Education and Timing of First Birth among Women in Norway

Trude Lappegård, Statistics Norway
Marit Rønsen, Statistics Norway

In this paper we study how education affects the timing of first birth among women in Norway. We use longitudinal information from administrative registers to analyze the relationship between the timing of first birth and current education--level as well as activity--from beginning of the 1970s till today. The rich educational information in our dataset enable us to examine differences between various types of educational activity and various fields of education (among those not in education). By using a hazard rate model we find differences in fertility behavior (i) between those being in education and those not in education, and (ii) between women with different levels and fields of education. The differences probably reflect that some postpone motherhood longer than others and that women have different preferences at the outset (selection), but also that some occupations may be easier to combine with childbearing than others.