FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Women’s Entry into Motherhood in France, Sweden, East and West Germany, Spain and Italy February, 2003 European Commission research project: Female Employment in National Institutional Contexts (FENICs) María José González Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain, Barcelona

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Main goal of the research: to analyse the process of women’s entry into motherhood in different national institutional contexts: Spain & Italy (“lowest low fertility countries”, lack of policies) West Germany (not very supportive for working mothers) Eastern Germany (a former socialist regime) Sweden & France (strong tradition in family policies) Why only the first child? There are specific processes operating in the decision to have a first child different from the decision of proceeding to have a second, a third or a higher birth order.

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Research questions: Do similar individual characteristics, such as women’s educational attainment, have similar outcomes in terms of motherhood decisions across countries? Are there significant “time effects” differences associated with family, education and career formation across countries?

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Theoretical background Main explanations about fertility behaviour since the mid- 1960s in post-industrial societies : Changes in gender roles (new families and institutions) The rational choice theory (the higher cost of children) A society of growing uncertainties (the delay or rejection of family responsibilities) The ‘familist society’ and the fear-to-risk theory

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Research hypotheses: Women with higher educational attainment and limited occupational experience would perform the lowest first birth rates Education will have an even stronger negative effect on motherhood in the countries where there is low female participation in the labour market Current trends towards the delay of family formation, and particularly the departure from the parental home, will also negatively affect motherhood

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Figure 1.1. Cumulative percentages of women ( cohort) who have ever left the parental home, entered a first partnership and had their first live birth by age: Spain, Italy, France and Sweden

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Figure 1.2. Cumulative percentages of women ( cohort) who have ever left the parental home, entered a first partnership and had their first live birth by age: West Germany and East Germany

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Figure 2. Proportion of women born in (before birthday 34) according to the marital status at the beginning of their first union

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Data and research methodology : Fertility and Family Surveys (retrospective): sample of women aged at the time of the interview; right- censored at age 44 or at the time of the interview if the woman had not conceived her first child by that time. Hazard regression analysis = model the risk of having a first child. The dependent variable is the first entry into motherhood coded 0 if childless and 1 otherwise. Thus, the event analysed is the transition from the state of childlessness to the state of having a first child in a given year

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Figure 2: Women's transition rates of having a first child according to the educational attainment: 1959 birth cohort for Sweden, birth cohort for France, Italy, Sweden and East Germany

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Conclusions: Education: delaying motherhood will increase unintended childlessness of highly educated women; educational attainment only entails timing differences in Sweden and West Germany; higher educated women have a higher likelihood of having a first child than lower educated in East German Family formation: a late departure from the parental home negatively affects the arrival of a first child in Italy and Spain Labour force participation: holding a job negatively affects the arrival of the first child in Spain, Italy and West Germany; positively affects the arrival of the first child in Sweden and East Germany; the likelihood of entering motherhood increases for women in continuous occupational career