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Social Background and Becoming a Parent in Sweden: A Register-Based Study of the Effect of Social Background on Childbearing in Sweden

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  • Johan Dahlberg

Abstract

In this study, I introduce three measures of social background, namely occupational class, social status, and parental education, into fertility research. The objective is to examine whether these dimensions of social background affect entry into parenthood even after controlling for several potential pathways. I estimate event history models on first birth rates using data, which include all Swedes born in 1960. The results show that each of the three dimensions of social background has a clear bivariate association with the risk of becoming a parent, both for men and for women. Parental education has the strongest effect of class and status background, and the latter two do not affect the entry into fatherhood when the effects of all dimensions of social background are estimated simultaneously. Much of the remaining association between social background and fertility persists when controlling for own educational history, mother’s age at first birth, and father’s mean incomes. The results also show that higher social background leads to postponement of childbearing but that it has no effect on the final likelihood of ever become a parent. The influence of social background on fertility is stronger for women than for men. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

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  • Johan Dahlberg, 2015. "Social Background and Becoming a Parent in Sweden: A Register-Based Study of the Effect of Social Background on Childbearing in Sweden," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 417-444, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eurpop:v:31:y:2015:i:4:p:417-444
    DOI: 10.1007/s10680-015-9346-0
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    2. Jessica Nisén & Pekka Martikainen & Mikko Myrskylä & Karri Silventoinen, 2018. "Education, Other Socioeconomic Characteristics Across the Life Course, and Fertility Among Finnish Men," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 337-366, August.
    3. Kathrin Morosow & Heike Trappe, 2018. "Intergenerational transmission of fertility timing in Germany," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(46), pages 1389-1422.
    4. Alessandro Nallo & Daniel Oesch, 2023. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Family Dissolution: How it Varies by Social Class Origin and Birth Cohort," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-33, December.
    5. Johan Dahlberg & Martin Kolk, 2018. "Explaining Swedish sibling similarity in fertility: Parental fertility behavior vs. social background," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(32), pages 883-896.

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