In high-income countries, completed fertility has declined substantially among the post baby boom cohorts (Zeman et al. 2014). While such decline may be due to several factors, the expansion in women’s education is often recognised as one of its most important drivers. In virtually all developed countries, an extensive literature has consistently found support for an inverse relationship between education and fertility. Reasons for this include the increased opportunity cost of having children, different preferences regarding ideal family size, changes in childbearing timing and gender values. 

With the only exception of Finland, the educational gradient in relation to completed family size is clearly visible in the data displayed in Figure 1: completed fertility tends to be higher among lower educated women. At the same time, an overall downward trend can be identified across all groups, irrespective of the level of education. 

This raises a key question with respect to the education-fertility relationship: to what extent does the decrease in fertility reflect changes in the educational composition vs. changes in fertility behaviour within educational categories? In a recent study, we disentangle the relative contribution of these two components in eleven low-fertility countries (Lazzari et al. 2021).

Permanent differences or convergence?

The size of the educational gradient varies across settings and important differences exist due to contextual factors, such as a country’s welfare regime.  In Australia, Ireland, and Spain, educational groups have experienced analogous fertility declines, and maintained similar relative fertility levels over time. By contrast, in South Korea completed family size across educational strata has been gradually converging towards very low fertility levels. In Finland, there is no evidence of a negative association between education and fertility, while in Hungary women have experienced a widening of the educational differentials. Overall, these patterns reflect the complexity of the link between education and fertility.

When the completed fertility rate is decomposed into compositional and behavioural components it appears that, overall, educational expansion is a relatively modest force behind fertility decline, particularly in countries and periods characterised by small and diminishing differentials across educational groups (Figure 2). By contrast, the persistence of educational differentials in cohort fertility coupled with women’s educational expansion are associated with a larger compositional contribution. The decomposition method is explained in Lazzari et al. (2021).

Number of children

Different combinations of changes in first, second, third and higher order births can lower fertility levels. As displayed in Figure 3, declines in third and higher-order births were the most important component of fertility change in most cohorts and educational groups, while changes in the transition to first and second births varied substantially across countries and by education. 

Interestingly, in Hungary, Ireland, South Korea and Spain, distinct fertility developments by education are observed among older cohorts. Among the most recent cohorts, however, more similar patterns have emerged. In all educational groups, the share of women remaining childless has increased, and the share of those transitioning to a second child has declined. This may reflect the existence of increasing market pressures and constraints to childbearing of women with low education in these settings.

Future prospects

As tertiary-educated women already represent a large share of the overall population, it is clear that the importance of the compositional component as a driver of fertility decline will decrease. Highly educated women today represent a vast and heterogeneous group, while low educated women are a very selected category (Adsera 2017). The future study of the link between education and fertility should include alternative measures to define educational groups and develop alternative theories to explain fertility patterns by education, as the educational gradient has substantially declined or even disappeared in some countries.  

References

Adsera, A. (2017). The future of fertility of highly educated women: The role of educational composition shifts and labour market barriers, Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 15: 19–25.

Lazzari, E., Mogi, R., and Canudas-Romo, V. (2021). Educational composition and parity contribution to completed cohort fertility change in low-fertility settings. Population Studies, 75(2): 153-167.

Zeman, Krystof, Zuzanna Brzozowska, Tomás Sobotka, Éva Beaujouan, and Anna Matysiak. 2014. Cohort Fertility and Education Database. Methods Protocol.

The post Educational expansion and completed family size in low fertility countries appeared first on N-IUSSP.

Postponement (Kohler et al. 2002) and foregoing (Kreyenfeld and Konietzka 2017) of parenthood have been important family demographic trends of the past half-century in the developed world. The common indexes used to describe first birth patterns (such as age-specific first birth rates, mean age at first birth, proportion of women remaining childless), tend to focus on a specific dimension (timing or quantum) but risk losing sight of the general picture. We propose an alternative measure, the cross-sectional average length of life childless, or CALC (Mogi et al. 2021).

How many of their reproductive years do women spend childless?

Table 1 shows CALC in 2015 in 11 selected countries where CALC tends to be high, frequently representing more than half of a woman’s reproductive life (between ages 12 and 49), i.e. more than 19 years. Japan and Spain record the highest values: in 2015, women in these countries spent, on average, almost 60 per cent of their reproductive lives without children (23.2 and 22.5 years in Japan and Spain, respectively). In Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Sweden, CALC ranges between 19.2 and 20.9 years. Sweden lies in the middle, at 19.8 years. The lowest values are found in Belarus and the United States, where women remain childless for 16.0 and 17.5 years, respectively.

These examples clearly illustrate that CALC may reflect trends in both timing and quantum of first births. For instance, Japan and Spain are characterized by both late timing of first births as well as high levels of lifetime childlessness, while early timing and low levels of lifetime childlessness are common in Belarus and the United States.

Contribution of ages and cohorts to the difference in CALC

Japan

Using Sweden (median value) as a standard of reference, we can better appreciate how ages and cohorts contribute to high or low values of our index (CALC) in three selected cases: Hungary, Japan, and the United States (see also the interactive online application: https://rmogi.shinyapps.io/CALC/).

Sweden, our country of reference, is characterized by moderate levels of lifetime childlessness, and average-to-late timing of first births, with a notable catch-up at higher ages (Andersson et al. 2009, Kreyenfeld and Konietzka 2017). Compared to their Swedish counterparts, Japanese women have a greater risk of being childless across all reproductive ages and cohorts, and their CALC was particularly high in 2015 (Figure 1). Younger cohorts of women in Japan are contributing to an even higher expectation of childless life from increasingly early ages, probably a reflection of their later marriage and lower marriage rates (NIPSSR 2019).

Sweden, our country of reference, is characterized by moderate levels of lifetime childlessness, and average-to-late timing of first births, with a notable catch-up at higher ages (Andersson et al. 2009, Kreyenfeld and Konietzka 2017). Compared to their Swedish counterparts, Japanese women have a greater risk of being childless across all reproductive ages and cohorts, and their CALC was particularly high in 2015 (Figure 1). Younger cohorts of women in Japan are contributing to an even higher expectation of childless life from increasingly early ages, probably a reflection of their later marriage and lower marriage rates (NIPSSR 2019).

United States

The decomposition of the difference in CALC between the United States and Sweden reflects the impact of high first birth rates at young ages in the United States and the catching-up process of childbearing in Sweden at later ages (at least among women born between the late 1960s and mid-1970s; Figure 2). In the younger cohorts, born in the mid-1970s or later, there are indications that the subgroup difference in life spent without children at reproductive ages in the United States is intensifying. Indeed, there is significant variation in first birth behaviour by race/ethnicity in the United States, because Hispanic white and Non-Hispanic African American women continue to enter motherhood earlier than Non-Hispanic white women (Sullivan 2005).

Hungary

Finally, the decomposition of the difference in CALC between Hungary and Sweden is particularly interesting because it shows how different cohorts may be affected simultaneously at different ages, contrasting period and cohort effects on first births. In this case, the period effect occurs in the years following the onset of the Great Recession in 2007, which strongly affected fertility rates in many Central and Eastern European countries (Matysiak et al. 2020), and it seems probable that the recession is contributing to a longer expectation of childless life at reproductive ages in Hungary than in Sweden.

Concluding remarks

To conclude, CALC is a newly introduced measure that applies core demographic life table methodology to first births, shedding light on first birth patterns and trends and related cross-country differences. Further, visualization of the decomposition of differences between two CALCs provides a tool for illustrating how different cohorts and ages contribute to cross-country differences in the length of life childless during reproductive ages. This characteristic of CALC may be useful for policymakers, for instance, because specific population subgroups still in their reproductive ages may be identified and targeted, if considered necessary.

References

Kohler, H. P., Billari, F. C., & Ortega, J. A. (2002). The emergence of lowest-low fertility in Europe during the 1990s. Population and Development Review, 28(4), 641–680.

Kreyenfeld, M., & Konietzka, D. (2017). Childlessness in Europe: Contexts, Causes, and Consequences. Springer.

Matysiak, A., Sobotka, T., & Vignoli, D. (2020). The Great Recession and fertility in Europe: A sub-national analysis. European Journal of Population, 37, 29­–64.

Mogi, R., Nisén, J., & Canudas-Romo, V. (2021). Cross-sectional average length of life childless. Demography, 58(1), 321–344.

National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (2019). Recent demographic statistics. National Institute of Population and Social Security Research [in Japanese].

Sullivan, R. (2005). The age pattern of first-birth rates among U.S women: The bimodel 1990s. Demography, 42(2), 259–273.

The post Average length of life spent childless. Cross-sectionally speaking appeared first on N-IUSSP.