Abstract
Despite a long tradition of studying the relationship between education and fertility outcomes less is known about how educational differences in fertility intentions are formed and translated into achieved births over the life course. This paper provides new insights using data from a large cohort study and Miller's Traits-Desires-Intentions-Behaviour framework for understanding childbearing. We examine how parental aspirations for education, educational ability in childhood, and educational attainment in young adulthood relate to: males' and females' fertility desires in adolescence; fertility intentions in early adulthood; and educational differences in the achievement of fertility intentions. We conclude that family building preferences expressed in adolescence, especially those for the timing of entry into parenthood are shaped by parental socio-economic background, mediated through educational ability and parental expectations for education. In young adulthood, no clear, consistent educational gradient in intended family size is found. However, there is a negative educational gradient in the likelihood of achieving intended births by age 46, especially for women. The findings indicate the importance of educational differences in employment and partnership behaviour in mediating these relationships.
Highlights
There is evidence of a u-shape relationship of education with fertility, whereby it is those with no qualifications and those with degrees who are more likely to have three or more children providing some limited support for our final hypothesis (4c) that the association between education and the fulfilment of fertility intentions will be more positive for men than women
The challenge is to place these processes within the dynamic life course where fertility outcomes need to be understood in the context of both childhood socialisation and in relation to other life course behaviours such as partnership formation and employment (Morgan & Bachrach, 2011)
We have shown that family building preferences are formed early on in the life course
Summary
Increased female education has been seen as one of the most important factors affecting levels of fertility (Axinn & Barber, 2001; Basu, 2002; Rindfuss, Bumpass, & John, 1980), operating either via a postponement effect of enrolment (Blossfeld & Huinink, 1991), economic opportunity costs of leaving the labour market to care for children There remain significant educational differences in achieved fertility with highly educated women on average having smaller mean actual family size. The analysis of educational differences in the relationship between intentions and outcomes is made complex by the presence of recursive relationships e.g. between economic activity status and childbearing, anticipatory effects e.g. highly educated women might remain single since they can see how difficult it might be to combine work and family role, and the presence of unmeasured third variables e.g. economic inactivity and childlessness can both be related to underlying poor physical or mental health (De Wachter & Neels, 2011). We move beyond some previous work in explicitly incorporating uncertain fertility preferences and intentions into our analyses
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