VID Colloquium
Fertility intentions of highly educated men and women and the rush hour of life
Isabella Buber-Ennser, Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU)
Date: Tue, 13 Nov. 2012, Time: 10:00-11:00 am
The life span between the mid-twenties and the late thirties is characterized by multiple demands, especially among highly educated persons and the expression “rush hour of life” has been used to describe periods when conflicting demands are felt most pressing. Based on the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) we study fertility intentions of 2,200 university degree holders aged 28 to 40 years in West Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands and Norway. We operationalize the rush hour of life by taking into consideration demographic characteristics and employment situation, combined with temporal aspects like duration of relationship and duration of current job. Analyses reveal that childbearing plans are most pronounced among university graduates around the age of thirty. Not only the degree of institutionalization but also the duration of the relationship is associated with fertility intentions. Employment characteristics like amount of working hours, recent change of job, type of contract and satisfaction with job security are related to childbearing plans with remarkable gender differences.
About the presenter
Isabella Buber-Ennser is researcher at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography / Austrian Academy of Sciences. She has graduated in Technical Mathematics at the Vienna University of Technology. Her research interests are demography of Austria, fertility and issues related to population ageing. She is involved in the Austrian country teams of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).