Her Education, His Education, and Fertility: Exploring How Educational Pairings Affect Couples’ Childbearing Behavior

• In Event: 231 - Section on Sociology of Population Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01.

Abstract

A growing body of literature is seeking to understand childbearing behavior from a couple’s perspective. Accumulating evidence suggests that the fertility-education relationship for women depends on the partner’s education, and vice versa. Specifically, recent evidence suggests that couples with two highly educated partners may have higher second or third birth hazards than couples with only one highly educated partner or two lower educated partners. Yet, this evidence is largely descriptive, and not much is known about the underlying mechanisms of why the educational pairings of the partners may be meaningful for their childbearing behavior. Our study aims at investigating these underlying mechanisms. We use a new and innovative panel study from Germany, the Pairfam, to test several mechanisms which may be driving these differences in childbearing behavior between couples of varying educational pairings. We specifically focus on differences between highly educated homogamous and other couples with one highly educated partner only. We look at differences in the division of housework, his and her values about gender and family, and how well the partners are matched on them, perceived conflict and conflict resolution strategies, and whether there are differences in how well the partners are matched on fertility preferences across educational pairings.

Authors

• Natalie S. Nitsche, Vienna Institute of Demography

• Jan Van Bavel, University of Leuven