Hybrid Format

LabTalk with Julia Leesch

Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, October 08, 2024

Hybrid Format
Room 400 and Zoom

1:00 PM: Julia Leesch - Pathways to parenthood: Is the educational gradient in completed fertility driven by union formation and assortative mating?

Education influences how many children people have, with more education generally linked to fewer children for women and more for men. However, it is unclear how union formation and assortative mating shape this link. Using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel, we apply marginal structural models to understand whether the effects of education on having a first and second child operate through selection into (a) unions and (b) unions with equally educated partners. We found that the effect of education on first births is partly explained by highly educated women being less likely to form unions, while more educated men are more likely to. However, assortative mating does not affect entry into parenthood. For the educational gradient in having a second child, union formation matters, but assortative mating counterbalances this effect, as having a highly educated partner increases women’s, and decreases men’s, likelihood of having a second child.

Participation

Please register via email (office-myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de) for online participation. The Zoom link will be sent to you afterwards.