Postponement of Motherhood in Romania: The Role of Educational Attainment
Postponement of Motherhood in Romania: The Role of Educational Attainment

Summary/Abstract: This study investigates women’s transition to first birth in Romania, focusing on the impact of women’s education, and using data from the Romanian Generation and Gender Survey 2005. The influence of educational level, enrolment in education, and time elapsed since completion of education on the transition to motherhood, are all considered. These three aspects of the role of education that influence the timing of entry into motherhood in the period of sixteen years after the political turnover are contrasted with their respective influence during the last fifteen years of state socialism. First, we discuss the week effect of educational level on the transition to first birth before 1990, and its negative gradient after the political turnover when economic returns to education started being effective. The decline in first-birth risks after 1989 applies more so to women with higher level of education than to those with a lower level. Second, during early adulthood women have spent more time in education recently than their contemporaries did in the era of state socialism, and this in itself has lead to motherhood postponement. Third, women with high level of education have entered motherhood much more slowly after the completion of education than they did before. This contrast with the previous pattern when after the completion of studies there was a strong and immediate effect on first-birth risks. We argue that a greater educational differentiation of labour market opportunities and constraints brought about a corresponding greater educational differentiation in the timing of entry into motherhood.

• Details
• Contents