A research note on the increasing income prerequisites of parenthood. Country-specific or universal in Western Europe?

Elisa Brini (), Raffaele Guetto () and Daniele Vignoli ()
Additional contact information
Elisa Brini: Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Universita' di Firenze, https://cercachi.unifi.it/p-doc2-0-0-A-3f2c372e3a2d2c.html
Raffaele Guetto: Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Universita' di Firenze, https://cercachi.unifi.it/p-doc2-0-0-A-3f2c342938302c.html
Daniele Vignoli: Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Universita' di Firenze, https://www.danielevignoli.com/

No 2025_05, Econometrics Working Papers Archive from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti"

Abstract: Traditional economic theories link male income to higher fertility and female income to increased opportunity costs. However, shifting gender roles and socio-economic changes challenge these assumptions, with evidence suggesting rising income prerequisites of parenthood in high-income countries. This research note examines the role of income in first childbirth for men and women from 2006 to 2020 across 16 Western European countries based on longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and discrete-time logistic regressions. Results show that higher income consistently increases the transition to parenthood in all countries, with stronger effects for women. Over time, income has become a stronger predictor of parenthood. Widening fertility differentials across income groups are primarily driven by declining first-birth probabilities among lower-income men and women, supporting the hypothesis of increasing income prerequisites of parenthood. In four countries, the positive income effect for men weakens, which we interpret as a signal of changing gender roles. In one country, widening fertility differentials are driven by increasing fertility among high-income women, consistent with the argument of declining opportunity costs. Overall, findings suggest that the income prerequisites of parenthood have risen in high-income countries, strongly contributing to increasing income inequalities in fertility.

Keywords: Fertility; Income; Gender roles; Opportunity costs; EU-SILC. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 J13 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2025-06
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://labdisia.disia.unifi.it/wp_disia/2025/wp_disia_2025_05.pdf First version, 2025-06 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fir:econom:wp2025_05

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Econometrics Working Papers Archive from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti" Viale G.B. Morgagni, 59 - I-50134 Firenze - Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Fabrizio Cipollini ().