Is Precarious Union Formation Making It More Difficult for Women with Low Educational Attainment to Enter Parenthood?

Nadia Sturm, University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
Alessandra Trimarchi, University of Messina
Jan Van Bavel, University of Leuven

Until recently, highly educated women were more likely to remain childless compared to women with lower educational attainment. However, this trend has been changing in several European countries. One reason for this shift may be the growing difficulty for women with lower educational qualifications to secure stable partnerships, which in turn may be linked to the rise of the dual-earner family model, where women’s income has become increasingly important for the family’s financial stability. Studies from individual countries, especially in the Nordic region, have shown increasing rates of childlessness and birth postponement among lower-educated women. Despite these findings, the overall trends across Europe remain unclear, and much of the research has focused on descriptive results rather than testing causality. This article aims to analyze how women’s educational level influences their likelihood of having a first child, and how changes in partnership patterns may explain this relationship. Using data from the European Social Survey from 2006 and 2018, covering 28 countries and birth cohorts from 1955 to 1985, the study finds that lower-educated women are less likely than higher educated women to have entered cohabitation or parenthood by age 35 in more recent cohorts in several European countries.

Keywords: Fertility, Families, Unions and Households, Comparative methods

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