Explaining how delayed motherhood affects fertility dynamics in Europe

This paper analyzes the effect of delaying motherhood on fertility dynamics for women living in several European countries characterized by different institutional environments. We show that the effect of delaying the first child on the transition to the second birth (tempo effect) differs both across countries and by a woman’s working status. For working women, delayed motherhood could raise the likelihood of progressing to the second parity due to a career effect since working “late mothers” accumulate more labor market experience, earn higher wages and can afford more children. The tempo effect for working women depends on whether this positive career effect of delaying motherhood offsets the negative effect due to biological and socio-cultural factors affecting all women. The overall tempo effect on the population depends on these two opposite forces, which have different relative magnitudes across countries. In particular, a positive tempo effect is found in countries in which the career effect is relatively large, such as Denmark and France, as the opportunity cost of childbearing is relatively low due to the higher provision of external childcare and part-time opportunities. However, in Southern European countries and Ireland, where the opportunity cost of childbearing is relatively high due to the lack of family friendly institutions and cultural influences which may discourage late childbearing, the tempo effect is negative.