Employment stability boosts childbearing
Wednesday November 20th, 2013
Women who spend more time in casual employment are less likely to have had a baby by the age of 35, researchers say today.
Professor
Vivienne Moore of the University of Adelaide, Australia, and colleagues
gathered figures on women who were born between 1973 and 1975 in a large
hospital in Adelaide. At the age of 32 to 25, they were interviewed about
their lives.
At this point, 67% of the women had given birth to at least one child. The majority of the women were in permanent employment and 11% were in temporary employment. About a third had spent no time in temporary employment. A third had a university qualification, and three-quarters were living with a partner.
The chance of having a baby by the age of 35 was reduced for every year spent in temporary employment, the researchers found. Each year of causal work was linked to an 8% drop in the chance likelihood of having a baby, compared with the women who had spent no time in a temporary job.
Details are published in the journal Human Reproduction.
The authors write: "Our findings suggest that, regardless of their socioeconomic circumstances, women generally aspire to economic security prior to starting a family.
"This finding is important because it challenges the pervasive media representations of delayed childbirth as a phenomenon arising from highly educated women choosing to delay motherhood to focus on their careers.”
Co-author Dr Lynne Giles added: "Our results showed that 61% of women who had received a university education had at least one casual job after achieving their first qualification, and 30% of these jobs were managerial or professional. This highlights the fact that temporary employment is no longer the sole domain of low-skilled, poorly paid people."
Steele, E.J. et al. Is precarious employment associated with women remaining childless until 35 years? Results from an Australian birth cohort study. Human Reproduction 20 November 2013 doi:10.1093/humrep/det407
Tags: Australia | Childbirth and Pregnancy | General Health | Women's Health & Gynaecology
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