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Andrew Jenkins, Heather Joshi & Mark Killingsworth EALE Conference, Amsterdam, Sept 2008

Educational Attainment, Labour Market Conditions and the Timing of First and Higher-Order Births in Britain. Andrew Jenkins, Heather Joshi & Mark Killingsworth EALE Conference, Amsterdam, Sept 2008. Research: Aims. Compare timing of births in two British cohorts

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Andrew Jenkins, Heather Joshi & Mark Killingsworth EALE Conference, Amsterdam, Sept 2008

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  1. Educational Attainment, Labour Market Conditions and the Timing of First and Higher-Order Births in Britain Andrew Jenkins, Heather Joshi & Mark Killingsworth EALE Conference, Amsterdam, Sept 2008

  2. Research: Aims • Compare timing of births in two British cohorts • How is timing of births influenced by education level? • How is timing of births influenced by labour market conditions – specifically aggregate unemployment? • Check sensitivity of results to unobserved heterogeneity

  3. British Cohort Datasets • National Child Development Study (NCDS) • women from a cohort born in a particular week in March 1958 • combine birth history data from 1991, 2000 and 2004 sweeps • British Cohort Study (BCS70) • women from a cohort born in a particular week in April 1970 • combine birth history data from 2000 and 2004 sweeps

  4. Information available on the samples of women

  5. Proportion with first birth by age 25

  6. Education Levels

  7. Survival Curves for First Birth by Education LevelNCDS (1958 cohort) BCS (1970 cohort)

  8. Claimant Count Unemployment Rate - Men

  9. Method (1): • Investigate time to first three births • Use hazard models (event history models) • education and lagged unemployment as explanatory variables • Other variables in model include: age 11 ability test scores, free school meals (age 11), Father’s SES, mother’s education, religion, number of siblings

  10. Method (2): • Continuous time hazard model estimated in CTM • Estimate: where h is the hazard; t is duration in state i before exiting to state j; X is a vector of explanatory variables; θ is person-specific unobserved heterogeneity • θij = fijθ • Use non-parametric specification of heterogeneity

  11. Results for EducationHazard model jointly estimated for first three births

  12. Results for UnemploymentHazard model jointly estimated for first three births

  13. Results: Heterogeneity • Allowing for unobserved heterogeneity: • Improvement in fit of models • Results for both education and unemployment sensitive to the inclusion of heterogeneity terms

  14. Conclusions • Results consistent with interpretation of education as a causal influence on fertility (time to first birth) • Results for aggregate unemployment: negative effect on 1st birth, significant only for 1970 cohort • Important to control for unobserved heterogeneity in modelling times to first and higher order births

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