Volume 51 - Article 26 | Pages 809–822  

Higher incomes are increasingly associated with higher fertility: Evidence from the Netherlands, 2008–2022

By Daniël van Wijk

Abstract

Background: The relationship between income and fertility appears to be changing across rich societies at the national and regional levels. However, less is known about how the individual-level relationship between income and fertility has changed over time.

Objective: To examine how the relationship between income and fertility changed between 2008 and 2022 in the Netherlands, and how this trend differs by gender and parity.

Methods: Using register data on the full population, I link income quintiles in year t–2 to births in year t. Separate logistic regression models are estimated for each gender and year.

Results: Over the 2008–2022 period, income became increasingly positively associated with fertility. Although income effects are stronger for men than for women, the intensifying of the income effect over time is evident for both genders. These results are driven by first births. For higher-order births, income effects are much weaker and did not change over the study period.

Conclusions: Earning a high income constitutes an increasingly strong prerequisite for the transition to parenthood in the Netherlands. This likely contributes to the postponement of parenthood and the decline of fertility and suggests that low-income groups may increasingly be unable to fulfill their fertility desires.

Contribution: This study adds to a small number of studies that have shown that the individual-level relationship between income and fertility has become more positive over the past decades in rich societies, and it shows that this trend is driven by first rather than higher-order births.

Author’s Affiliation

• Daniël van Wijk - Nederlands Interdisciplinair Demografisch Instituut (NIDI), the Netherlands EMAIL

Similar articles in Demographic Research

Estimating post-war socioeconomic inequalities in lifespan in Austria (Vorarlberg) between 1946 and 1981 using newspaper obituary data
Volume 55 - Article 29    | Keywords: inequalities, lifespan, mortality, obituary data

Does the women’s employment–fertility U-shape emerge at the local level? Evidence from Italian municipalities
Volume 55 - Article 27    | Keywords: female employment, fertility, gender-equilibrium framework, Italy, local demography, local demography, low fertility

Educational pairings, partners’ economic resources, and second births in Austria
Volume 55 - Article 26    | Keywords: Austria, couples, cure model, fertility, hypogamy, second birth

Projection of family life courses of the descendants of immigrants in England and Wales using microsimulation
Volume 55 - Article 24    | Keywords: England, family, fertility, fertility, microsimulation, migrants, migrants, partnership, population projection, second generation, third generation, United Kingdom, Wales

The impact of reducing welfare obstacles on union formation and dissolution among the unemployed: Evidence from the Finnish Basic Income Experiment
Volume 55 - Article 21    | Keywords: cohabitation, family dynamics, Finland, income, marriage, union dissolution, welfare