IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1140.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Are the Determinants of Delayed Childbearing and Permanent Childlessness in the United States?

Author

Listed:
  • David E. Bloom
  • James Trussell

Abstract

This paper presents estimates of delayed childbearing and permanent childlessness in the United States and the determinants of those phenomena.The estimates are derived by fitting the Coale-McNeil marriage model to survey data on age at first birth and by letting the parameters of the model depend on covariates. Substantively, the results provide evidence that the low first birth fertility rates experienced in the 1970's were due to both delayed childbearing and to increasing levels of permanent childlessness. The results also indicate that (a) delayed childbearing is less prevalent among blackwomen than among non-black women, (b) education and labor force participation are important determinants of delayed childbearing, (c) the influence of education and labor force participation on delayed childbearing seems to beincreasing across cohorts, (d) education is positively associated with heterogeneity among women in their age at first birth, (d) the dispersion of age at first birth is increasing across cohorts, (f) race has an insignificant effecton childlessness, and (g) education is positively associated with childlessness, with the effect of education increasing and reaching strikingly highlevels for the most recent cohorts.

Suggested Citation

  • David E. Bloom & James Trussell, 1983. "What Are the Determinants of Delayed Childbearing and Permanent Childlessness in the United States?," NBER Working Papers 1140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1140
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1140.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Bloom, 1982. "What’s happening to the age at first birth in the United States? A study of recent cohorts," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 19(3), pages 351-370, August.
    2. S. Morgan, 1982. "Parity-specific fertility intentions and uncertainty: the United States, 1970 to 1976," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 19(3), pages 315-334, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Henriette Engelhardt, 2004. "Fertility Intentions and Preferences: Effects of Structural and Financial Incentives and Constraints in Austria," VID Working Papers 0402, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    2. Douglas Ewbank, 1989. "Estimating birth stopping and spacing behavior," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(3), pages 473-483, August.
    3. Maria Rita Testa & Stuart Gietel-Basten, 2014. "Certainty of meeting fertility intentions declines in Europe during the 'Great Recession'," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(23), pages 687-734.
    4. Mogi, Ryohei & del Mundo, Michael, 2018. "Remaining childless or postponing first birth?," SocArXiv hy98w, Center for Open Science.
    5. Arianna Gatta & Francesco Mattioli & Letizia Mencarini & Daniele Vignoli, 2019. "Employment Uncertainty and Fertility Intentions: Stability or Resilience?," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2019_12, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".
    6. Alison Gemmill, 2019. "From Some to None? Fertility Expectation Dynamics of Permanently Childless Women," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(1), pages 129-149, February.
    7. Nan L. Maxwell, 1987. "Influences On The Timing Of First Childbearing," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 5(2), pages 113-122, April.
    8. Kuhnt, Anne-Kristin & Buhr, Petra, 2016. "Biographical risks and their impact on uncertainty in fertility expectations: A gender-specific study based on the German Family Panel," Duisburger Beiträge zur soziologischen Forschung 2016-03, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of Sociology.
    9. Letitia E. Kotila & Claire M. Kamp Dush, 2011. "High father involvement and supportive coparenting predict increased same-partner and decreased multipartnered fertility," Working Papers 1311, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    10. Carl Schmertmann & Emilio Zagheni & Joshua R. Goldstein & Mikko Myrskylä, 2014. "Bayesian Forecasting of Cohort Fertility," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(506), pages 500-513, June.
    11. Okka Zimmermann, 2013. "Temporary Destandardisation Of Partnership Formation And Continuous Standardisation Of Fertility In Three Ggs Countries," Demográfia English Edition, Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, vol. 56(5), pages 62-88.
    12. Booth, Heather, 2006. "Demographic forecasting: 1980 to 2005 in review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 547-581.
    13. Jeremy R. Porter, 2012. "Cultural vs. Economic: Re-Visiting the Determinants of Fertility at a Sub-National Level in the U.S, 1990 - 2000," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 2(6), pages 91-108, November.
    14. Frank Heiland & Alexia Prskawetz & Warren C. Sanderson, 2008. "Are Individuals’ Desired Family Sizes Stable? Evidence from West German Panel Data," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 24(2), pages 129-156, June.
    15. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:205-271 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Máire Ní Bhrolcháin & Éva Beaujouan, 2011. "Uncertainty in fertility intentions in Britain, 1979-2007," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 99-129.
    17. Frank Heiland & Alexia Prskawetz & Warren C. Sanderson, 2005. "Do the More-Educated Prefer Smaller Families?," VID Working Papers 0503, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    18. Tomáš Sobotka, 2009. "Sub-Replacement Fertility Intentions in Austria [Intentions de fécondité inférieures au seuil de remplacement en Autriche]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 25(4), pages 387-412, November.
    19. Maria Rita Testa & Stuart Basten, 2012. "Have Lifetime Fertility Intentions Declined During the “Great Recession”?," VID Working Papers 1209, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    20. Ian M. Timæus & Tom A. Moultrie, 2008. "On Postponement and Birth Intervals," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 34(3), pages 483-510, September.
    21. Petra Buhr & Katharina Lutz & Timo Peter, 2018. "The influence of the number of siblings on expected family size in a cohort of young adults in Germany," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(10), pages 315-336.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:1140. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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/nberrus.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.