Abstract:

Although there are well-established relationships between women's higher education, labour force participation (LFP), and occupation on the one hand and childlessness on the other hand in the US, the underlying reasons and the role that childlessness desires and expectations play remain unclear. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in the United States (N=4,198 women) and apply both logistic regression models to examine the role of childlessness desires early in life, and multilevel models for repeated measures to examine the role of childlessness expectations throughout the life course. We find that higher educational attainment and LFP are positively associated with childlessness. We do not find, however, that higher educated and working women more often desire or expect to remain childless. In contrast, we find that among women who ultimately remain childless, those women who work fulltime and have higher status occupations have higher expectations to have children throughout their life course. These results suggest that education and occupation produce constraints, resulting in the postponement of childbearing which hinders women in realizing their desires and expectations. Since many working women remain childless despite the desire and expectation to become a mother, our findings stress the importance of work-life reconciliation. It furthermore highlights the importance of increasing public awareness regarding the decrease in fecundity with age.

摘要：

尽管在美国，女性高等教育、劳动力参与 (LFP) 和职业与另一方面的无子女之间存在着既定的关系，但无子女的愿望和期望所起的根本原因和作用仍不清楚。我们使用美国全国青年纵向调查（N = 4,198 名女性）并应用逻辑回归模型来检查生命早期无子女愿望的作用，以及用于重复测量的多级模型来检查整个过程中无子女期望的作用生命历程。我们发现更高的教育程度和 LFP 与无子女呈正相关。然而，我们并没有发现受过高等教育和职业女性更经常希望或期望保持无子女。相比之下，我们发现，在最终没有孩子的女性中，那些全职工作且地位较高的女性在整个生命过程中对生育的期望更高。这些结果表明，教育和职业会产生约束，导致推迟生育，阻碍女性实现自己的愿望和期望。尽管许多职业女性渴望成为母亲，但仍然没有孩子，因此我们的研究结果强调了工作与生活协调的重要性。它还强调了提高公众对生育力随年龄下降的认识的重要性。这些结果表明，教育和职业会产生约束，导致推迟生育，阻碍女性实现自己的愿望和期望。尽管许多职业女性渴望成为母亲，但仍然没有孩子，因此我们的研究结果强调了工作与生活协调的重要性。它还强调了提高公众对生育力随年龄下降的认识的重要性。这些结果表明，教育和职业会产生约束，导致推迟生育，阻碍女性实现自己的愿望和期望。尽管许多职业女性渴望成为母亲，但仍然没有孩子，因此我们的研究结果强调了工作与生活协调的重要性。它还强调了提高公众对生育力随年龄下降的认识的重要性。