Partners’ Educational Characteristics and Fertility: Disentangling the Effects of Earning Potential and Unemployment Risk on Second Births

Trimarchi, Alessandra; Bavel, Jan Van

doi:10.1007/s10680-019-09537-w

Cited by 10 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Studies that have applied such a perspective have done so for educational homogamy, earnings, or religion (Bergsvik et al 2019;Matysiak et al, 2018;Nitsche et al, 2018;Osiewalska 2018, Trimarchi andVan Bavel 2019). This work adds to the current understanding of the interplay of partners' job stability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Consequently, we have observed new arrangements for partners' participation in the labor market (Ruggles 2015) and new patterns of assortative mating (Van Bavel et al, 2018). One of the most-studied changes related to women's educational expansion has been the postponement of fertility, which in many contexts has resulted in low fertility (Billari and Kohler 2004, Kohler et al 2002, Trimarchi and Van Bavel 2019, Van Bavel 2012. This new landscape is expected to result in more egalitarian couples and a small but increasing number of hypogamous couples (i.e., couples in which the woman has higher status than the man) as opposed to hypergamous couples (i.e., couples in which the man has higher status than the woman).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rethinking Couples’ Fertility in Spain: Do Partners’ Relative Education, Employment, and Job Stability Matter?

Bueno

Román

2021

European Sociological Review

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Fertility decisions among Spanish couples have been strongly driven by economic uncertainty in a context in which dual-earner couples have become the norm and in which the gender gap in education has reversed. However, the partners’ respective jobs do not carry the same weight in such decisions. We explore how homogamous or heterogamous education, employment, and job stability between partners can provide insights into couples’ fertility decisions using data from 2002 to 2018 Spanish Labor Force Survey. The results reveal that among heterogamic couples, the woman’s job stability more than the man’s is key for childbearing decisions, while no differences are found in fertility levels for educationally heterogamous partners. In homogamous couples, the results suggest a reversal of the negative education-fertility gradient and show that highly educated couples have a higher likelihood of having a child than less-educated couples. Dual-earner couples are more likely to be parents than couples affected by unemployment and as likely as those meeting the declining male breadwinner, female caregiver model. We conclude that the role played by female employment in fertility trumps the role played by gender essentialism, highlighting the nonexclusive importance of gender egalitarianism, female employment, and economic uncertainty to fertility.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Couples’ Fertility in Spain: Do Partners’ Relative Education, Employment, and Job Stability Matter?

Bueno

Román

2021

European Sociological Review

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“…unions where the man is more educated than the woman (Van Bavel et al, 2018 ). Recent studies show that, in some contexts, hypogamy, relative to hypergamy, is not necessarily associated with a higher dissolution risk (Schwartz & Han, 2014 ; Theunis et al, 2018 ) or lower fertility (Nitsche et al, 2018 ; Trimarchi & Van Bavel, 2020 ). These findings could be explained by selection processes taking place before hypogamous unions are formed, which have ensuing positive effects on family outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender-Egalitarian Attitudes and Assortative Mating by Age and Education

Trimarchi

2022

Eur J Population

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In the last decades, conventional patterns of assortative mating have been challenged by changes in the gender-gap in education. In many countries, educationally hypogamous unions (i.e. the woman is more educated than the man) now outnumber hypergamous unions (i.e. the man is more educated than the woman). The extent to which such structural changes have also been accompanied by gender egalitarian attitudes has not yet been investigated. This paper fills the gap by focusing on both age and educational assortative mating, using data from wave 1 and 2 of the Generations and Gender Surveys for 6 European countries. I investigate the role of gender-role attitudes of single men and women, measured in the first wave, on their age and educational assortative mating outcomes observed in the second wave. To this aim, I applied multinomial logistic regressions, and used as reference outcome category remaining single in the second wave. Compared to non-egalitarian men, I found that men holding gender-egalitarian views are more likely to form hypogamous unions instead of remaining single, in terms of both age and educational assortative mating. Egalitarian women are more likely than non-egalitarian women to form age-hypogamous unions instead of remaining single, but they are less likely to form educationally hypogamous unions. I discuss the implications of these results in relation to the convergence of mating preferences between men and women.

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“…An association between women’s growing involvement in higher education and the rise of hypogamous couples has been documented both at the aggregate and individual level (Esteve et al, 2016 ; Van Bavel et al, 2018 ), but less research has dealt with the dynamic nature of this relationship and its timing across the life course. Moreover, understanding the dynamics of couple formation might provide pieces of understanding about their consequences on other family-related aspects such as fertility decisions (Nitsche et al, 2018 ; Trimarchi & Van Bavel, 2019 ), couple instability, and the division of paid and unpaid labor within the couple (Grow et al, 2017 ; Theunis et al, 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mating Market and Dynamics of Union Formation

Corti

Scherer

2021

Eur J Population

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The paper investigates the relationship between structural partner market constraints and the timing and educational sorting of unions in Germany (1985–2018). We integrate the literature on the effect of the reversed gender gap in education on educational assortative mating, with a focus on mating dynamics and the measurement of the partner market over the life course. We concentrate on two particular educational groups, low-educated men and highly educated women, those with worsening mating prospects and more subject to experience hypogamous unions. Our results show that the local education-specific mating squeeze influences union formation, its timing, and educational sorting. Indeed, for the two groups, the increasing supply of highly educated women in the partner market increases the likelihood of remaining single or establishing an hypogamous union, where she is higher educated than he. In line with search theory, we find the effects of the mating squeeze to become particularly visible after people turn 30 years of age. This is true for the risk of remaining single and forming an hypogamous union. We underline the necessity to study assortative mating and union formation from a dynamic perspective, taking into account changing structural conditions during the partner search process.

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Partners’ Educational Characteristics and Fertility: Disentangling the Effects of Earning Potential and Unemployment Risk on Second Births

Cited by 10 publications

References 58 publications

Rethinking Couples’ Fertility in Spain: Do Partners’ Relative Education, Employment, and Job Stability Matter?

Rethinking Couples’ Fertility in Spain: Do Partners’ Relative Education, Employment, and Job Stability Matter?

Gender-Egalitarian Attitudes and Assortative Mating by Age and Education

Mating Market and Dynamics of Union Formation

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