IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/qseprr/362.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Timing and Duration of Women's Life Course Events: A Study of Mothers with at Least Two Children

Author

Listed:
  • Karen M. Kobayashi
  • Anne Martin-Matthews
  • Carolyn J. Rosenthal
  • Sarah Matthews

Abstract

This study examines the incidence and duration of women's life course events, specifically childbearing, by generational age structure within the family, birth cohort, educational status, and place of birth. Data from the 1995 General Social Survey (GSS) of Canada is used to estimate the incidence and socio-demographic correlates of age-structured families - age-condensed, normative, and age-gapped according to the mother's age at the birth of her first child. The results indicate that less than 10% of women with at least two children (N = 1,800) experience entrance into motherhood as a late life course event (e.g., at 30 years of age or older) as opposed to an early or "on-time" transition. Further, the mean birth interval is longer and family size is larger for age-condensed mothers versus normative and age-gapped mothers. Cohort differences regarding the incidence and duration of family life course events are also notable: older cohorts of women (1915-1930 and 1931-1946) have longer birth intervals and larger families than do women in younger cohorts (1946-1960 and 1961-1976). For level of educational attainment, women with less education marry at younger ages and have their first child at younger ages than their more educated counterparts. Finally, Canadian-born women marry and have their first child at younger ages compared to foreign-born women. Findings are discussed in the context of the literature on "age deadlines" and women's family life course events.

Suggested Citation

  • Karen M. Kobayashi & Anne Martin-Matthews & Carolyn J. Rosenthal & Sarah Matthews, 2001. "The Timing and Duration of Women's Life Course Events: A Study of Mothers with at Least Two Children," Quantitative Studies in Economics and Population Research Reports 362, McMaster University.
  • Handle: RePEc:mcm:qseprr:362
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/qsep/p/qsep362.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    life course events; cohort; GSS;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mcm:qseprr:362. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.