E Popu 202 0327

Unemployment Leads Women to Postpone the Birth of
Their First Child

Monique Meron, Isabelle Widmer, Translated by David Shapiro
Dans Population Volume 57, Issue 2, 2002, pages 301 à 330
Éditions I.N.E.D
ISSN 0032-4663
DOI 10.3917/popu.202.0327
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Unemployment Leads Women
to Postpone the Birth
of Their First Child
Monique MERON* and Isabelle WIDMER**
In a number of developed countries, the delay in the onset

of family formation is linked to later exit from the educational
system and to the increasingly common desire of women to begin
their working life before having children (in France, for exam-
ple, the labour force participation rate of women aged 25-29 ex-
ceeds 80%). But what happens when these women encounter
difficulties in obtaining a job, and experience periods of un-
employment? In trying to answer this question, Monique MERON
and Isabelle WIDMER have used data from reproductive and

work histories collected in a French national survey. Periods of
unemployment at the beginning of a union appear to result in
postponement of the first birth. Women who experience un-
employment have very different family behaviour from home-
makers, who have a first child more rapidly than women who are
in the labour market.
What are the links between trends in family behaviour and changes
in the labour market? Economic fluctuations have a particularly important
impact on the beginning of the working life of young people at the time
when they may be starting a family. How will a young woman who is in a
childless couple react when she is confronted with a period of unemploy-
ment? Will she accelerate her maternity schedule in view of the “free”
time that is thus imposed on her? Or, on the contrary, will she temporarily
forego those plans in consideration of the uncertain future and the material
difficulties linked to the search for employment? Or are these two spheres
— family and occupation — independent of one another? With respect to
* Institut National d’Études Démographiques (INED).

** Department of Sociology, Université d’Aix-Marseille I /Institut National d’Études
Démographiques.
Translated by David Shapiro.
This article is the outcome of work financed by the Direction de la Population et Migra-
tions (DPM) pursuant to a recommendation of the High Council of Population and the Family
(Jacques Commaille report).
Population-E 2002, 57 (2), 301-330

302 M. MERON, I. WIDMER
the link with fertility, is a period of unemployment comparable to a period

out of the labour force? Is the behaviour of unemployed women closer to
that of homemakers or to that of employed women?
Since the middle of the 1970s in France, the age at first birth has
risen while unemployment rates, and particularly those of young women,
have increased considerably. The risk of unemployment, like the timing of
fertility, depends on the place of women in society, on their birth cohort,
and on the education and training that they have received. But the usual
descriptive statistics do not enable one to establish a clear link between
fluctuations in unemployment and age of mother at time of first birth, even
when taking into account the differences in the above factors.
The methods used here are based on event histories. They make it
possible to analyse individual life histories in all their diversity in order to
better understand the interaction between the activity status of women and
the decision whether to have a first child. This biographical approach is
used to study women who were surveyed in the Youth and Careers Survey
carried out in 1997 by INSEE, the French National Institute of Statistics.
In this nationally representative survey, there is a large sample of women,
including both women who have and who have not lived with a partner.
For reasons of homogeneity of the data and to allow sufficient observation
time in relation to the beginning of reproduction, we first examine the ex-
perience of women aged 31 to 45 in 1997 (born from 1952 to1966). Then
we investigate whether the trends are apparent as well among younger
women, aged 24 to 29 (born from 1968 to 1973).

Beginnings of family life and entry into the world of work:
Changes in timing
The most recent cohorts of women, as compared to their elders, have
taken the steps considered as constituting the passage to adult life (com-
pleting their schooling, leaving home, beginning life in union, seeking em-
ployment) at later ages. These events, although occurring earlier and
closer together than for men, have been increasingly spread out in the lives
of women since the middle of the 1970s (Galland, 1995, 2000; Galland
and Meron, 1996).
At the same time, the average childbearing age of women has gone
from close to 27 years in 1975 to over 29 years in 2000 (Prioux, 2001).
This increase has taken place, at least for now, without threatening gener-
ation replacement, since all cohorts have had about 2.1 children per
woman by the age of 40.
With respect to the first birth, the average age of women at the time
of delivery has gone from a low point of less than 24 years in 1972 to
25 years in 1983 and 26 years in 1989.
“Thus, at their 25th birthday, only 37% of the women born in 1965 were
already mothers, as compared to 55% of women born in 1955 and 61% of
those born in 1945” (Prioux, 1996, p. 16).
UNEMPLOYMENT LEADS WOMEN TO POSTPONE THE BIRTH OF THEIR FIRST CHILD 303
According to the INSEE surveys, the age at which half of the women had
become mothers was 26 years for those born in 1963-1966 and 28.2 years
for those born between 1968 and 1971 (Galland, 2000).
Postponement of the first birth is linked to family transformations,

the prolongation of education, and the development
of women's labour force participation
Since the 1970s the time spent in a union prior to the arrival of the
first child has been prolonged, thus reversing the trend of the previous dec-
ade. Demographers explain this evolution by the diffusion of new methods
of contraception in France. Better control over fertility contributes also to
the lengthening of other birth intervals. But while the increase in age at
first birth observed in the mid-70s can clearly be attributed to the growing
use of efficient modern contraception, the continuation of the trend calls
for other explanations.
The growing fragility of relationships and the increase of non-
marital cohabitation have also characterized the recent period. In this con-
text, the fact that 83% of children were living with both parents in 1994
(Villeneuve-Gokalp, 1999) indicates that today, children are, by and large,
the result of well-considered decisions by the couple (Toulemon, 1994).
Since the end of the Second World War, the increase in the duration
of formal schooling in France has been spectacular, as it doubled in fifty
years. The share of secondary school graduates (those with a

baccalauréat) has grown from 4% in the 1946 cohort to more than 60% to-
day, and the proportion holding a technical or vocational diploma (CAP,
BEP) among persons aged 25-34 has tripled during the period (Estrade and
Minni, 1996). Women have especially benefited from this trend: since
1996, they study for longer than men and they have a higher level of edu-
cational attainment, which was far from being the case among earlier co-
horts.
The age at first birth increases with women’s educational attainment.
Women born between 1950 and 1954 were on average 22.6 years old at the
birth of their first child if they had only completed primary school, and
28.4 years old if they had completed four years of higher education. The
differences by level of education and social class grew during the 1980s
and the 1990s (Desplanques and de Saboulin, 1986). According to fore-
casts, women born between 1960 and 1964 with four years higher educa-
tion will have, on average, further delayed the first birth by 1.5 years as
compared to those born ten years earlier. By contrast, the average age at
first birth of women with low educational attainment appears to be remain-
ing more or less stable. F. de Singly explains how “women with career
prospects delay their marriage for the duration of their studies and of a
first job” (1987, p. 182). “Moreover, as long as she is pursuing post-
secondary education, a woman will avoid having children, and this results
in later births” (Desplanques, 1996, p. 17). The general increase in the age
at first birth is thus all the more marked from one generation to the next as
women become increasingly educated.
Women’s labour force participation rates have grown considerably
since the beginning of the 1970s. In March 2001 nearly 80% of women
aged 25-49 were employed or were seeking employment (full time or part
time) whereas the corresponding figure in 1975 was less than 59% (Aerts
and Mercier, 2001). But the labour force participation rates of women are
all the lower as their parity is higher. In January 1999, 79% of women
aged 25-49 were in the labour force; this rate was 88% among childless
women in union, 83% for mothers of one child, 74% for those with two
children and 52% for women with at least three children. With the excep-
tion of a very recent decline due to the influence of the extension of the
parental educational allowance in July 1994 (Bonnet and Labbé, 1999),
the economic activity of mothers of two or more children has increased the
most.
Among younger women, inactivity (in the sense of not being in the
labour market) has become increasingly uncommon. In 1995, 8% of
women aged 15-29 were homemakers, whereas the corresponding figure in
1975 was 19% (Meron and Minni, 1995). Since 1995, however, some of
these changes have slowed down. The duration of formal education has
stopped increasing and the percentage of inactive women has stopped fall-
ing (Brunet and Minni, 2000).
The effect of women’s employment status has not been studied very

much, except in relation to completed family size. In particular, little is
known about the incidence of activity status (employment, unemployment,
non-participation in the labour force) on the timing of family formation.
Family sociologists and specialists of home economics have developed,
however, the idea that the family and employment spheres are linked and
are part of a broader gender division of labour (Barrère-Maurisson and
Marchand, 2000).
Difficulties of economic integration and postponed family formation:

What are the links?
The poor performance of the economy has resulted in difficulties of
economic integration for young people. Unemployment, which has grown
substantially since the end of the years of strong economic growth follow-
ing World War II, hits them especially hard, and women are most affected
(Maruani, 1998). Unemployment rates, which were holding at around
2.5%, rose sharply beginning in the first half of the 1970s to exceed 10%
in 1985. After a brief improvement at the end of the 1980s, unemployment
reached record levels in 1994 and then again in 1997, exceeding 12% of
the labour force before beginning a new decline since 1998. In March
2001 the overall unemployment rate was 8.8%, and unemployment rates
still varied greatly by educational attainment, ranging from 14.1% for
those without any diploma or only a primary school certificate, to about

5% for those with higher education (Aerts and Mercier, 2001).
Although young people are staying in school for longer, nearly half
of them (48%) are in the labour market between the ages of 15 and 29. De-
spite an improvement in recent years, the unemployment rate of young
workers remains very high, and their employment is especially sensitive to
economic fluctuations. This is especially the case for those with lower lev-
els of educational attainment and for those who entered the labour market
most recently (Brunet and Minni, 2000; Fondeur and Minni, 1999; Meron
and Minni, 1995).
Thus, the context in which today’s young people begin their working
and adult lives is much more difficult than for their parents. The future
prospects for young adults, in terms of careers and salary, are not good
(Baudelot and Establet, 2000), and this is certainly not without influence
on the family formation process. Young men especially mention these ad-
verse prospects as a reason for continuing to live with their parents and
delaying the onset of family formation (Leridon and Villeneuve-Gokalp,
1994; Galland and Meron, 1996; Dormont and Dufour-Kippelen, 2000).
The influence of economic factors on the formation of couples has also
been studied: among the most recent cohorts (born after 1968), “the effect
of the ‘degree of precariousness’ is not the same for men and women. A
fixed-term employment contract does not have adverse consequences for
women, but it does for men. But a more precarious status (subsidized em-
ployment, training course for integration into the labour market, unpaid

training, unemployment) is a negative factor for both sexes” (Ekert and
Solaz, 2000; see also Kieffer, Marry, Meron, and Solaz, forthcoming in
2002).
Monographs and cross-sectional surveys give conflicting answers

regarding the impact of unemployment on childbearing plans
In the social science literature, unemployment sometimes appears as
a factor leading individuals to put off until better times their plans for
childbearing, and sometimes as a period of “non-activity” to be taken ad-
vantage of in order to have a child.
Thus, according to the most recent results of INSEE’s permanent
Survey on Living Conditions for 1998, “72% of women under the age of
25 consider that it is ‘very important’ for a woman to have a stable job
prior to having a first child” (Toulemon and Leridon, 1999). But other
studies, based on the life histories of young women in precarious eco-
nomic situations, support the idea that young women, when confronted
with difficulties in entering the labour market, have a tendency to turn to-
wards the family sphere.
“These young women will ‘make use’ of their professional precarious-
ness to carry out various projects during the ‘interludes’ provided by
these career interruptions (these projects range from voluntary mobility
to formal training, via the ‘programming’ of a child” (Nicole-Drancourt

and Roulleau-Berger, 1995, p. 79; see also Nicole-Drancourt, 1989).
Yet in the life histories, the proximity between a period of unemployment
and the arrival of a child can lead the respondent to reconstruct, in good
faith, an ex post facto explanation. Biographical interviews offer the oppor-
tunity “to invent discursive strategies for confronting the interview situa-
tion, for ‘saving face’ (Goffman, 1974) and affirming their specificity as a
subject” (Demazière and Dubar, 1997).
While both unemployment and age at first birth have tended to in-
crease since the mid-1970s, the comparison between economic fluctua-
tions and the timing of family events does not establish a direct link
between unemployment and fertility (Figures 1 and 2). Although they are
less affected by unemployment, the most educated women are most likely
to delay the first birth; in contrast, the least educated women have children
earlier, despite their greater sensitivity to economic fluctuations. More-
over, the curves showing age at childbearing do not exhibit fluctuations
similar to those on the curves showing unemployment, regardless of the
level of education of the women, even with a time lag.
In view of the contradictory conclusions stemming from opinion sur-
veys, monographs and statistics with respect to the impact of unemploy-
ment on childbearing plans, a biographical approach seemed appropriate.
Event history analysis allows a different approach


There are multiple and diversified consequences of unemployment
for family life. They depend not only on the position of the unemployed
individual in the household and the type of unemployment faced, but also
on the timing of the spell of unemployment in the individual’s life. The
consequences, then, vary according to age, place of origin, the spouse’s
employment status, the duration of the union... In order to measure the im-
pact of unemployment on women’s first maternity, we have used event his-
tory analysis to study the time spent by couples in the childless state
(Courgeau and Lelièvre, 1989).
The INSEE survey on Youth and Careers (Estrade and Thiesset,
1998) lends itself to this type of analysis because it describes retrospec-
tively, year by year (1) , the sequence of familial, residential and occupa-
t i o n a l eve n t s c o n c e r n i n g t h e i n d iv i d u a l s i n c e t h e a g e o f 1 6 ( s e e
Appendix 1).
Women are observed from the beginning of their first union (mar-
riage or cohabitation) until either the birth of their first child, the separa-
tion from their first partner if that takes place before the birth of a child, or
(1) The year is the unit of time used in this analysis. Earlier work using the same method
showed that monthly dates add but little supplementary information (Kempeneers and Lelièvre,
1991).
Age Ined 306 02

28
27
Bac or higher
26
25
BEPC, CAP, BEP
24
No certificate or CEP
23
22
1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989
Year
Figure 1.– Average age of mothers at the birth of their first child,
by level of education
Legend: see footnote 3 p. 312 for an explanation of the French educational categories.
Source: INSEE Family Survey, 1990.

Percentage Ined 307 02
50
45
40 No certficate or CEP
35
30
25
BEPC, CAP, BEP
20
15 Bac
10
5 Higher education
0
1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989
Year
Figure 2.– Unemployment rates of women aged 15-29, by level of education

Source: INSEE Employment Surveys.
(if neither of these events occurs) until the date of the survey. We limit the
period of observation to a maximum of eight years of union.
First, we consider here women aged 31 to 45 at time of survey (1997),
who reported retrospectively at least one date of union or marriage. We
eliminated those women who had a first birth before the year of union. We
will then study younger women (ages 24-29), to determine whether the
trends observed have continued among the more recent birth cohorts.
Half of the women born between 1952 and 1966 had a

first child during the initial three years of marital life
The first sample includes 5,506 women born between 1952 and 1966,
of whom 877 (16%) had no child during the period of observation (so-
called “right-censored” data). They are representative of 5,660,000 women
aged 31 to 45 in 1997. One woman out of two had a child during the first
three years of union (Appendix, section 2 and Table A).
The time spent in a childless couple depends on the woman’s own
characteristics (her birth cohort, level of education, etc.), and also on the
events that she experienced during this period and the context in which she
lives. We have taken into account her social class background and some
variables related to the circumstances of her studies and work experience.
Other variables are missing from the data basis. Thus, the characteristics
of the first partner or housing conditions do not appear explicitly in the
analysis, despite the fact that they play a role in the timing of fertility (Ap-

pendix, section 3). Moreover, unemployment may be correlated with some
instability of the union. The fact that we take into account the date of sep-
aration from the first partner when that happens during the period of ob-
servation tends to reduce this effect. It is logical to stop the observation at
that time, since separation will, in all likelihood, alter the woman’s behav-
iour with respect to the timing of her fertility.
The different situations relative to economic activity are identified in
the woman’s year by year record, during the life as a couple preceding the
arrival of the first child, that is, from the beginning of union to the year be-
fore the birth of the first child for those women who had a child, or until
the end of the observation period for the others (Appendix, section 2).
What we study is then truly the influence of the economic context on the
date of birth of the first child, free of the reverse causation implicit in the
influence of the arrival of the child on the employment status of the
woman (though there is still some haziness when the birth and the begin-
ning of union occur the same year). In the survey, periods of unemploy-
ment, of economic inactivity and of long-term employment are only
identified if they lasted at least six months. An “intermittent” period of
employment designates shorter periods of employment alternating with
periods when the woman is not employed. Continuing and resuming one’s
studies are combined in a single category, “studies.” The different types of
employment status are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Up to three
(consecutive or concurrent) may be encountered for a single year. All the

statements are entered in the same manner in the analysis, and were not
ranked a posteriori.
The youngest and the most educated women were

in union longest without a child...
While half of the women born between 1952 and 1966 had a first
child during the initial three years of union, the median duration was only
2.1 years for women with no diploma or only a primary school certificate,
but reached 3.7 years for women with the baccalauréat and 4.7 years for
those with more than 2 years of higher education.
Moreover, among the cohorts born between 1952 and 1954, one
woman out of two waited less than 2.4 years before having a first child,
whereas among the younger women (born between 1964 and 1966) this in-
terval was one and a half times longer, or 3.7 years (Appendix, Table A).
Between these two extremes, the median duration increased regularly from
one cohort to the next.
The duration of union without a child thus depends both on the
woman’s cohort and on her educational level, which is to some degree a
proxy for the socio-economic background of the young woman (Galland,
1995). The non-parametric survival function shows the proportion of
women still childless for a given duration of union in the absence of exit
from observation. The curves in Figures 3 and 4 clearly show that the

younger and better-educated the women, the longer they are likely to re-
main in a union without becoming mothers.
When we try to examine the influence of other variables, we quickly
encounter a problem of inadequate sample size. We are thus obliged, in
certain analyses, to summarise the preceding effects by regrouping differ-
ent educational attainment categories—secondary school graduates and
non-graduates—and different cohorts: we distinguish women born during
the 1950s (that is, from 1952 to 1960) from those born during the 1960s
(that is, from 1961 to 1966) (Table 1).
A semi-parametric analysis (Cox model) was undertaken to control
for the link between educational attainment and cohort. This makes it pos-
sible to study the duration spent childless and in union, taking account of
the explanatory variables that we have introduced. The Cox model belongs
to the family of proportional hazards models, and it offers the advantage
of allowing the direct estimation of the effect of duration, without impos-
ing a form other than the assumption that women’s characteristics exert a
proportional effect on the chances of having a first child. Its use thus re-
quires only a (graphic) validation of the similarity of the curves represent-
ing the logarithms of the cumulative quotients as a function of duration(2).
(2) This condition was verified for the first eight years of life together, but the graphs are
not presented here.

100
90
80 Cohort 1964-1966
70
60
Cohort 1961-1963
50
40
Cohort 1955-1957
30 Cohort 1958-1960
20 Cohort 1952-1954
10
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Duration of union (in years)
Figure 3.– Proportion of childless women by duration of union

and birth cohort (survival function)
Source: INSEE Youth and Careers Survey, 1997.

100

90
Bac + more than 2 yrs
80
70
60 Bac + 2 yrs
50 CAP-BEP
Baccalaureat
40
30 BEPC
20
No certificate
10 or CEP
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Figure 4.– Proportion of childless women by duration of union

and level of education (survival function)
TABLE 1.– TIME ELAPSED BETWEEN BEGINNING OF UNION AND BIRTH OF FIRST CHILD, BY COHORT AND LEVEL OF EDUCATION,
ACCORDING TO WOMAN’S ACTIVITY(1) IN THE INTERVENING PERIOD (MEDIAN DURATIONS IN YEARS)
Women aged 31-45 – cohorts: Women aged 24-29 – cohorts:

1952-1966 1952-1960 1961-1966 1968-1973
Βac(2) Less than Βac Less than Βac Less than
Total Total Total Total
or higher bac or higher bac or higher bac
No long-term employment 1.84 1.74 2.23 1.62 1.99 3.22 1.84 3.59 5.48 2.87
At least one period of long-term employ-
ment 3.46 3.08 3.89 2.65 3.96 4.66 3.63 5.26 6.06 4.46
No short-term employment 2.89 2.69 3.58 2.26 3.26 4.11 2.79 3.84 5.41 2.89
At least one period of short-term employ-
ment 4.32 3.75 4.81 3.14 4.80 5.85 4.12 5.51 6.44 4.65
No long-term unemployment 2.92 2.69 3.60 2.25 3.36 4.26 2.86 3.95 5.66 2.96
At least one period of long-term unem-
ployment 4.48 4.27 5.48 3.94 4.68 5.88 3.99 5.49 6.01 4.91
Not involved in studies 2.78 2.58 3.30 2.31 3.10 3.70 2.87 3.52 4.79 3.10
Involved in studies 4.47 3.88 4.43 2.56 5.17 5.63 4.26 5.82 6.39 4.75
No inactivity 3.21 2.87 3.66 2.44 3.69 4.46 3.22 4.73 5.95 3.80
At least one period of inactivity 2.32 2.26 3.62 1.97 2.42 4.25 2.14 2.63 4.13 2.41
Total 3.02 2.76 3.66 2.34 3.48 4.45 2.96 4.40 5.80 3.52
(1) As used in the survey: continuous periods of at least 6 months for long-term employment, unemployment, and inactivity; periods of short-term employment alternate
short-duration employment and unemployment. Multiple statuses may be experienced in the course of a single year.
(2) Bac: Baccalauréat (upper secondary school diploma).
Reading: Half of the women with at least the secondary school diploma, born between 1952 and 1966, and having experienced at least one long period of unemployment
since beginning of union, had a first child within the first 5.5 years.
Source: INSEE, Youth and Careers Survey, 1997.
UNEMPLOYMENT LEADS WOMEN TO POSTPONE THE BIRTH OF THEIR FIRST CHILD
311

In such an analysis, the curves can be inferred one from the other as a
function of a multiplicative factor, or relative risk. The relative risks,
which are interpreted in relation to a reference category that takes a value
of 1, are presented in the tables of results of the models. This analysis con-
firms that the differences due to each of the two variables (level of educa-
tion and cohort) remain significant when both variables are introduced
together in the model.
...but this does not depend on the age at which the union began
For women born between 1963 and 1966, the median age at start of
union ranges from 20.2 years for those who do not have even the CAP to
21.8 years for those with a CAP or BEP, 23.1 years for those with a bacca-
lauréat and 24.4 years for women with higher education (3). Yet the analy-
sis shows that age at beginning of union does not have a significant effect
on the time elapsed before first birth once cohort and educational attain-
ment have been controlled for (Table 2). This surprising result indicates
that these two variables, in summarising the characteristics of the past and
the social background of the young woman, are sufficient to explain the
age at beginning of union. Consequently, including this age in the analy-
sis, in addition to cohort and level of education, does not add anything.
In contrast, other variables that are known to influence fertility be-
haviour play a significant role here. For example, given the level of educa-
tion and the cohort, women from large families of origin become mothers

at an earlier age than the average, and it is known that they tend to have
more children than women from small families (one or two children)
(Leridon, 1985, p. 517). Moreover, women whose father is a manual
worker or whose mother is not in the labour force have a first child more
rapidly than those for whom the mother or father is an executive. Finally,
women living in rural areas or in cities of fewer than 20,000 people have a
first child a little sooner than residents of larger cities or Paris.
Women experiencing unemployment postpone

the birth of a first child more...
Three quarters of the women born between 1952 and 1966 held at
least one job for six months or more during the period of observation (that
is, between the beginning of life together and the year preceding the birth
of a first child or the year when observation ended). Intermittent employ-
(3) The lowest diploma in the French educational system is the CEP [Certificat d’études
primaires], the primary-school-leaving certificate. This is followed by the CAP [Certificat d’apti-
tude professionnelle], a lower-level vocational training certificate obtained in four years; the
BEPC [Brevet d’études du premier cycle] which is sat after four years of secondary education in a
collège: this is the “lower secondary diploma”; and the BEP [Brevet d’études professionnelles], a
higher-level vocational training diploma obtained in six years. The students who enter a lycée af-
ter the BEPC prepare (in three years) the baccalauréat (or “bac”), the secondary school diploma
that leads to higher education: this is the “upper secondary diploma”. “Bac + 2” means two years
of higher education, etc.
TABLE 2.– ESTIMATED COEFFICIENTS AND RELATIVE RISKS OF HAVING A FIRST CHILD
SINCE THE BEGINNING OF UNION, BY COHORT, LEVEL OF EDUCATION, AND AGE AT THE
START OF THE UNION (SEMI-PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS) – SAMPLE OF WOMEN AGED 31-45
Coefficient Relative risk

Cohorts
1952-1954 0.15** 1.16
1955-1957 0.02 1.02
1958-1960 Ref. 1.00
1961-1963 – 0.13* 0.88
1964-1966 – 0.16*** 0.85
Level of education:
More than two years higher education – 0.46*** 0.63
Two years higher education – 0.22*** 0.80
Baccalauréat – 0.17*** 0.84
BEPC, CAP, BEP(1) Ref. 1.00
None or primary school certificate 0.20*** 1.22
Age at beginning of union
16-19 years 0.07 1.07
20 -21 years – 0.06 0.94
22-24 years Ref. 1.00
25 years or more – 0.03 0.97
* Significant at the 5% level; ** Significant at the 5‰ level; *** Significant at the 1‰ level.
(1) For an explanation of the French educational categories, see footnote 3.
Reading: All other things being equal, women born between 1952 and 1954 are 1.16 times more likely to
have had a first child since beginning of union than women born between 1958 and 1960 (the reference

group).
ment mixed with unemployment is most common among the youngest and
least educated women. The requirement in the survey that in order to be
counted as periods of unemployment there must be six continuous months
of job-hunting explains why this situation is relatively uncommon, even
though it affects nearly one woman out of ten. One woman in five pursues
her studies after the beginning of union, and this is observed mostly
among the best-educated women (more than one in three). A spell of at
least six months out of the labour force was reported by more than one in
fi ve o f t h e l e a s t e d u c a t e d w o m e n ( t h o s e w h o h a d n o t p a s s e d t h e
baccalauréat) (Appendix, Table B).
Compared with women of the same cohort and educational level,
those who had always been in the labour force delayed having a first child
longer after the start of union. But this prolongation of the period as a
childless couple is greater for the women who experienced intermittent pe-
riods of employment than for those who report only continuous employ-
ment. Continuous periods of unemployment postpone the arrival of a first
child the most (Table 1, figure 5).
BACCALAUREAT Unemployment NO BACCALAUREAT

Percentage Ined 311 02 Percentage Ined 311 02
100 100
90 90 Born in 1960s
80 Experienced unemployment 80 Born in 1950s
70 70
60 60
Experienced unemployment
50 50
40 40
Did not experience
30 30 Did not experience
unemployment
20 20 unemployment
10 10
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Long-term employment
100 100
90 90
80 80
70 70
Experienced long-term employment
60 60
Experienced long-term employment
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 Did not experience 20

long-term employment Did not experience
10 10 long-term employment
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Studies
100 100
90 90
Experienced studies

80 80 Experienced studies
70 70
60 60
50 50
40 40
Did not experience
30 studies 30
Did not experience
20 20
studies
10 10
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Inactivity
100 100
90 90
80 80
70 70
Did not experience
Did not experience inactivity
60 inactivity 60
Experienced
50 inactivity 50
40 40
30 30
20 20 Experienced
inactivity
10 10
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Duration of union (in years) Duration of union (in years)
Figure 5.– Proportion of childless women by duration of union and various work-
and education-related situations, for the birth cohorts of the 1950s
and the 1960s (survival function)
...than those who experienced stable or even intermittent employment

Among the women born between 1952 and 1966 who had at least one
long spell of employment, half had a first child within 3.5 years of life in
union. This median duration amounts to 4.3 years for the women who ex-
perienced short or intermittent periods of employment, and 4.5 for those
who experienced six months of continuous unemployment at least once.
These results vary by cohort and educational level (Table 1).
As indicated earlier, these statuses with respect to employment are
not mutually exclusive, and their effects may be combined. In order to
better visualise the impact of unemployment (in the sense of the survey,
i.e. for a spell lasting at least six months), we measure the joint effect
(model A) and the net effect (model B) of the situations: “have been em-
ployed” (in the broad sense) and “have been unemployed”, holding con-
stant the cohort and level of education, in a semi-parametric proportional
hazards analysis (Cox model). The effect of unemployment on first birth
postponement is confirmed for women in the labour force (Table 3).
These results may, however, be criticised: the longer the duration
since the couple has been established, the greater the likelihood that the
woman will have experienced one of the enumerated statuses (employ-
ment, unemployment...). There is thus a possible bias in considering varia-
bles for which the intensity is correlated with the observed duration. To
address this issue, the event “experienced unemployment” can be analysed
as a time-dependent variable in a Cox model, that is, the event is taken

into account only from the year when it took place. The results are consist-
ent with the earlier conclusions, but continuous unemployment, in the
sense of the survey, is too rare an event when considered on a year-by-year
basis, holding constant cohort and level of education, to yield statistically
significant results at the levels considered earlier.
Women rarely experienced a period of continuous unemployment
during the year in which they entered a union (5% of the sample, Appen-
dix, Table B). This observation is linked to the fact that unemployed
women delay this entry (Ekert and Solaz, 2000). If one considers the activ-
ity status for the year in which the couple was established, unemployment
does not have a significantly different impact from that of continuous em-
ployment. In contrast, if the distinction is made between having experi-
enced unemployment for the first time before or after beginning of union,
the results are unambiguous. Unemployment clearly delays the arrival of
the first child more markedly if the women have experienced unemploy-
ment when they were already living in a couple (Table 4).
SINCE THE BEGINNING OF UNION, BY COHORT, LEVEL OF EDUCATION, AND ACTIVITY
EXPERIENCES (SEMI-PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS). SAMPLE OF WOMEN AGED 31-45
Model A Model B
Coefficient Relative risk Coefficient Relative risk
Cohorts
1952-1954 0.11* 1.12 0.11** 1.12
1955-1960 Ref. 1.00 Ref. 1.00
1961-1966 – 0.12*** 0.89 – 0.12*** 0.88
Level of education:
More than two years higher educa-
tion – 0.55*** 0.58 – 0.50*** 0.61
Baccalauréat to bac + 2 – 0.22*** 0.81 – 0.22*** 0.80
BEPC, CAP, BEP(1) Ref. 1.00 Ref. 1.00
None or primary school certificate 0.13*** 1.14 0.19*** 1.21
Activity status(2)
Employment and unemployment – 1.16*** 0.32
Employment without unemploy-
ment – 0.55*** 0.58
No employment Ref. 1.00
Experienced unemployment – 0.41*** 0.67
Did not experience unemployment Ref. 1.00
Experienced inactivity 0.15*** 1.16
Did not experience inactivity Ref. 1.00

(1 For an explanation of the French educational categories, see footnote 3.
(2) Long periods (of at least 6 months) experienced since the year of the union and before the birth of a
child.
Reading (model A): All other things being equal, a woman with only a primary school education is 1.14
times more likely to have given birth to a child since the start of union than a woman with some secondary
education: BEPC, CAP, BEP (reference group). By contrast, the chances of giving birth are 1.2 times smal-
ler (relative risk of 0.81) for women with a baccalauréat or two years of higher education.
Unemployed women and homemakers do not have

the same family behaviour
Conversely, the women who experienced periods of inactivity spent
less time in childless union than other women. Half of them had a child af-
ter 2.3 years of life together (as against 3.2 years for women who were not
inactive). Once again, this result depends also on the cohort and the educa-
tional attainment (Table 1).
The impact of inactivity is very strong (Table 4). This result seems to
indicate that women who are not in the labour force during the year when
they start their union plan, more than other women, to have a child
quickly. As Laurent Toulemon has suggested (in Leridon, 1994, p. 174),
“for women, forming a couple before starting to work reflects a choice that
privileges family and children.” By contrast, continuing studies while in
union delayed the first birth for women aged 31 to 45 years. This result is
more ambiguous when broken down by cohort and level of education and
the influence of further studies is compared with that of employment or
unemployment. Women born in the 1950s who pursued studies while they
lived in a union postponed the arrival of their first child less than those
who were unemployed. In contrast, students born during the 1960s delay
even longer than the members of the same cohorts who are in the labour
force (Table 1).
SINCE THE BEGINNING OF UNION, BY COHORT, LEVEL OF EDUCATION, ACTIVITY STATUS(ES)
IN YEAR OF BEGINNING OF UNION (MODEL C), OR EXPOSURE TO UNEMPLOYMENT
BEFORE OR AFTER THE BEGINNING OF UNION (MODEL D) (SEMI-PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS)
SAMPLE OF WOMEN AGED 31-45 YEARS
Model C Model D
Cohorts
1952-1954 0.13** 1.14 0.11* 1.12
1955-1957 0.02 1.02 Ref. 1.00
1958-1960 Ref. 1.00 0.01* 1.01
1961-1963 – 0.11* 0.90 – 0.11* 0.89
1964-1966 – 0.13* 0.88 – 0.13* 0.88
Level of education:
More than two years higher
education – 0.41*** 0.66 – 0.48*** 0.62
Two years higher education – 0.19*** 0.82 – 0.24*** 0.79

Baccalauréat – 0.18*** 0.83 – 0.18*** 0.84
None or primary school certificate 0.14*** 1.15 0.21*** 1.23
Activity status in year of beginning
of union
Inactive 0.35*** 1.41
Unemployed – 0.01 0.92
Student – 0.12** 0.88
Short-term work – 0.16** 0.85
Long-term work Ref. 1.00
Experience of unemployment
Prior to union – 0.10* 0.90
Since beginning of union – 0.54*** 0.58
None Ref. 1.00
(1) For an explanation of the French educational categories, see footnote 3.
Reading (model C): All other things being equal, a woman with only a primary school education is 1.15
times more likely to have had a first child since beginning of union than a woman with some secondary edu-
cation: BEPC, CAP, BEP (reference group). By contrast, the chances of giving birth are 1.2 times smaller
(relative risk of 0.83) for women with a baccalauréat.
Are women under 30 following in the footsteps of their elders?

Now let us look at the impact of employment status on the birth of a
first child for the women aged 24-29 interviewed in the Youth and Careers
Survey of 1997. The employment histories of women under 30 were col-
lected following a slightly more detailed procedure than for the older
women, but these modest differences do not hinder the comparison of re-
sults with those of the older women (see Appendix, sections 1 and 2). This
complementary study is based on data for 1,565 women born from 1968 to
1973 who were living or had lived in a union at time of survey. They repre-
sent approximately 1,700,000 women in these cohorts. In this sample, the
“right-censored” observations (770, being 49.2% of the total) are clearly
more frequent than in the preceding group. Being younger, these women
are much more likely than their elders to have lived in a union for less than
eight years at time of survey. They also remained childless more often dur-
ing the period of observation, and have more frequently left their first part-
ner (Appendix, Tables A and B). Since the sample size is smaller for these
younger cohorts, educational levels and cohorts had to be regrouped. We
distinguish those who obtained the baccalauréat from those who did not,
and those born between 1968 and 1970 from those born between 1971 and
1973 (Figure 6).

100
90

Baccalaureat,
born in 1971-1973
80
Baccalaureat,
70 born in 1968-1970
60
50
40
No baccalaureat,
30 born in 1971-1973
20
No baccalaureat,
10 born in 1968-1970
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Figure 6.– Proportion of childless women by duration of union, birth cohort,

and level of education, for the younger women (survival function)
Half of the women born between 1968 and 1973 waited

at least 4.4 years before having a first child
Certain trends that may be observed among the women under 30 are
in fact extensions of the trends described above for the older women.
Thus, among the women aged 24 to 29 (born from 1968 to 1973), one out
of two had a first child after 4.4 years of life in union (as compared to
3.0 years for the cohorts born between 1952 and 1966), and the differ-
ences by cohort persist: women born at the end of the 1960s had a first
child more rapidly after the start of their union (4.1 years) than those born
at the beginning of the 1970s (4.9 years) (Table A).
Having obtained a diploma appears to be a strong differentiating fac-
tor, and the time spent in a childless union tends to increase more mark-
edly from one cohort to the next when the woman has graduated from
secondary school. Yet pursuing studies deters a certain number of young
women from forming a couple. In this regard, our observations are evi-
dently incomplete. Moreover, at these ages (24 to 29 at time of survey), a
certain number of secondary school graduates have not yet completed their
higher education, and this may help explain the substantial delay preced-
ing a first birth among the youngest secondary school graduates in union.
Those under 30 have been much more markedly affected by the diffi-
cult state of the labour market than their elders. Thus these young women
are proportionately three times more likely than the older women to have
experienced unemployment or periods of intermittent employment

between the beginning of union and the year preceding the birth of a first
child or the end of observation (Table B). These precarious situations in
the labour market are even more frequent among the less-educated women
and the younger women, born between 1970 and 1973. Conversely, having
held a job for a long time is much less common (47% of women born from
1968 to 1973 during the period observed following establishment of the
couple, as compared to 77% for the women born between 1952 and 1966).
Women under age 30 are also twice as likely to continue their studies after
the start of the union. In contrast, only one woman out of ten has been in-
active during the period observed and only 8% were out of the labour force
during the year when they began their union, whereas 16% experienced
unemployment that year (Appendix, Table B).
Among the younger cohorts, unemployment has a stronger

influence on the less educated women, comparable
to the effect of intermittent employment
As was the case for their elders, the median duration between begin-
ning of union and birth of a first child is clearly longer for the women
from the younger cohorts who are in the labour force or still in school, as
compared to the economically inactive. Half of the young women who ex-
perienced a spell of inactivity had their first child within 2.6 years of the
beginning of the union, while this median is longer by two years for those
who did not experience this situation (Table 1, Figure 7).
The time spent in childless union is shorter when the woman has lit-
tle education and when she has withdrawn from the labour force. The ef-
fect of inactivity is especially notable for the women who were already
non-working homemakers during the year when the union began (Table 5,
model F). Other activity statuses during that year are not significant in the
models, despite the fact that the frequency of unemployment, studying,
and short employment spells is more important for the young women of
this sample than for their elders.
SINCE THE BEGINNING OF UNION, BY COHORT, LEVEL OF EDUCATION,
ACTIVITY EXPERIENCES SINCE THE START OF THE UNION (MODEL E), OR ACTIVITY
STATUS(ES) IN YEAR OF BEGINNING THE UNION (MODEL F) (SEMI-PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS)
SAMPLE OF WOMEN AGED 24-29
Model E Model F
Cohorts
1968-1970 Ref. 1.00 Ref. 1.00
1971-1973 – 0.19* 0.83 – 0.23** 0.80
Level of education
More than two years higher educa-
tion – 1.30*** 0.27 – 1.23*** 0.29

Baccalauréat to bac + 2 – 0.46*** 0.63 – 0.42*** 0.65
None or primary school certificate 0.22* 1.25 0.15 1.16
Activity status in year of beginning
of union
Inactive 0.79*** 2.19
Unemployed 0.02 1.02
Student Ref. 1.00
Short-term work – 0.07 0.93
Long-term work – 0.04 0.96
Activity experiences
Experienced unemployment – 0.45*** 0.64
Did not experience unemployment Ref. 1.00
Experienced inactivity 0.46*** 1.59
Did not experience inactivity Ref. 1.00
Reading (model E): All other things being equal, a woman with only a primary school education is 1.25
times more likely to have had a first child since beginning of union than a woman with some secondary edu-
cation: BEPC, CAP, BEP (reference group). By contrast, the chances of giving birth are 1.6 times smaller
(relative risk of 0.63) for women with a baccalauréat or two years higher education.
BACCALAUREAT, BORN IN 1968-1973 Unemployment NO BACCALAUREAT, BORN IN 1968-1973

100 100
90 90
80 80
Experienced unemployment Experienced unemployment
70 70

unemployment
50 50
40 40
Did not experience
30 30
unemployment
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Long-term employment
100 100
90 90
80 Experienced long-term employment 80
70 70 Experienced long-term employment

long-term employment
50 50
40 40
Did not experience
30 30 long-term employment
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Studies
100 100
90 90

80 80
Experienced studies Experienced studies
70 70
60 60
50 50
Did not experience studies
40 40
30 30 Did not experience studies
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Inactivity
100 100
90 90
80 Did not experience inactivity 80
70 70
60 60
Did not experience inactivity
Experienced inactivity
50 50
40 40
Experienced inactivity
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Duration of union (in years) Duration of union (in years)
Figure 7.– Proportion of childless women by duration of union, employment

experience and level of education for the youngest cohorts (survival function)
As for the preceding sample, we tested the influence of different ac-

tivity statuses (unemployment, stable employment, intermittent employ-
ment, studies) on the duration between beginning of union and the year
preceding the birth of a first child. It is clear that each of these situations
lengthens substantially the time spent in a childless couple, for a given
educational level and cohort, as compared to inactivity. The women with
the highest educational attainments remain childless for longest, regard-
less of their employment status.
The influence of unemployment is very clear for the least educated
w o m e n ( Ta b l e 1 ) . Wo m e n w i t h o u t a s e c o n d a r y s c h o o l d i p l o m a
(baccalauréat) who have experienced unemployment since beginning of
union delay the birth of their child by almost 2 years more than those who
have not experienced unemployment: the median durations are 4.9 years
and 3 years.
The delaying effect of long-term employment is also stronger among
those without a secondary school diploma than among those with one. As
for periods of intermittent employment, rather than having an intermediate
effect between that of long employment and unemployment as was the
case among women born between 1952 and 1966, they delay the arrival of
a first child among the younger cohorts born between 1968 and 1973 by as
much as unemployment: the median duration before a first birth reaches
5.5 years (Table 1, figure 7).

Conclusion
The method of event history analysis applied to data from the Youth
and Careers Survey sheds light on the question of the impact of unemploy-
ment on family life. Unemployment among young women living in union
postpones the birth of a first child. Thus, experiencing a period of unem-
ployment has prompted women born between 1952 and 1973 to delay their
first birth in the expectation of better times. We have shown that this phe-
nomenon is even more evident when the woman has relatively little educa-
tion and when she belongs to the most recent birth cohorts.
One essential difference opposes the status of homemaker to all
others (employed, unemployed, or student). Being out of the labour force,
especially at the start of life together as a couple, translates into much
more rapid first births that undoubtedly reflect an accelerated childbearing
schedule. This result confirms that a period of unemployment is not at all
the same as a period of inactivity: with regard to fertility, unemployed
women are quite different from homemakers.
From older women to younger women, a strong continuity of behav-
iour is observed, despite a changed social and economic context. Longer
formal education has widened the gap between those women who have fin-
ished school without any certificate and those who have gone on to higher
education. Behaviour has evolved as unemployment and — among the

younger women — intermittent employment have become facts of life.
These periods of uncertainty in the labour market correspond to quite dif-
ferent realities for different educational groups. Unemployment undoubt-
edly affects the family income of the least educated more severely and
therefore has a stronger impact on their fertility. The influence of intermit-
tent employment is similar to that of unemployment among the younger
cohorts.
Thus childbearing plans are also motivated by economic considera-
tions and are influenced by job opportunities. Women in a precarious situa-
tion in the labour market postpone the birth of their first child as long as
their plans for stable employment or completing their studies are not real-
ized. This serves as a reminder, if needed, that the employment of women
reflects expectations of income and social recognition, and perhaps also ca-
reer ambitions. Where family decisions are involved, these assets are seen
as more than “add-ons”, and they interfere with the priorities of couples.
In a society where contraception makes it possible to control the tim-
ing of maternity and where female employment has progressively become
the norm, the size of the family and the timing of fertility are influenced
by the current and anticipated employment of women. To further the
understanding of their behaviour, any analysis must involve family life,
occupation, and migration of women and their partners in a symmetrical
and detailed manner.

APPENDIX
1. The Youth and Careers Survey

The Youth and Careers Survey, complementary to the Employment Survey,
was a face-to-face survey carried out by INSEE interviewers in March 1997. Data
collection, largely computer-assisted (CAPI method, except for the schedule of
events), covered women aged 19 to 45 from among the outgoing third of the
Employment Survey sample. The sample is representative of the population, and is
made up of 20,770 individuals of whom 12,400 aged 30 to 45. Retrospective life
histories were used to collect data on family events (start of union, marriage, sepa-
ration, birth of children), changes of residence and periods of studies or economic
activity experienced by the individual since age 16. The confrontation of these dif-
ferent types of events facilitated recall by the respondents.
2. Description of the sample

We chose to study the population of women with the greatest likelihood of
having a child, and took the start of union as point of departure (t0). Beginning at the
age of 16 or 18 would confound the effects of the delay in initiating union and those
of the timing of the first birth. In fact, the activity status at beginning of union is the
most critical factor. For similar reasons, we avoided taking the end of studies as
point of departure, as many women start their union before they finish their studies.
Thus we consider the time elapsed between the start of union (t 0=first year of
union) and the year of birth of the first child (t 1), if this birth takes place within 8
years of the start of union without separation of the partners. Beyond 8 years, the
proportional hazards model that we use is no longer applicable; these relatively
infrequent situations (fewer than 5%) cannot be studied in the same way.
Three groups are included in the analysis as “right-censored data”: women
who remained with their first partner but had no child during the first eight years of
life in union (t 1= t 0+8); women who separated from their first partner before having
a child and before eight years together in union with that partner (t 1= date of sepa-
ration); and women for whom the date of the survey intervened before a child was
born and before eight years in union (t 1= 1997).
Several activity statuses (employed, unemployed, student, inactive) may be
recorded during the same calendar year in the survey. All are taken into considera-
tion for the period under study. For the younger women, labour force data are more
detailed.
a) Women aged 31 to 45
Of the 6,256 women in the sample who were born between 1952 and 1966,
5,771 have lived in a couple. The others, representing about 12.4% of the younger
women (born 1964-1966) and 5.1% of the older ones (born 1952-1954) are
excluded from the sample.
Among the women who have lived in a union, 163 are eliminated because
they had a child before the start of the union. Another 102 are excluded because
their activity status was not recorded at the start of the union, and their status with
respect to studies and the labour market at that time cannot be determined.

The final data file thus consists of 5,506 women (Table A). There were 4,629
women who had a child less than 9 years after the start of their first union and with-
out leaving their first partner. 503 women (9.1%) did not have a child; 283 women
had a child but more than 8 years after starting living together; and 302 women left
their partner before spending 8 years together in union, of whom 91 did so prior to
having a first birth. Thus, 877 women (15.9% of the sample) are included in the
analysis as “right-censored” observations.
With regard to the activity status, the yearly records only indicate long peri-
ods (at least 6 months). Five categories are distinguished:
— continuous unemployment: “unemployed and looking for work conti-
nuously”;
— continuous long-term employment: “employed for more than six months
(may be in more than one job if there has been a change of employer)”;
— intermittent employment : “short-duration jobs alternating with periods
without a job or periods of apprenticeship”;
— inactivity : “inactive, homemaker”;
— studying : “periods of study or continuous training or resumption of
studies”.
In the year when the union started, two women out of three held a long-term
job (66%), fewer than one out of five was studying (17.9%), while the proportion
inactive (13.2%) was close to that with intermittent employment (9.3%). Finally,
only 5.3% of the women experienced a period of uninterrupted unemployment dur-
ing that year (Table B).
TABLE A.– STRUCTURE OF THE SAMPLES OF THE YOUTH AND CAREERS SURVEY
AND TIME ELAPSED BETWEEN THE START OF THE UNION AND THE BIRTH
OF THE FIRST CHILD (MEDIAN DURATION IN YEARS)
Median duration in years

Number of
Cohorts % in the sample % weighted Unweighted
women Weighted total
total
Sample of women aged 31 to 45
1952-1954 1,030 18.7 20.0 2.43 2.45
1955-1957 1,151 20.9 20.3 2.82 2.88
1958-1960 1,114 20.2 20.5 3.02 3.10
1961-1963 1,174 21.3 20.1 3.35 3.39
1964-1966 1,037 18.8 19.1 3.66 3.72
100.0
Total 1952-66 5,506 100.0 (n = 5,660,000) 3.02 3.08
1968-1970 873 55.8 56.8 4.10 4.16
1971-1973 692 44.2 43.2 4.90 5.00
100.0
Total 1968-73 1,565 100.0 (n = 1,694,600) 4.40 4.44
Reading: Half of the women born between 1961 and 1963 had a first child within 3.4 years of the start of their
first union.
Source: INSEE, Youth and Careers Survey 1997.
TABLE B.– ACTIVITY STATUS(ES) ENCOUNTERED(1) BETWEEN THE START

OF THE UNION AND THE BIRTH OF THE FIRST CHILD

Level of education Status at
Cohorts (%) Total
(%) t0(2)
Βac or Less than
1952-1960 1961-1966 % N %
higher bac
Long-term employment 83.6 74.2 78.8 75.4 77.5 4,265 66.0
Short-term employment 12.4 13.5 9.6 18.5 13.1 723 9.3
Unemployment 7.8 10.1 6.4 13.6 9.3 512 5.3
Studies 38.0 9.8 17.5 22.8 19.6 1,080 17.9
Inactivity 10.2 21.0 17.7 16.5 17.2 947 13.2
Total (sample size) 1,916 3,590 3,295 2,211 100.0 5,506 5,506
Sample of women aged 24 to29
Βac or Less than
1968-1970 1971-1973 % N %
higher bac
Long-term employment 53.0 41.0 54.9 36.7 46.8 733 34.0
Short-term employment 36.7 40.9 35.3 43.4 38.8 608 26.4
Unemployment 21.4 34.9 25.8 31.6 28.4 444 16.1
Studies 56.7 28.4 38.5 46.8 42.2 660 37.6
Inactivity 4.9 16.1 11.8 9.2 10.7 167 7.8
Total (sample size) 760 805 873 692 100.0 1,565 1,565
(1) In the sense of the survey (continuous periods of at least 6 months for long-term employment, unemployment,
and inactivity). Multiple statuses may have been encountered during the same year.
(2) t = year in which the union began.
0
Before having a child, the young women encountered a growing number of

activity statuses. More than three-quarters had at least one long period of employ-
ment, and this figure was close to 84% among the most educated women. Periods of
intermittent employment and of unemployment were especially common among the
youngest and least educated women. One woman in ten experienced unemployment.
Among the most educated women, more than one in three continued her studies
after starting her union. Among those women who did not graduate from secondary
school, one out of five experienced at least one period of inactivity (Table B).
The probability of having experienced these different situations is not inde-
pendent of the characteristics of the young women. The methods used enable us to
distinguish among the effects of each of the variables considered in the model.
b) Women aged 24 to 29
The sample of younger women consists of 1,565 women born between 1968
and 1973. Among them, 795 women had a child before the 9th year of their life in
union and without leaving their partner. 737 (47.1%) did not have a child, 8 had a
child but more than 8 years after the start of their first union, 141 left their first part-
ner before 8 years of life together, and for 25 of the latter women this separation
also preceded the birth of a child. Thus, 770 women (49.2%) are included in the
analysis as “right-censored” observations.
The work history schedule of the younger women differs somewhat from the
one used for the older cohorts of women, in order to better represent their situation
at the start of observation and to remain consistent with earlier surveys. When a
young woman had experienced different statuses during the same year, the record
identifies, in addition to the principal status during the year, a “secondary” status
(that must be reported if it lasted at least three months or if it coexisted with the

principal status).
The categorization of the work status of the young women is done so as to be
consistent with that of the older women:
— unemployment : principal or secondary status of “unemployed and looking
for work”;
— long-term employment : principal or secondary status of “full-time wage
earner for an unlimited duration, or unpaid family worker, or self-em-
ployed”;
— short-term or intermittent employment : principal or secondary status of
“apprenticeship or fixed-term contracts, temporary job, seasonal work”;
— inactivity : principal or secondary status of “inactive, homemaker”;
— studies : principal or secondary status of “student, unpaid training or occu-
pational training course, subsidized employment contract or remunerated
student”.
In the year in which they started their union, only 34% of the young women
in the sample had long-term employment, more than a third were pursuing their
studies (38%), and the percentage inactive (7.8%) was substantially lower than the
percentage of women in short-term employment (26.4%);16.1% experienced a
period of unemployment, a much larger proportion than among the older cohorts of
women (Table B).
Before having a child, these women encountered a variety of statuses. Almost
half of them (46.7%) had at least one period of long-term employment, and this pro-
portion was close to 53% among the most educated women. Periods of short-term
employment and unemployment are especially prevalent among the youngest and
the least educated. Nearly three women in 10 experienced unemployment. Among
the most educated women, 56.7% continued with their studies after starting their
union; among those without a secondary education diploma, 16% experienced at
least one period of inactivity (Table B).
c) To weight or not to weight
The sample is representative of the total population and the weights take into
account the non-response rates (which were relatively low, around 7%) by sex, age,
type of activity, and size of urban area. The 5,506 women aged 31 to 45 in the sam-
ple are representative of approximately 5,660,000 women in that age range as of
March 1997, and the 1,565 younger women born between 1968 and 1973, of
1,695,000 women (Table A). Should the sample cases be weighted in the analyses?
In a cross-sectional analysis, each surveyed individual clearly represents a weight
in the sampling frame. In longitudinal analyses, the answer is not so clear. Since the
sample is representative as of the time of survey, it may also be assumed to be rep-
resentative of the past of the individuals covered by the survey. But this point is a
debatable one (Hoem, 1985). The condition for being able to use a non-weighted
sample is that it be non-informative. Unfortunately, this condition can never be per-
fectly verified. It is, however, indispensable to work also with non-weighted sam-
ples to test the significance of the results.
Neglecting the new non-responses introduced by the “poorly completed” life
histories, we recalculated a certain number of results by attributing to each individ-
ual her weight in the survey. These weighted results differ only slightly from the
non-weighted results, bearing witness to the quality of the initial sampling

(Table A).
3. What the analysis does not say

The model presented in this article allows some progress in the analysis of
the interactions between labour market and family behaviour, although it does not
account for all the potential explanatory factors. Without calling into question the
conclusions presented here, we would like to refine the explanation.
a) Problems of couples...
First of all, it is well known that the experiences of partners are not independ-
ent. In decisions to migrate, type of employment, etc., what happens to one depends
in part on what happens to the other, and certain characteristics of the couple, such
as the age difference between partners, have a significant influence on work histo-
ries (Courgeau and Meron, 1996). A fortiori, a child is a joint project of the couple
and the activity status of the future father will certainly interact with that of the
mother. This aspect cannot be taken into account here because the survey deals only
with the partners present in March 1997 and there is no information on previous
partners in cases of separation. But the biographical approach requires taking into
account the characteristics that were relevant at the moment when the event in ques-
tion took place. One way of dealing with this problem due to separations (which
incidentally were more numerous in the more recent cohorts) would have been to
study the arrival of a first child only for women who stayed with the same partner.
But that would have introduced a serious selection bias. Accounting for the succes-
sive places of residence of an individual raises similar problems. Finally, it would
be interesting to know whether the impact of the woman’s unemployment is tem-

pered by the stability of her partner’s employment, if the unemployment of the man
delays the prospect of a child to a lesser or a greater extent than that of the woman,
and to measure the cumulated impact of the unemployment of the two partners or
the influence of certain types of employment.
b) ... and of health
Since our data file does not have any information pertinent to health or to
possible problems of contraception or subfecundity, the analysis cannot take these
problems into account. This is equivalent to considering that these problems are
independent of the explanatory variables, most notably of the birth cohort, the level
of education, and the activity status of the women. Yet it is well known that certain
health problems are more frequently encountered among unemployed individuals
than among other persons in the labour force. Some people are inactive for health
reasons. It seems quite unlikely, however, that such problems can explain the mag-
nitude of the differentials observed.
Moreover, if subfecundity is linked to age, it may contribute to extending the
childless period of the most educated women and of the younger cohorts of women
who start their union at an older age. This effect is probably sufficiently weak to be
accounted for already in the analysis, since age at union does not appear to have any
independent effect after cohort and level of education have been controlled for.
c) Some future lines of inquiry
The event history approach, which is well suited to examining these kinds of
issues, can be used to explore other questions as well. It would be interesting to
analyse other birth intervals to see if the effect of unemployment in delaying the

first birth is also evident for higher-order births. The experiences of men could also
be examined, and their outcomes could be compared to those of women...
The limitations of the Youth and Careers Survey prompt thoughts of alterna-
tive data sources, where the employment, family, and migration histories would be
more complete. Another interesting line of research would be to compare the indi-
vidual point of view with the strategy of the firm. The introduction of the
employer’s characteristics in the analysis of individual behaviour, the simultaneous
study of the biography of individuals and the history of the firms for which they
work, might shed light on the construction of certain modes of behaviour in the
field of the family.
REFERENCES
A ERTS Anne-Thérèse, MERCIER Marie-Annick, 2001, “Enquête sur l’emploi de mars 2001 : la
forte hausse de l’emploi se poursuit”, Insee Première, no. 785, 5 p.
BARRÈRE-M AURISSON Marie-Agnès, MARCHAND Olivier, 2000, “Famille et marché du travail dans
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thèses, no. 11.1, 8 p.
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sance de leurs deux premiers enfants : l’impact de l’allocation parentale d’éducation”,
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B RUNET François, M INNI Claude, 2000, “L’activité des 15-29 ans : stabilisation depuis 1995”,
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COURGEAU Daniel, LELIÈVRE Éva, 1989, Analyse démographique des biographies, Paris, Ined,
269 p.
C OURGEAU Daniel, MERON Monique, 1996, “Mobilité résidentielle, activité et vie familiale des
couples”, Économie et statistique, no. 290.
D EMAZIÈRE Didier, DUBAR Claude, 1997, Analyser les entretiens biographiques : l’exemple des
récits d’insertion, Essais et Recherches, Nathan, 350 p.
D ESPLANQUES Guy, S ABOULIN Michel de, 1986, “Mariage et premier enfant : un lien qui se dé-
fait”, Économie et Statistique, no. 187, pp. 31-45.
D ESPLANQUES Guy, 1996, “Un facteur de naissances tardives : le diplôme”, Population, l’état des
connaissances : la France, l’Europe, le Monde, Ined/La découverte, pp. 17.
D ORMONT Brigitte, DUFOUR-K IPPELEN Sandrine, 2000, “Insertion professionnelle et autonomie
résidentielle : le cas des jeunes peu diplômés”, Économie et statistique, no. 337-338.
EKERT-JAFFE Olivia, SOLAZ Anne, 2000, Unemployment and family formation in France, Ined,
(coll. Dossiers et Recherches, no. 82), 26 p.
ESTRADE Marc-Antoine, MINNI Claude, 1996, “La hausse du niveau de formation”, Insee
Première, no. 488, 4 p.
ESTRADE Marc-Antoine, THIESSET Christine, 1998, “Des débuts de carrière moins assurés”, Insee
Première, no. 598, 4 p.
F ONDEUR Yannick, MINNI Claude, 1999, “Emploi des jeunes et conjoncture”, Premières informa-
tions et premières synthèses, no. 51(1), 10 p.
G ALLAND Olivier, 1995, “Une entrée de plus en plus tardive dans la vie adulte”, Économie et Sta-
tistique, no. 283-284, pp. 33-52.
G ALLAND Olivier, 2000, “Entrer dans la vie adulte : des étapes toujours plus tardives mais res-
serrées”, Économie et statistique, no. 337-338.
G ALLAND Olivier, MERON Monique, 1996, “Les frontières de la jeunesse”, Données sociales
1996, pp. 324-327.
H OEM J., 1985, “Weighting, Misclassification and other Issues in the Analysis of Survey Samples
of Life Histories”, Longitudinal Analysis of Labour Market Data, Ed. J. Heckman &
B. Singer, Cambridge University Press.
K EMPENEERS Marianne, LELIÈVRE Éva, 1991, “Analyse biographique du travail féminin”,
European Journal of Population, no. 7, pp. 377-400.

K IEFFER Annick, MARRY Catherine, MERON Monique, SOLAZ Anne, “Family formation in an
uncertain labour market”, forthcoming in Globalization and the Transition from Youth to
Adulthood: The Role of Country-Specific Institutions, Univ. of Bielefeld, Germany.
LERIDON Henri, 1985, “La baisse de la fécondité depuis 1965 : moins d’enfants désirés et moins
de grossesses non désirées”, Population, 40 (3), pp. 507-526.
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cahier no. 134), 342 p.
M ARUANI Margaret (ed.), 1998, Les nouvelles frontières de l’inégalité, La Découverte, 283 p.
M ERON Monique, MINNI Claude, 1995, “Des études à l’emploi : plus tard et plus difficilement
qu’il y a vingt ans”, Économie et statistique, no. 283-284, pp. 9-32.
N ICOLE-D RANCOURT Chantal, 1989, Le labyrinthe de l’insertion.
N ICOLE-D RANCOURT Chantal, ROULLEAU-BERGER Laurence, 1995, L’insertion des jeunes en
France, Paris, Puf, (coll. Que sais-je ? no. 2977), 127 p.
P RIOUX France, 1996, “Le premier enfant : de plus en plus tard”, Population, l’état des
connaissances : la France, l’Europe, le Monde, Ined/La Découverte, pp. 16-18.
P RIOUX France, 2001, “L’évolution démographique récente en France”, Population, 56 (4),
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S INGLY François de, 1987, Fortune et infortune de la femme mariée : sociologie de la vie conju-
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TOULEMON Laurent, 1995, “The place of children in the history of couples”, Population: An En-
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TOULEMON Laurent, 1998, “La famille”, in Thélot Claude et Villac Michel, Politique familiale bi-
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TOULEMON Laurent, LERIDON Henri, 1999, “La famille idéale : combien d’enfants, à quel âge ?”,
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M ERON Monique, W IDMER Isabelle.– Unemployment Leads Women to Postpone the Birth
of Their First Child
Unemployment, more than other activity statuses, prompts childless young women in un-
ion to delay a prospective maternity. This result is established here for women born between
1952 and 1973, on the basis of data from the Youth and Careers Survey carried out by INSEE
in 1997. Young women confronted with a period of unemployment chose to forego their first
child for a while, rather than take advantage of the “free” time imposed on them. In contrast,
homemakers especially at the beginning of their union tend to have their first births much more
rapidly. This result confirms that a period of unemployment is not tantamount to a period of in-
activity. In matters of fertility, unemployed women are not homemakers.
Economic fluctuations have an especially important impact on the early working life of
the young, at the very time when they may be starting a family. The usual statistical analyses do
not make it possible to demonstrate a clear link between the growth of unemployment and the
increase in the age at first birth. Biographical analysis sheds light on the impact of female un-
employment on childbearing plans, by including the timing of life history events of individuals
among the variables that explain behaviour.
In a society where contraception makes it possible for women to master the timing of
their fertility and where female labour force participation has become the norm, these findings
show that the family building process and the couples’ decisions are now factoring in the work
experience and the career goals of both partners.
M ERON Monique, W IDMER Isabelle.– Las mujeres en paro posponen la llegada del pri-
mer hijo
El paro, más que otras situaciones laborales, incita a las mujeres jóvenes en pareja y
sin hijos a posponer los proyectos de maternidad. Este artículo confirma este postulado para
las mujeres nacidas entre 1952 y 1973 a través de los resultados de la encuesta Jóvenes y
Carreras llevado a cabo por el INSEE en 1997. Las mujeres jóvenes en paro renuncian tempo-
ralmente a tener un primer hijo en lugar de anticipar su llegada para aprovechar el tiempo
“libre” impuesto. La situación de ama de casa, en cambio, conlleva primeras maternidades
mucho más jóvenes, especialmente al inicio de la vida en pareja. Este resultado confirma que
un período de desempleo no es equiparable a un periodo de inactividad: en términos de fe-

cundidad, las desempleadas no son amas de casa.
La coyuntura económica tiene un efecto importante sobre jóvenes que inician su carrera
profesional, en el momento en que son susceptibles de crear una familia. Los análisis estadí-
sticos existentes no permiten establecer una relación clara entre el aumento del paro y el re-
traso de la maternidad. El análisis biográfico, sin embargo, permite medir el impacto del paro
femenino sobre los proyectos de descendencia ya que incluye el tiempo entre sucesos de la
historia de vida de los individuos entre las variables explicativas de sus comportamientos.
Una sociedad en la cual los anticonceptivos permiten controlar la fecundidad y en la
cual la actividad profesional de las mujeres se ha generalizado, estos resultados muestran que
las situaciones profesionales presentes y futuras de ambos cónyuges influyen en los calenda-
rios familiares y las decisiones de las parejas.
Monique MERON, Institut National d’Études Démographiques, 133 bd Davout, 75980 Paris Cedex 20,
France, tel. : 33 0(1) 56 06 21 53, fax : 33 0(1) 56 06 21 99, e-mail : meron@ined.fr

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Unemployment Leads Women to Postpone the Birth of

Their First Child

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Article available online at

Electronic distribution Cairn.info for I.N.E.D.

Monique MERON* and Isabelle WIDMER**

In a number of developed countries, the delay in the onset

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* Institut National d’Études Démographiques (INED).

Population-E 2002, 57 (2), 301-330

the link with fertility, is a period of unemployment comparable to a period

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Postponement of the first birth is linked to family transformations,

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Difficulties of economic integration and postponed family formation:

those without any diploma or only a primary school certificate, to about

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Monographs and cross-sectional surveys give conflicting answers

to formal training, via the ‘programming’ of a child” (Nicole-Drancourt

Event history analysis allows a different approach

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Age Ined 306 02

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Figure 2.– Unemployment rates of women aged 15-29, by level of education

Half of the women born between 1952 and 1966 had a

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(consecutive or concurrent) may be encountered for a single year. All the

The youngest and the most educated women were

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Percentage Ined 308 02

Figure 3.– Proportion of childless women by duration of union

Percentage Ined 309 02

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Figure 4.– Proportion of childless women by duration of union

Women aged 31-45 – cohorts: Women aged 24-29 – cohorts:

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© I.N.E.D | Téléchargé le 02/03/2023 sur www.cairn.info (IP: 115.74.89.114)

Women experiencing unemployment postpone

Coefficient Relative risk

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BACCALAUREAT Unemployment NO BACCALAUREAT

20 Did not experience 20

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...than those who experienced stable or even intermittent employment

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Unemployed women and homemakers do not have

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Are women under 30 following in the footsteps of their elders?

Percentage Ined 310 02

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Figure 6.– Proportion of childless women by duration of union, birth cohort,

Half of the women born between 1968 and 1973 waited

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Among the younger cohorts, unemployment has a stronger

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BACCALAUREAT, BORN IN 1968-1973 Unemployment NO BACCALAUREAT, BORN IN 1968-1973