Abstract
SummaryTheories predict that the timing of childbearing and number of children born are determined by multiple socio-economic factors. Despite this, many methods cannot investigate the interrelationships between these determinants, including the direct and indirect influence that they have on fertility over the life course. Here we use the parametric g-formula to examine the interdependent influences of time-varying socio-economic processes—education, employment status and partnership status—on fertility. To demonstrate this approach, we study a cohort of women who were born in the UK in 1970. Our results show that socio-economic processes play an important role in determining fertility, not only directly but also indirectly. We show that increasing attendance in higher education has a largely direct effect on early childbearing up to age 25 years, resulting in a substantial increase in childlessness. However, childbearing at later ages is dominated by an indirect effect of education on fertility, via partnership status and employment status, that is twice as large as the direct effect. We also use the g-formula to examine bias due to unobserved heterogeneity, and we demonstrate that our results appear to be robust. We conclude that the method provides a valuable tool for mediation analysis in studies of interdependent life course processes.
Highlights
The study of fertility can be seen as an on-going effort to understand the determinants of human reproduction (Balbo et al, 2012; Becker et al, 1960; Cleland and Wilson, 1987; Coale and Watkins, 1986; Davis and Blake, 1956; Hirschman, 1994)
There are a variety of interrelated socio-economic determinants—including partnership status, education and labour market participation—that influence childbearing over the life course (Balbo et al, 2012; Hirschman, 1994)
This paper focuses on fertility, we believe that more generally it represents the first use of the g-formula to study the mediating interrelationships between time-varying life course processes
Summary
The study of fertility can be seen as an on-going effort to understand the determinants of human reproduction (Balbo et al, 2012; Becker et al, 1960; Cleland and Wilson, 1987; Coale and Watkins, 1986; Davis and Blake, 1956; Hirschman, 1994). Socio-economic determinants of childbearing are a crucial component of most theories that have been used to explain fertility trends over the last 50 years (Becker, 1981; Esping-Andersen and Billari, 2015; Goldscheider et al, 2015; Hirschman, 1994; Lesthaeghe, 2010) and are. Wilson often seen as essential mechanisms in the expression and mediation of theoretical concepts (e.g. Andersson (2004), Forste and Tienda (1996), Johnson-Hanks et al (2011), Lesthaeghe (1983), Lorimer (1956), Milewski (2010), Neyer et al (2013) and van de Kaa (1987))
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