Volume 25 - Article 16 | Pages 513–544  

The interplay of employment uncertainty and education in explaining second births in Europe

By Alícia Adserà

This article is part of the Special Collection 12 „Economic uncertainty and family dynamics in Europe“

Abstract

Periods of high and persistent unemployment since the late 1980s as well as an upward trend in the share of temporary employment characterize recent labor market instability in Europe. This paper analyzes the associations between timing to a second birth and changing economic environment. In particular, it focuses in understanding what dimensions of economic uncertainty affect women with different educational background. First it employs time varying measures of aggregate market conditions for women in twelve European countries as well as micro-measures of each woman’s labor market history in a proportional hazard model of second births. Both individual and aggregate unemployment as well as temporary employment are coupled with later second births. Unemployment slows down childbearing plans, particularly for the least educated, whereas holding a very short contract deters the most educated. Second, I use the 2006 Spanish Fertility Survey to show how education and the economic conditions - provincial unemployment and share of temporary employment- faced by women as they enter the labor market in their early twenties are connected with their timing to second births.

Author’s Affiliation

• Alícia Adserà - Princeton University, United States of America EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Gendered labor market adjustments around marital and cohabiting union transitions during Europe’s early cohabitation diffusion
Volume 53 - Article 15

Advanced or postponed motherhood? Migrants’ and natives’ gap between ideal and actual age at first birth in Spain
Volume 49 - Article 22

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