TY - JOUR
T1 - Childlessness Among Heterosexual Partnered Individuals
T2 - Register-Based Evidence from the Finnish Cohorts Born 1952-1966
AU - Saarela, Jan
AU - Hardy, Melissa
AU - Skirbekk, Vegard
N1 - Funding Information:
1. Acknowledgment: The research has been supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme, project number 262700 (Centre for Fertility and Health) and by Stiftelsen för Åbo Akademi through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Tohoku University, Mathematical Institute. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Finland has been a demographic forerunner in terms of the adoption of new family forms as well as family friendly social policies. Childlessness has nevertheless grown and, is high compared to many other countries. A large and increasing share of all persons who live in unions are childless. Using population-register data for the cohorts born 1952-1966, we study persons who were partnered at age 45 (n = 44,321). The aim is to analyse how marital status and union duration, together with socioeconomic characteristics of the ego and the partner, relate to the probability of being childless at 45. Logistic regression models are estimated separately for women and men, using a 10-year retrospective window. We find for both men and women, the strongest marker for being a parent by age 45 is whether they are married and had lived with the same partner for at least ten years. Shorter union durations and cohabitations are associated with a several-fold increase in the likelihood of being childless. Socioeconomic characteristics are relevant as well, but notably less important in terms of estimated effect sizes. Future research on this topic should tentatively be concerned with how childlessness relates to transitions into, from, and across unions.
AB - Finland has been a demographic forerunner in terms of the adoption of new family forms as well as family friendly social policies. Childlessness has nevertheless grown and, is high compared to many other countries. A large and increasing share of all persons who live in unions are childless. Using population-register data for the cohorts born 1952-1966, we study persons who were partnered at age 45 (n = 44,321). The aim is to analyse how marital status and union duration, together with socioeconomic characteristics of the ego and the partner, relate to the probability of being childless at 45. Logistic regression models are estimated separately for women and men, using a 10-year retrospective window. We find for both men and women, the strongest marker for being a parent by age 45 is whether they are married and had lived with the same partner for at least ten years. Shorter union durations and cohabitations are associated with a several-fold increase in the likelihood of being childless. Socioeconomic characteristics are relevant as well, but notably less important in terms of estimated effect sizes. Future research on this topic should tentatively be concerned with how childlessness relates to transitions into, from, and across unions.
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U2 - 10.3138/jcfs.53.2.030
DO - 10.3138/jcfs.53.2.030
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85135171622
SN - 0047-2328
VL - 53
SP - 189
EP - 215
JO - Journal of Comparative Family Studies
JF - Journal of Comparative Family Studies
IS - 2
ER -