Educational trends in cohort fertility by birth order: A comparison of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland

Abstract

Background: over the past few decades, cohort fertility rates in the different countries of the UK (England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) have diverged, yet the role of parity specific patterns, including childlessness, is not known. Studies across Europe have found a reversal in the educational gradient of childlessness, from positive to negative, attributed to economic uncertainty, new patterns of parity progression, and increased polarization of behaviours across educational subgroups, raising questions about how the UK fits into these emerging trends.

Objective: this paper uses linked administrative and census data from each of the UK’s countries to identify how childlessness and childbearing at higher birth orders are driving these differences and to explore potential socio-economic explanations.

Results: for the birth cohorts 1956-1978, we find a persistently positive educational pattern of childlessness across all UK’s countries, albeit with smaller educational differences in Northern Ireland. We also find, across educational groups, divergent country trends in family size distributions, with Scotland trending towards smaller families but not higher levels of childlessness, and Northern Ireland with larger families. England and Wales remains firmly entrenched in the two-child norm. Family size differences between countries are not explained by large differences in mean age at first birth.

Contribution: our findings show that the UK’s countries have unique fertility regimes, emphasizing the value of examining countries separately for their different empirical contributions to the unfolding patterns of contemporary cohort fertility change in Europe.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Bernice Kuang: orcid.org/0000-0002-9846-449X

ORCID for Ann Berrington: orcid.org/0000-0002-1683-6668

Catalogue record

Export record

Altmetrics