following lives from birth and through the adult years The Circumstances of Early Motherhood Denise D. Hawkes 19 th December 2007 The UK Millennium Cohort Study:

following lives from birth and through the adult years Presentation based on:  Denise Hawkes (2008) “The UK Millennium Cohort Study: the circumstances of early motherhood”, in R. Edwards (ed.) Researching Families and Communities: Social and Generational Change, Abingdon: Routledge. (forthcoming)

following lives from birth and through the adult years Chapter content  a description of the Millennium Cohort Study  to show how birth cohort studies can be used as a methodology to understand family, community and social change.  Using data from the first two sweeps of the Millennium Cohort Study  to consider the family background and circumstances of the children’s mothers and their relationship to the age at which they had their first birth of child

following lives from birth and through the adult years Focus of today’s presentation  a description of the Millennium Cohort Study  to show how birth cohort studies can be used as a methodology to understand family, community and social change.  Using data from the first two sweeps of the Millennium Cohort Study  to consider the family background and circumstances of the children’s mothers and their relationship to the age at which they had their first birth of child  Links to other papers undertaken for this UPTAP award

following lives from birth and through the adult years Research Question  Topic of Interest: Age at which the cohort child’s mother had her first child and how far can this be predicted by:  woman’s family of origin  women’s own childhood  state of the labour market around the time of conception  Why of interest:  Joshi, Heather and Denise Hawkes (2005) “Early and Late Entry to Motherhood in Wales: Evidence of Socio-economic Inequalities in the First Survey of the UK Millennium Cohort” Welsh Assembly Government Report, Wales  Hawkes, Denise, Heather Joshi and Kelly Ward (2004) “Unequal Entry to Motherhood and Unequal Starts in Life: Evidence from the First Survey of the UK Millennium Cohort” November 2004 CLS Cohort Studies Working Paper No. 6

following lives from birth and through the adult years Hypothesis  Association between age at which the cohort child’s mother had her first child and  woman’s family of origin & women’s own childhood  more advantaged will have more reason to delay motherhood  state of the labour market around the time of conception  shortage of jobs could makes early motherhood either more attractive as fewer alternatives or less attractive financially

following lives from birth and through the adult years Model agemoth = α + β antecendent + γ labourmarket + ε  where:  agemoth is a continuous variable of the age at first birth, or motherhood,   is the constant  antecedent are a set of variables which are determined before the birth of the child  labourmarket are those variables which consider the health of the economy, national or local in the year before their first birth   is the residual.

following lives from birth and through the adult years Variables  antecedent  observed at sweep one: mother’s ethnic group, whether her parents separated or divorced before the birth of the mother’s first child, whether she had experienced any time in care as a child and whether or not the mother left school at the compulsory school leaving age  retrospective data from sweep two: whether the mother was born in the UK, if her parents were born in the UK and whether her parents were employed when she was 14 years old.  labourmarket  ward non participation (or economic inactivity), regional and national unemployment rates (lagged one year).

following lives from birth and through the adult years Data - Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)  A sample of 18,818 children born in the UK between September 2000 and January  The initial survey was undertaken when the children were nine months old. Two follow-up surveys have been undertaken, when the children were three and five years old (See Hansen 2006)  The MCS sample consists of all children who were living in a selected electoral ward at the age of nine months. The design over-samples from the areas with a high proportion of child poverty, high proportion of ethnic minority inhabitants and the Celtic countries. (See Plewis et al 2004)

following lives from birth and through the adult years Data – ONS Unemployment  The cluster design of the survey enables data to be added from the census and other sources at the electoral ward level  The data on the national, regional unemployment rates and ward level non participation rates were obtained from the Office for National Statistics  These are based on estimates using the Labour Force Survey

following lives from birth and through the adult years Descriptive Statistics  The average age at first birth  for all the mothers 25.7  for the subset of mothers whose cohort child was the first born, 27.0,  The average unemployment rate  for the whole sample was 7.2 per cent  before the cohort children were born was 5.8 per cent.

following lives from birth and through the adult years Results: antecedent MCS1 variables  Those who entered motherhood earlier are more likely to have:  experienced family disruption on their own childhood  having experienced a family break-up lowers the average age at first motherhood by nearly two years  left school early  having stayed on at school raises the average age at first motherhood by nearly three years  belong to an ethnic minority group  the age at first motherhood for a Bangladeshi is around five years younger than for white mothers, ceteris paribas

following lives from birth and through the adult years Results: antecedent MCS2 variables  Those who entered motherhood earlier are more likely to have:  been born in the UK to parents born in the UK.  being British of British parents lowers the average age at first motherhood by nearly three years in total.  Note: interaction with ethnicity  Had an unemployed father at age 14  Having a father was employed at age 14 increases the average age at first motherhood two and a half years

following lives from birth and through the adult years Results: labourmarket MCS2 variables 1  Lagged National Unemployment Rates  ALL MOTHERS MOTHER CHARACTERISTICS AT MCS1 ADDING NATIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE ADDING MOTHER CHARACTERI STICS AT MCS2 (1)(2)(3) Lagged National Unemployment Rate (23.87)**(23.07)** Observations R-squared

following lives from birth and through the adult years Results: labourmarket MCS2 variables 2  Regional Unemployment Rates  First Time Mothers only  Insignificant and smaller effect  Area effects are important  living in areas of high child poverty or high proportions of ethnic minorities, are associated with younger mothers.  living in Wales and Northern Ireland are associated with younger mothers relative to England.  regional unemployment is strongly outweighed by the area characteristics which are probably a better measure of the local labour market.

following lives from birth and through the adult years Results: labourmarket MCS2 variables 3 MOTHER CHARACTERISTICS AT MCS1 ADDING WARD NON- PARTICIPATION ADDING AREA CHARACTERI STICS ADDING MOTHER CHARACTERISTI CS AT MCS2 (1)(2)(3)(4) Ward Non-Participation Rate (4.01)** (2.82)** (2.36)* Country (reference England) Wales (1.94) (1.45) Scotland 3.17 (2.48)*3.135 (2.41)* Northern Ireland (1.67)1.516 (1.18) Area Type Disadvantaged (7.49)** (6.54)** Ethnic (4.24)** (4.28)** Observations R-squared

following lives from birth and through the adult years Ward level conclusions  1% increase in non participation rates associated with earlier motherhood by 0.4%  Children of younger mothers more likely to be born in wards with higher non participation rates  Local employment prospects appear to encourage :  delayed motherhood when they are good  earlier child bearing where they are bad  Those born to younger parents are more likely to be exposed to the disadvantages of their mother’s background as well as those of living in a more disadvantaged area

following lives from birth and through the adult years Conclusions  MCS children born to mothers in their teens and early twenties when they had their first child:  tend to have mothers who experienced tougher childhoods themselves  More likely to be raised in disadvantaged area  Hawkes et al (2004) find these antecedent disadvantages are compounded by poorer circumstances in which the cohort child find themselves at sweep one  Hawkes and Joshi (2007) looking at the impact of these antecedent factors, early life experiences and parenting on child cognitive and behavioural outcomes at age three.

following lives from birth and through the adult years Timing of motherhood: NCDS and BCS70  Andrew Jenkins, Heather Joshi and Mark Killingsworth  Comparing first two births in NCDS and BCS70  Main findings for education are that  it behaves as we would expect for first birth (i.e. –ve)  may be having a positive influence on second birth for NCDS.  For both cohorts unemployment has:  negative association with first birth in both cohorts  positive for 2nd birth in both cohorts  however most of the coefficients, except for BCS first birth, are non- significant.

following lives from birth and through the adult years Moving on to maternal employment:  Danielle Crosby and Denise Hawkes (2007) “Cross- National Research Using Contemporary Birth Cohort Studies: A Look at Early Maternal Employment in the United Kingdom and United States.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Volume 10, Issue 5, December 2007, pages 379 – ,

following lives from birth and through the adult years Lastly: Child Outcomes (1).  Danielle Crosby and Denise Hawkes  “Child Outcomes and Early Maternal Employment: Evidence for the UK and the US”  in consideration for Child Development special edition Effects of Early Experience on Cognitive and/or Socio- Emotional Development

following lives from birth and through the adult years Child Outcomes (2).  Kirstine Hansen and Denise Hawkes  “Early Childcare and Child Development”  in submission at Social Policy

following lives from birth and through the adult years Child Outcomes (3).  Denise Hawkes, Heather Joshi and Kelly Ward  “Unequal Entry to Motherhood and Unequal Child Development: Evidence from the First Three Surveys of the UK Millennium Cohort”  (in preparation)

following lives from birth and through the adult years Findings from project so far  Timing of Motherhood:  Associated with personal characteristics (past and present), area characteristics and labour market  Maternal Employment:  Associated with mostly maternal characteristics – same characteristics in UK and US but different directions  Child Outcomes:  Associated with maternal characteristics, not employment status  Associated with child care type  Hoping to show a link to parenting styles

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