Revisiting the second demographic transition across Europe and the United States: examining patterns of new family behaviors by education

Brienna Perelli-Harris, University of Southampton
Karel Neels, University of Antwerp

The Second Demographic Transition posits that shifts in values have led to the postponement of marriage and childbearing, increases in cohabitation and increases in childbearing within cohabitation. It is not clear, however, that all of these behaviors are practiced equally by all strata of society. Here we employ harmonized union and reproductive histories from the United States and 14 countries in Europe to examine how family formation behaviors are practiced by different educational groups. We first examine how the proportion of women ever experiencing an event differs by education. We focus on ever having experienced 1) any union; 2) marriage, among those in a cohabiting union; 3) cohabitation, among those ever in a union; and 4) a birth in a cohabiting union, among those having had a birth. We then use hazard models to explore the educational gradient of 1) entrance into first co-residential union; 2) entrance into marriage for those in cohabiting unions; 3) first birth in any union; and 4) first birth for those in a cohabiting union. First results suggest that in France, Norway, and Austria, although the more highly educated frequently enter unmarried cohabitation, they are less likely than the lower educated to stay in unmarried cohabitation when having children. Our next steps will be to apply hazard models to provide information on the timing of behaviors, which is important for understanding the role of postponement. In addition, we will expand the number of countries analyzed to explore how the educational gradient of these new behaviors may or may not be similar across countries.