessness and fertility by couples' educational gender (in)equality in Austria, Bulgaria, and France
Abstract
Background: In modern, highly developed countries the association between education and fertility seems to be equivocal: A negative influence of education mainly applies to women, while among men the correlation is often positive or negligible. Although the gender differences have been examined in depth, couples’ procreative behaviour treated as the result of a conflict between male and female characteristics is still understudied.
Objective: This study aims to investigate couples’ reproductive behaviour among contemporary European populations with regard to (in)equality between partners’ educational levels and the joint educational resources of a couple. Various measures of educational endogamy are considered.
Methods: The hurdle zero-truncated Poisson model within the Bayesian framework is applied. The data comes from the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey for Austria, Bulgaria, and France.
Results: Homogamous low-educated partners have, on average, the highest fertility. The highly educated postpone childbearing and have a smaller number of children in all countries except France, where their completed fertility does not differ from that of other unions. The effect of hypergamy is insignificant and is thus similar to homogamy in medium education. Hypogamy negatively influences fertility in Bulgaria and Austria, while in France the effect is insignificant.
Conclusions: The small variation in fertility due to couple-level education observed in France indicates that proper institutional support for families might help couples overcome possible obstacles and enhance fertility for all educational profiles.
Contribution: This study provides a perspective on the relationship between reproductive behaviour and educational pairing in varying country-specific contexts. It reaches key conclusions on contemporary fertility regarding both childlessness and parenthood and their association with couples’ different educational profiles.
Author's Affiliation
- Beata Osiewalska - Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Krakowie, Poland EMAIL
Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research
Partners’ empowerment and fertility in ten European countries
Volume 38 - Article 49
Are daughters’ childbearing intentions related to their mothers’ socio-economic status?
Volume 35 - Article 21
Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research
The importance of education for understanding variability of dementia onset in the United States
Volume 50 - Article 26
| Keywords:
dementia,
education,
lifespan variability,
modal age,
morbidity compression
Housework time and task segregation: Revisiting gender inequality among parents in 15 European countries
Volume 50 - Article 19
| Keywords:
cross-national comparison,
gender,
housework
The big decline: Lowest-low fertility in Uruguay (2016–2021)
Volume 50 - Article 16
| Keywords:
adolescent fertility,
birth order,
fertility,
Latin America,
ultra-low fertility,
Uruguay
Religious affiliation and child mortality in Ireland: A country-wide analysis based on the 1911 Census
Volume 50 - Article 14
| Keywords:
child mortality,
indirect estimation methods,
Ireland,
literacy,
OLS regressions,
place of residence,
religious affiliation,
socioeconomic status
Cohort fertility of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union
Volume 50 - Article 13
| Keywords:
age at first birth,
assimilation,
cohort analysis,
fertility,
immigration,
parity,
religiosity
Cited References: 58
Download to Citation Manager
PubMed
Google Scholar