Childlessness Trends in Twentieth-Century Europe: Limited Link to Growing Educational Attainment

Abstract

Childlessness, a fundamental component of fertility, has undergone strong variations in 20th- century Europe. In parallel, educational attainment has been rising continuously. We analyse how these two factors were related to each other over time. Our study uses census and large-scale survey data from 13 European countries, collected in the Cohort Fertility and Education database. In the 1916 to 1940 birth cohorts, the share of women childless at age 40+ decreased in all countries and education groups. Afterwards, up to the 1965 cohort, the trends diverged between countries. The results suggest that the changes in the educational composition of the population were only marginally related to the overall variation in childlessness rates. With time the differences between women with low and medium/high education diminished. However, the childlessness ratio between highly and medium educated women remained stable in Western and Southern Europe and slightly increased in the East