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Who delays childbearing? The relationships between fertility, education and personality traits

Abstract

Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, this paper assesses the influence of personality traits on timing of motherhood and investigates whether, and in what way, personality traits can explain the differences in maternity timing between more and less educated women. We estimate a log-logistic model of the time to first child birth and show that there is a statistically significant relationship between the Big Five personality traits and timing to motherhood. The results also show that within the more educated group, women who have an average to high score on Openness have lower hazards of childbirth.

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File URL: ftp://ftp.dondena.unibocconi.it/WorkingPapers/Dondena_WP009.pdf
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Paper provided by "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in its series Working Papers with number 009.

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Length: 39 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:don:donwpa:009
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Keywords: childbearing postponement; time to first childbirth; personality traits; Big Five;

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  1. Wendy Sigle-Rushton, 2008. "England and Wales: stable fertility and pronounced social status differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 31307, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  2. Cigno, Alessandro & Ermisch, John, 1989. "A microeconomic analysis of the timing of births," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 737-760, April.
  3. Justin McCrary & Heather Royer, 2006. "The Effect of Female Education on Fertility and Infant Health: Evidence from School Entry Policies Using Exact Date of Birth," NBER Working Papers 12329, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Warren Miller, 1992. "Personality traits and developmental experiences as antecedents of childbearing motivation," Demography, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 265-285, May.
  5. repec:ese:iserwp:2005-04 is not listed on IDEAS
  6. Stephan Klasen & Andrey Launov, 2006. "Analysis of the determinants of fertility decline in the Czech Republic," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 25-54, February.
  7. Ermisch, John & Ogawa, Naohiro, 1994. "Age at Motherhood in Japan," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 393-420, November.
  8. Alissa Goodman & Greg Kaplan & Ian Walker, 2004. "Understanding the effects of early motherhood in Britain: the effects on mothers," IFS Working Papers W04/20, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
  9. Amalia Miller, 2011. "The effects of motherhood timing on career path," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 1071-1100, July.
  10. Wendy Sigle-Rushton, 2008. "England and Wales: Stable fertility and pronounced social status differences," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 19(15), pages 455-502, July.
  11. Vladimir M. Shkolnikov & Evgueni M. Andreev & René Houle & James W. Vaupel, 2004. "To concentration of reproduction in cohorts of US and European women," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2004-027, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
  12. Holger von der Lippe, 2006. "On the psychological determinants of fertility: a panorama of concepts and approaches, and evidence from eastern Germany," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2006-050, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
  13. Elizabeth Ty Wilde & Lily Batchelder & David T. Ellwood, 2010. "The Mommy Track Divides: The Impact of Childbearing on Wages of Women of Differing Skill Levels," NBER Working Papers 16582, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. Catherine Hakim, 2003. "A New Approach to Explaining Fertility Patterns: Preference Theory," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(3), pages 349-374.
  15. Peng Yu, 2006. "Higher Education, the Bane of Fertility? An investigation with the HILDA Survey," CEPR Discussion Papers 512, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
  16. Hans-Peter Kohler & Francesco C. Billari & José Antonio Ortega, 2002. "The Emergence of Lowest-Low Fertility in Europe During the 1990s," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 28(4), pages 641-680.
  17. Bloemen, Hans & Kalwij, Adriaan S., 2001. "Female labor market transitions and the timing of births: a simultaneous analysis of the effects of schooling," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 593-620, December.
  18. repec:ese:iserwp:2005-20 is not listed on IDEAS
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Cited by:

  1. Anna Baranowska & Anna Matysiak, 2011. "Does parenthood increase happiness? Evidence for Poland," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 307-325.
  2. Jessica Nisén & Pekka Martikainen & Jaakko Kaprio & Karri Silventoinen, 2013. "Educational Differences in Completed Fertility: A Behavioral Genetic Study of Finnish Male and Female Twins," Demography, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1399-1420, August.
  3. Shelly Lundberg, 2011. "Psychology and Family Economics," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(s1), pages 66-81, 05.
  4. Shelly Lundberg, 2012. "Personality and marital surplus," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, December.

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