Women’s family and working lives have changed enormously over the last 25 years in the United Kingdom (UK). Most of the changes are well-documented and several have been discussed in other chapters – women are increasingly delaying childbearing and more are remaining childless (see Simpson, 2009); they are also delaying partnership, increasingly choosing cohabitation instead of marriage, and a growing number are raising children as lone mothers; and women are working more, both before and after childbearing (see Hansen et al., 2009).
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Notes
- 1.
For a discussion of changes in employment and childbearing among college graduates in the US, see Goldin (2006).
- 2.
See also Joshi (2002).
- 3.
This categorization of education is fairly broad. Other studies have recognized that the field of study may matter as well as the level of education (see Hoem et al., 2005).
- 4.
Of course childcare arrangements may reflect, rather than determine, patterns of employment.
- 5.
For further information on how this is done, see Gregg et al. (2008).
- 6.
The exception was women with higher degrees who did see completed fertility increase over time but this group constituted a small proportion of the sample.
- 7.
There was a decline in infant mortality over the period. The rate of death in England and Wales of children less than one year was 14.3 per 1,000 live births in 1976, falling to 5.0 per 1,000 live births in 2006 "Infant and perinatal mortality 2006: health areas, England and Wales", Health Statistics Quarterly 35. Our estimates will therefore tend to underestimate births more at the beginning of the period.
- 8.
The problem is made potentially worse in practice by the fact that students who live away from home are not counted as part of the household in the FES/FRS.
- 9.
This suggests that there may be a negative relation between the age of the mother at first birth and the age at which the child leaves home.
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Smith, S., Ratcliffe, A. (2009). Women’s Education and Childbearing: A Growing Divide. In: Kneale, D., Coast, E., Stillwell, J. (eds) Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility. Understanding Population Trends and Processes, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9682-2_3
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