Work and Family Trajectories across Life Stages: Effects on Women’s First-Birth Intentions in Spain

Raquel Vidal-Ruiz , University of Salamanca
Alberto Del Rey Poveda, University of Salamanca
Rafael Grande, University of Málaga
Mengyao Wu, University of Hebei and Autonomous University of Barcelona

Understanding fertility intentions within a life-course framework offers valuable insight into how individuals navigate the growing uncertainty surrounding family formation. This study examines how employment and partnership trajectories shape first-birth intentions among childless women in Spain—a country combining persistently low fertility with comparatively high intended family sizes. Despite extensive research in Northern Europe, less is known about how life-course dynamics operate in Southern European settings characterised by structural constraints, economic insecurity, and delayed adulthood transitions. Drawing on the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey (N=2,197), we analyse three key life stages (ages 25–29, 32–37, and 40–45). Multichannel sequence analysis reconstructs monthly trajectories across work and family domains during the three years preceding the interview, and logistic regression models assess how these trajectories relate to short-term first-birth intentions, controlling for socio-demographic and attitudinal factors. Results reveal clear age-differentiated mechanisms. In early adulthood, stable employment—particularly when combined with cohabitation—supports stronger reproductive intentions. By the mid-thirties, partnership stability becomes the decisive condition, while among women in their forties, cohabiting and married women in secure jobs show the highest likelihood of intending a first child. These findings demonstrate that fertility intentions are not static preferences but dynamic outcomes of accumulated life-course experiences. By connecting the Theory of Conjunctural Action with the life-course framework, the study contributes to understanding how uncertainty, opportunity structures, and social timing interact to shape reproductive planning in very low-fertility contexts such as Spain.

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 Presented in Session P3. Families, Fertility, and the Life Course 3