Abstract
This paper examines whether the gap in fertility between women with higher education and in professional occupations and other women has narrowed or widened over time in Australia. Using data from the Australian Census of Population and Housing 1986, 1996 and 2006, the paper focuses on levels of childlessness. Both working women (using occupational categories) and all women (using educational attainment) aged between 20 and 44 were examined. Focusing particularly on women working in, or qualified for, some selected high-prestige professions (doctors, lawyers, dentists and vets), as well as on women with other tertiary qualifications and working in other professional or managerial occupations, the findings suggest that, between 1986 and 2006, childlessness has grown at a slower rate for women with tertiary education than for all women, although women with tertiary education continue to have the highest proportion of childlessness. Our findings for working women were similar, with women working in selected prestigious occupations having the highest rates of childlessness of all working women, but with this growing at a slower rate than was the case overall.
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Notes
The female labour force participation rate rose from 48.7% in 1986–1987 to 57.6% in 2006–2007 (ABS 2008a).
In both Australia and the United States, research suggests that parenthood is likely to advance a man’s career, but hold back a woman’s career (Coltrane 2004).
See ABS (1997) for ASCO classification details.
Disaggregation into finer age groups was not feasible with the data available to us at this time, but such analysis could be incorporated into further research.
However, it should be noted that connections between delays in starting a family and childlessness are not always evident. For example, Bloemen and Kalwij (2001) find that while education and employment cause a woman in Netherlands to delay motherhood to later in life, this does not significantly affect her completed fertility.
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Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Australian Population Association 14th Biennial Conference, 30 June–3 July 2008. We are grateful to Binod Nepal, Terence Hull and two anonymous referees for their advice on a previous draft, and also to Ann Harding, Brian Roberts and Rachel Lloyd for their input into the early phases of this project. Those who gave advice bear no responsibility for the final version.
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Miranti, R., McNamara, J., Tanton, R. et al. A narrowing gap? Trends in the childlessness of professional women in Australia 1986–2006. J Pop Research 26, 359–379 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-009-9022-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-009-9022-5