Expectations about Fertility and Field of Study among Adolescents: A Case of Self-selection?

In recent studies on the association between education and fertility, increased attention has been paid to the field of study. Women who studied in traditionally more "feminine" fields, like care, teaching, and health, were found to have their children earlier and to have more children than other women. A point of debate in this literature is on the causal direction of this relationship. Does the field of study change the attitudes towards family formation, or do young adults with stronger family-life attitudes self-select into educational fields that emphasize care, teaching, and health? Or d... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Keijer, Micha G.
Liefbroer, Aart C.
Nagel, Ineke
Dokumenttyp: journal article
Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
Verlag/Hrsg.: DEU
Schlagwörter: Sozialwissenschaften / Soziologie / Social sciences / sociology / anthropology / Population Studies / Sociology of Population / Bevölkerung / Netherlands / choice of studies / fertility / adolescent / occupational choice / work-family balance / family formation / level of education / gender-specific factors / Berufswahl / geschlechtsspezifische Faktoren / Familiengründung / Familie-Beruf / Jugendlicher / Bildungsniveau / Studienwahl / Niederlande / Fruchtbarkeit
Sprache: unknown
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-29230060
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/63971

In recent studies on the association between education and fertility, increased attention has been paid to the field of study. Women who studied in traditionally more "feminine" fields, like care, teaching, and health, were found to have their children earlier and to have more children than other women. A point of debate in this literature is on the causal direction of this relationship. Does the field of study change the attitudes towards family formation, or do young adults with stronger family-life attitudes self-select into educational fields that emphasize care, teaching, and health? Or do both field of study preferences and family-life attitudes arise before actual choices in these domains are made? We contribute to this debate by examining the relationship between fertility expectations and expected fields of study and occupation among 14-17 year-old adolescents. We use data collected in 2005 from 1500 Dutch adolescents and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to examine the associations between expected field of study and occupation and fertility expectations. Our results show that expectations concerning fertility and field of study are already interrelated during secondary education. Both female and male adolescents who expect to pursue studies in fields that focus on care and social interaction (like health care, teaching etc.) are less likely to expect to remain childless. This holds equally for girls and boys. In addition, girls who more strongly aspire to an occupation in which communication skills are important also expect to have more children. We did not find any relationship between expectations of pursuing a communicative field of study and occupation and expectations of earlier parenthood. In addition, among boys, we find that the greater their expectation of opting for an economics, a technical, or a communicative field of study, the less likely they were to expect to remain childless. Boys who expected to study in the economic field also expect to have their first child earlier, but boys ...