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Do income and marriage mediate the relationship between cognitive ability and fertility? Data from Swedish taxation and conscriptions registers for men born 1951–1967

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  • Kolk, Martin
  • Barclay, Kieron

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests a positive association between fertility and cognitive ability among Swedish men. In this study we use data on 18 birth cohorts of Swedish men to examine whether and how the relationship between cognitive ability and patterns of childbearing are mediated by income, education and marriage histories. We examine whether the expected positive associations between cognitive ability and life course income can explain this positive association. We also explore the role of marriage for understanding the positive gradient between cognitive ability and fertility. To address these questions we use Swedish population administrative data that holds information on fertility histories, detailed taxation records, and data from conscription registers. We also identify siblings in order to adjust for confounding by shared family background factors. Our results show that while cognitive ability, education, income, marriage, and fertility, are all positively associated with each other, income only explains a part of the observed positive gradient between fertility and cognitive ability. We find that much of the association between cognitive ability and fertility can be explained by marriage, but that a positive association exists among both ever-married and never-married men. Both low income and low cognitive ability are strong predictors of childlessness and low fertility in our population. The results from the full population persist in the sub-sample of brothers.

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  • Kolk, Martin & Barclay, Kieron, 2021. "Do income and marriage mediate the relationship between cognitive ability and fertility? Data from Swedish taxation and conscriptions registers for men born 1951–1967," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:84:y:2021:i:c:s0160289620300921
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2020.101514
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    9. Kathrin Morosow & Martin Kolk, 2020. "How Does Birth Order and Number of Siblings Affect Fertility? A Within-Family Comparison Using Swedish Register Data," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(2), pages 197-233, April.
    10. Kieron Barclay & Martin Kolk, 2020. "The Influence of Health in Early Adulthood on Male Fertility," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 46(4), pages 757-785, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Steffen Peters, 2022. "The prospective power of personality factors for family formation and dissolution processes among males: evidence from Swedish register data," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2022-037, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    2. Jesper Lindmarker & Martin Kolk & Sven Drefahl, 2025. "Cohabitation and Mortality Across the Life Course: A Longitudinal Cohort Study with Swedish Register-Based Sibling Comparisons," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 41(1), pages 1-48, December.
    3. Thompson, Kristina & Portrait, France & Lindeboom, Maarten, 2022. "Is paternal height related to fertility outcomes? Evidence from the Netherlands during the secular growth trend," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).

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