The limited effect of increasing educational attainment on childlessness trends in twentieth-century Europe, women born 1916–65

Abstract

During the twentieth century, trends in childlessness varied strongly across European countries while educational attainment grew continuously across them. Using census and large-scale survey data from 13 European countries, we investigated the relationship between these two factors among women born between 1916 and 1965. Up to the 1940 birth cohort, the share of women childless at age 40+ decreased universally. Afterwards, the trends diverged across countries. The results suggest that the overall trends were related mainly to changing rates of childlessness within educational groups and only marginally to changes in the educational composition of the population. Over time, childlessness levels of the medium-educated and high-educated became closer to those of the low-educated, but the difference in level between the two better educated groups remained stable in Western and Southern Europe and increased slightly in the East.

Childlessness in Europe: Reconstructing Long-Term Trends Among Women Born in 1900–1972

“…A wide range of social and economic factors contributed to this pattern of universal family formation: low average age at marriage and childbearing, negative attitudes towards childlessness, insufficient availability of modern contraception (which resulted in large numbers of unplanned pregnancies and "shotgun marriages"), the relative predictability of the life course, the lack of labour market competition, and the relatively consistent availability of institutional childcare (Sobotka 2011. With some exceptions (especially in Romania), childlessness was rare among women of all educational groups, suggesting that labour market participation did not pose a major barrier to family life in the region (Brzozowska et al 2016). Some CEE countries stand out for their particularly low levels of childlessness: among women in Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and Russia who were born in the 1950s (and thus had their first child mainly in the 1970s or the 1980s) the levels of childlessness were 5-6 %; or just a few percentage points above the estimated level of lifetime sterility (Leridon 2008).…”

“…As the censuses often collect information on a large number of socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the population, these data can also be used to conduct a detailed analysis of the main factors associated with childlessness (e.g., Burkimsher and Zeman, Chap. 6, in this volume), including educational attainment (Brzozowska et al 2016).…”

Cohort fertility decline in low fertility countries: Decomposition using parity progression ratios

“…By contrast, women born three decades later, around 1970, had on average fewer than two children in all the highly developed countries except Australia, France, New Zealand, Norway, the United States, and a few smaller European countries (Council of Europe 2005;Frejka, Jones, and Sardon 2010;Sobotka et al 2015;Van Bavel et al 2015;Human Fertility Database 2016). This fall in fertility was accompanied by a continuous decline in the share of large families (with three and more children), and, especially among women born in the 1960s, by increasing proportions of women without children or with one child (e.g., Schoen 2006;Frejka and Sardon 2007;Frejka 2008;Frejka, Jones, and Sardon 2010;Sobotka 2017;Beaujouan, Brzozowska, and Zeman 2016;Human Fertility Database 2016;Van Bavel et al 2015). So far, no systematic analysis has been conducted of how the changes in parityspecific components of fertility contributed to the decline in completed cohort fertility rates (CFR) in low fertility countries.…”

From never partnered to serial cohabitors: Union trajectories to childlessness

“…Childlessness, defined as reaching the end of one's reproductive life without entering parenthood, has increased in most European societies, although the trends vary substantially (Beaujouan, Brzozowska, and Zeman 2016;Miettinen et al 2015). These developments have fuelled interest in the reasons for childlessness (Kreyenfeld and Konietzka 2017).…”