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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. 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.
  2. Warren Miller, 1992. "Personality traits and developmental experiences as antecedents of childbearing motivation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 29(2), pages 265-285, May.
  3. Ermisch, John & Ogawa, Naohiro, 1994. "Age at Motherhood in Japan," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(4), pages 393-420, November.
  4. Stephan Klasen & Andrey Launov, 2006. "Analysis of the determinants of fertility decline in the Czech Republic," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(1), pages 25-54, February.
  5. Kaplan, Greg & Goodman, Alissa & Ian Walker, 2004. "Understanding The Effects Of Early Motherhood In Britain : The Effects On Mothers," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 706, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Fort, Margherita, 2005. "Education and timing of births: evidence from a natural experiment in Italy," ISER Working Paper Series 2005-20, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. Justin McCrary & Heather Royer, 2011. "The Effect of Female Education on Fertility and Infant Health: Evidence from School Entry Policies Using Exact Date of Birth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 158-95, February.
  12. 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.
  13. Nicoletti, Cheti & Tanturri, Maria Letizia, 2005. "Differences in delaying motherhood across European countries: empirical evidence from the ECHP," ISER Working Paper Series 2005-04, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
  14. Cigno, Alessandro & Ermisch, John, 1989. "A microeconomic analysis of the timing of births," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 737-760, April.
  15. 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.
  16. Amalia Miller, 2011. "The effects of motherhood timing on career path," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(3), pages 1071-1100, July.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
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Cited by:

  1. Shelly Lundberg, 2011. "Psychology and Family Economics," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(s1), pages 66-81, 05.
  2. Anna Baranowska & Anna Matysiak, 2011. "Does parenthood increase happiness? Evidence for Poland," Working Papers 38, Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics.
  3. Shelly Lundberg, 2012. "Personality and marital surplus," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, December.
  4. Kesavayuth, Dusanee & Rosenman, Robert E. & Zikos, Vasileios, 2015. "Personality and health satisfaction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 64-73.
  5. 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;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(4), pages 1399-1420, August.
  6. Le Moglie, Marco & Mencarini, Letizia & Rapallini, Chiara, 2015. "Is it just a matter of personality? On the role of subjective well-being in childbearing behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 453-475.

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