Education and the Transition to Motherhood: a Comparative Analysis of Western Europe

This study focuses on micro-level interrelationships between the educational trajectories of women and the transition to motherhood. We disentangle the impact of events in one trajectory on events in the other trajectory, from common factors such as aspirations and orientations that simultaneously affect both trajectories. We argue that macro-level institutional and factors are the key ones shaping this interrelationship. To shed light on the empirical relevance of macro-level factors, we adopt an international comparative approach. We apply simultaneous hazard models to individual-level data from Fertility and Family Surveys (FFS) in 11 Western European countries. We find important international differences in micro-level relationships: the mutual influence and the importance of common factors for both processes are weaker where welfare regimes, and in particular social policies that allow role combinations, are stronger. _____________________________________________________________ European Demographic Research Papers are working papers that deal with all-European issues or with issues that are important to a large number of countries. All contributions have received only limited review. Editor: Maria Rita Testa Head of the Research Group on Comparative European Demography: Dimiter Philipov *** This material may not be reproduced without written permission from the authors.