The effect of occupational gender composition and educational and occupational status on fertility: a couple analysis

Katia Begall, University of Groningen
Melinda Mills, University of Groningen

This study connects to the emerging body of literature that relates educational and occupational characteristics to fertility. We examine the relationship of occupational characteristics such as the extent to which the work involves unpleasant conditions, requires empathy or interpersonal contact and occupational gender segregation of both partners on fertility. We also include measures of both partners’ educational attainment and occupational status in our models to explore the relative influence of male and female characteristics. The data we use come from multiple waves of a repeated cross-sectional survey of the Dutch population (Family Survey of the Dutch Population 1998, 2000, 2003) that contains information about the life course of respondents and their partner with respect to relationship, fertility, educational and occupational history. We use monthly information on transitions in these domains to construct a person-period file and apply discrete event history techniques to model the transition to first and higher order births.