The gendered impacts of delayed parenthood on educational and labor market outcomes: a dynamic analysis of population-level effects over young adulthood

Abstract

Later parenthood is often beneficial for women, but less is known about its impact on men. As first births continue to occur later in life, it is important to understand whether this delay influences the educational and labor market outcomes of women and men differently, and how it changes the socioeconomic characteristics of children's parents at birth. However, education, employment, and fertility are linked, implying that complex models are required in order to analyze the time-varying impacts of delayed parenthood. We use dynamic longitudinal models and Finnish data to analyze how, and through which socioeconomic mechanisms, a material delay in parenthood is likely to influence educational and labor market outcomes over young adulthood. A three-year delay in young-adult parenthood for all women increases educational enrollment in their early 20s, employment in their late 20s, and partly due to higher education income in their 30s. The impact of the same delay for men is more modest, and almost negligible for their employment, suggesting that later parenthood exacerbates the educational advantage of women and attenuates the income advantage of men. However, it strengthens the socioeconomic standing of both men and women when they become parents, essentially due to the accumulation of effects.

The effect of fertility timing on women’s earnings at midlife in the UK

“…First, we found that a delay in the entry of motherhood leads to higher educational attainment of women. This finding echoes previous studies showing that education partially mediates the effect of fertility timing on women's more favourable labour market outcomes, although these studies have focused more strongly on younger ages (Blackburn et al, 1993;Buckles, 2008;Chandler et al, 1994;Nisén et al, 2019). However, the mediation analysis suggests that higher education contributes little to our understanding of the effect of fertility timing on earnings of women in midlife.…”

“…Moreover, only few studies so far studied the mediating effect of total number of children (Amuedo-Dorantes & Kimmel, 2005;Buckles, 2008;Herr, 2016;Karimi, 2014), given common sample restrictions to earlier ages. Lastly, this study contributes to the discrepant evidence on the labour market effects of fertility timing in Europe (Bratti & Cavalli, 2014;Cantalini et al, 2017;Fitzenberger et al, 2013;Frühwirth-Schnatter et al, 2016;Karimi, 2014;Kind & Kleibrink, 2012;Leung et al, 2016;Lundborg et al, 2017;Nisén et al, 2019;Picchio et al, 2021;Putz & Engelhardt, 2014;Rosenbaum, 2021). This study is situated in the country context of the United Kingdom (UK), where public support for working mothers is weak as compared to other European countries (Brooks, 2012;Sigle-Rushton, 2008), leading to the expectation that motherhood timing may be consequential for mothers' earnings more similar to the US, and potentially also in the long term.…”

“…According to Cantalini (2017), earnings of Swedish women do not vary at age 40 depending on the timing of motherhood, despite a delay being beneficial for cumulative lifetime earnings. Nisén et al (2019) found a positive effect of entering motherhood later on employment and income (until the early 30s) among Finnish women. 1…”

“…Further, most previous studies either adjust for educational differences or assess effect heterogeneity by education, but it is not clear what share education explains of the total effects of fertility timing. Available direct evidence would suggest a partial mediating effect (Blackburn et al, 1993;Chandler et al, 1994;Nisén et al, 2019), for instance of about one third of the total effect on wages in the US as reported by Buckles (2008). Moreover, only few studies have controlled for the total number of children (Herr, 2016;Karimi, 2014;Wilde et al, 2010), which is awaited given the common age restrictions in prior samples.…”

“…Triangulating results from three approaches using different identifying assumptions allows us to draw more robust conclusions. Second, this study focuses on women's earnings at midlife, considering outcomes measured at the ages of 46 or 42 (for women whose earnings at age 46 were not reported), as compared to many previous studies on the effect of motherhood timing that measured short-to medium-term outcomes, shortly after the first birth or when the women were still in their 30s (Amuedo-Dorantes & Kimmel, 2005;Bratti & Cavalli, 2014;Miller, 2011;Nisén et al, 2019;Taniguchi, 1999), or estimated average effects based on broad age ranges (Dumauli, 2019;Kind & Kleibrink, 2012;Putz & Engelhardt, 2014;Taniguchi, 1999). Investigating the effects of fertility timing on earnings at midlife is of particular interest because there are indications that fertility timing may have long-lasting effects on women's labour market outcomes, including their earnings (Buckles, 2008;Frühwirth-Schnatter et al, 2016;Herr, 2016;Hofferth, 1984;Karimi, 2014;Picchio et al, 2021).…”