Who delays childbearing? The associations between time to first birth, personality traits and education

Publication type

Journal Article

Author

Publication date

October 15, 2016

Summary:

Using data from a large-scale survey, the British Household Panel Survey, this paper assesses the influence of personality traits on the timing of first childbirth and investigates whether, and in what way, personality traits explain the differences in maternity timing across educational groups. We estimate a log-logistic model of the time to first childbirth and show that there is a statistically significant relationship between the Big Five personality traits and the timing of motherhood. The results also show that highly qualified women who are ‘open-minded’ have the lowest hazards of childbirth, lower than similar less educated counterparts.

Published in

European Journal of Population

Volume and page numbers

Volume: 32 , p.575 -597

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10680-016-9393-1

ISSN

15729885

Subjects

Notes

Not held in Research Library - bibliographic reference only


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