Pathways to Parenthood: Exploring the influence of Context as a Predictor of Early Parenthood

1. Pathways to Parenthood: Exploring the influence of Context as a Predictor of Early Parenthood PhD Student: Dylan Kneale Supervisors: Professor Heather Joshi and Dr Jane Elliott

2. Background • Contemporary early parenthood is set against a movement towards an older overall age at first birth. • Rising age has lead to increasing social polarisation in age at first parenthood. • Investigations have concentrated on early parenthood as a social problem and not as a demographic event. • Demographic theories explaining variations in fertility patterns have therefore been neglected • Diffusion theory attributes causality to contextual factors as predictors of fertility patterns.

3. Mission Statement I • Given rising age at first birth, define what constitutes early parenthood. • Use a wide definition of context to examine the effects of: - Interactions with mass media - Neighbourhood - Partnership market/characteristics - School characteristics - Peer effects - Parental input • Top down approach to analysis of social networks used

4. Mission Statement II • Evaluate the magnitude of contextual predictors based on measurement point (childhood, teenage years and early adulthood) • Policy implications include guidance for potential intervention strategies aimed at reducing levels of early fertility. • Further policy implications from cross cohort analysis in terms of predicting future trends of early fertility • Methodological contribution made in the evaluation of techniques used to analyse fertility patterns.

5. Data Utilise strengths of the birth cohort studies to examine factors affecting fertility. • National Child Development Study (NCDS) – Originally included all live births in G.B from one month in 1958. • British Cohort Study (BCS70) – Originally included all live births in U.K from one month in 1970. • In both studies, the addition of immigrants has been offset by attrition:

6. Data Collection NCDS 1974 NCDS (Age 16) 1965 NCDS (Age 7) 1991 NCDS (Age 33) 2004 NCDS (Age 46) 1969 NCDS (Age 11) 1981 NCDS (Age 23) 1958 NCDS Birth 2000 NCDS (Age 42) 1975 BCS70 (Age 5) 1986 BCS70 (Age 16) 2000 BCS70 (Age 30) 1980 BCS70 (Age 10) 1996 BCS70 (Age 26) 1970 BCS70 Birth 2004 BCS70 (Age 34) Data Collection BCS70

7. What is early parenthood? • Early parenthood synonymous with teenage parenthood in media • Is this meaningful distinction or just convention? • Age specific fertility rate for teenagers decreased from 30 births per 1000 women in 1985 to 26 births per 1000 in 2005 (ONS) • Is focus reactive to media and political constructions or real differences?

8. What is early parenthood?

9. How should early parenthood be defined? • Using absolute cut off points, survival analysis and piecewise regression to derive definitions of early parenthood: • The literature supports the idea that the effects of the timing of parenthood are felt up to a certain point, changing after this. Piecewise regression methods are used to test this proposition.

10. How should early parenthood be defined – example output….. • In the above output, a spline has been identified at age 32. Up to this age, delaying fatherhood corresponds to an increase in household income of value age1 (However, other factors do mitigate the relationship) • Age2 corresponds to the value of the difference between slopes up to 32 years and ages afterwards – significantly different

11. How could early fatherhood be defined? 27 years spline identified from NCDS cm’s mother’s age at first birth 21 years 2 months, first 12.5% of NCDS cohort are fathers 24 years 11 months, first 25% of NCDS cohort are fathers 32 years spline identified from NCDS income 14 years 5 months, first NCDS father Teenage Birth 15 years 2 months, first BCS70 father 23 years 11 months, first 12.5% of BCS70 cohort are fathers 27 years, first 25% of BCS70 cohort are fathers 28 years spline identified from NCDS test scores Conclusion: Teenage definition is a poor definition of early fatherhood. Given the data, a proportional definition is satisfactory

12. How could early motherhood be defined? 22 years 2 months, first 25% of NCDS cohort are mothers 27 years spline identified from NCDS cm’s mother’s age at first birth 19 years 11 months, first 12.5% of NCDS cohort are mothers 33 years spline identified from NCDS income 13 years 2 months, first NCDS mother Teenage Birth 23 years 11 months, first 25% of BCS70 cohort are mothers 15 years 2 months, first BCS70 mother 20 years 8 months, first 12.5% of BCS70 cohort are mothers 28 years spline identified from NCDS test scores Conclusion: Teenage definition is a poor definition of early motherhood. Given the data, a proportional definition is satisfactory

13. How many early parents feature in NCDS and BCS70? – the definitions to be used in the remainder of the research….

14. Research Findings I • Diffusion theory not supported by a large body of empirical evidence and early parenthood in the literature is synonymous with teenage parenthood. • Data from the NCDS and BCS70 reveals that teenage parents are a dwindling population. • Teenage parents share characteristics with parents in their early to mid twenties - proportional definition of early parenthood should therefore be used. • Widely used Cox’s Proportional Hazards Models provide an insufficient fit for modelling entry into parenthood data - Lognormal AFT models favoured • Ability in maths is more predictive than ability in reading for early parenthood - this may extend to other lifecourse events.

15. Research Findings II • More variables reflective of socioeconomic characteristics predict early motherhood than early fatherhood. • Variables reflective of personality superseded in this research by attitudinal variables. Age at which young people think it’s best to get married is a significant predictor of fertility for males and females. • Parental Interest in education found to be an important predictor of early fertility - less interested parents correspond to earlier first parenthood. However, over interest found to increase onset to early parenthood. (not submitted but fed into models) • Age difference between parents at first birth is significant.

16. Research Findings III • Early childhood (age 7 years) factors play a greater role in predicting early fatherhood. Conditions experienced during middle childhood and teenage years (age 11 and 16 years) play a greater role in predicting early motherhood. • Women in rural areas more likely to experience early motherhood, but not teenage motherhood • Neighbourhood a stronger predictor for fatherhood than motherhood. May demonstrate greater heterogeneity among early fathers and increased importance of partner’s characteristics. • Age at first motherhood an increasing marker of social polarisation. 31% of graduate women born in 1970 are expected to remain childless; 24% of graduate women born in 1958.Trend reversed for women with no qualifications.

17. Future Directions I • Isolate true effect of neighbourhood using multilevel modelling applied to both cohorts. • Continue to derive and analyse the effects of other background variables. Includes further analyses of attitudinal variables • Examine school based characteristics as a measure of social networks. • Analyse the effects of mass media consumption as a predictor of early parenthood. • Establish to what extent fertility patterns of cohort members are influenced by interaction with their peers.

18. Future Directions II • Continue investigation into parental input including cohort members’ perceptions of parental relationships. • Examine partnership characteristics. Measure social differentials in the characteristics of partners - examine in particular if a greater homogeneity exists among the partners of early fathers than amongst early fathers themselves. • Analyse inter cohort differences in the direction and magnitude of contextual predictors. • Measure the extent of increasing social polarisation in the age at first birth; make predictions for future trends