Little is known about whether and how trends in completed cohort fertility and lifetime childlessness by education have changed over time. This study uses census data to describe the changes in completed family size and proportions ultimately childless by educational attainment of Australian women born between 1952–1971 (N = 2,518,571). In all cohorts, better-educated women have lower fertility levels than their lesser-educated counterparts. The decline in completed fertility has, however, slowed among recent cohorts of women with university degrees, while it has been declining at a faster pace among women with Year 12 and Diploma qualifications. The positive effect of education on childlessness has also reduced. The gap in ultimate childlessness between women with university degrees and women with Year 12 qualifications or below has been markedly narrowing across the cohorts under observation, while the increasing trend in childlessness has recently reversed among women with university degrees. There was an overall difference of 12 percentage points between the proportion of higher educated women childless across fields of study, with the highest values occurring for women educated in the arts, agriculture, information technology and social sciences and the lowest values occurring for women educated in health and education. Despite such differences, women educated in all fields of study, apart from engineering, contributed to the recent decline in the proportion childless. The relationship between motherhood and marriage has remained stronger among better-educated women, while it weakened for lesser-educated groups.

受教育影响的完整队列生育率和终生无子女的趋势是否以及如何随时间发生变化，我们知之甚少。本研究使用人口普查数据来描述 1952-1971 年出生的澳大利亚妇女（N = 2,518,571）的受教育程度导致的完整家庭规模和最终无子女比例的变化。在所有队列中，受过良好教育的女性的生育水平低于受教育程度较低的女性。然而，在最近拥有大学学位的女性群体中，完全生育率的下降速度有所放缓，而在拥有 12 年级和文凭资格的女性中下降速度更快。教育对无子女的积极影响也减少了。在所观察的队列中，拥有大学学位的女性与拥有 12 年级或以下学历的女性在最终无子女方面的差距已显着缩小，而最近在拥有大学学位的女性中，无子女人数的增加趋势发生了逆转。不同研究领域的受过高等教育的女性无子女比例总体差异为 12 个百分点，受过艺术、农业、信息技术和社会科学教育的女性比例最高，受过教育的女性比例最低。健康和教育。尽管存在这些差异，但受过所有研究领域（工程除外）教育的女性促成了近期无子女比例的下降。