Who delays childbearing? The relationships between fertility, education and personality traits

Publication type

ISER Working Paper Series

Series Number

2010-17

Series

ISER Working Paper Series

Author

Publication date

May 24, 2010

Abstract:

Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, this paper assesses the influence of personality traits on the timing of motherhood and investigates whether, and in what way, personality traits can explain the differences in maternity timing between more and less educated women. We estimate a log-logistic model of the time to first child birth and show that there is a statistically significant relationship between the Big Five personality traits and timing to motherhood. The results also show that within the more educated group, women who have an average to high score on Openness have lower hazards of childbirth.

Subjects

Notes

working paper


Related Publications

#524028

News

Latest findings, new research

Publications search

Search all research by subject and author

Podcasts

Researchers discuss their findings and what they mean for society

Projects

Background and context, methods and data, aims and outputs

Events

Conferences, seminars and workshops

Survey methodology

Specialist research, practice and study

Taking the long view

ISER's annual report

Themes

Key research themes and areas of interest