The effect of delaying motherhood on the second childbirth in Europe

We examine the effect of delaying motherhood on the transition to the second childbirth across European countries. There exist two opposite forces of delaying the first birth: biological and socio-cultural factors producing a postponement effect and career-related factors leading to a catch-up effect. Estimating a multistate duration model that addresses the endogeneity of age at first birth, we find a catch-up effect in countries where the career effect is large and a postponement effect in countries 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. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.