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

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Listed author(s):
  • Lara Tavares

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
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. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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 158-195, February.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Cigno, Alessandro & Ermisch, John, 1989. "A microeconomic analysis of the timing of births," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 737-760, April.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. Kaplan, Greg & Goodman, Alissa & Walker, Ian, 2004. "Understanding the Effects of Early Motherhood in Britain: The Effects on Mothers," IZA Discussion Papers 1131, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
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Cited by:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Shelly Lundberg, 2011. "Psychology and Family Economics," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(s1), pages 66-81, 05.
  5. 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.
  6. Francesca Luppi, 2016. "When is the Second One Coming? The Effect of Couple’s Subjective Well-Being Following the Onset of Parenthood," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 421-444, August.
  7. 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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