Education and Family Formation across Europe: Are Women with Lower Educational Attainment Less Likely to Enter Stable Unions and Parenthood?

Nadia Sturm

Recent studies show that fertility declines increasingly among lower-educated women, suggesting a weakening or even reversal of the negative educational gradient of fertility in Europe. One possible explanation is that cohabiting unions - still a precondition for childbearing - have become less frequent and stable among lower-educated women. This, in turn, may be related to the rise of the dual earner family model, and increasing earnings and labour market participation of higher-educated women. This study examines how women’s educational level influences the likelihood of becoming a parent and whether this relationship is mediated by (1) entry into cohabiting unions and (2) union instability. Using data from the Generations and Gender Survey (Round II) for nine European countries, I analyze women’s partnership and childbearing histories for cohorts 1970 to 1988. Applying logistic and discrete-time event-history analysis, I estimate both the timing and eventual transition to first union and first birth. Utilizing multi-process event-history analysis, I jointly model both processes controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. Preliminary results show that lower-educated women are significantly less likely than higher-educated peers to enter a cohabiting union by age 35 in most countries, confirming growing marginalization on the partnering market. In Denmark, higher-educated women are now more likely to have a first birth by age 35, while other countries no longer show significant differences between educational groups, indicating a shift in the traditional educational gradient of fertility. Ultimately, the analysis will include measures of union instability, apply structural equation modeling, and extend to other GGS countries.

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