Partnership and Employment Pathways to Childlessness in Spain

Mariona Lozano , CED, Centre for Demographic Studies
Alicia Adsera , Princeton University
Xiana Bueno, School of Public Health, Indiana University

Spanish total fertility rate has been lower than 1.4 children per woman since the 1990s. One of the main drivers of this low fertility rate is the high number of childless women, which could be explained by the postponement of childbearing. Women often delay the decision to have children beyond the prime reproductive ages making fecundity issues an obstacle for childbearing. On the other hand, some women may be choosing to remain childless due to an increased emphasis on autonomy and self-realization, and a larger social acceptance of new demographic behaviors. Nonetheless, at the micro-level, little is known about pathways to childlessness in Spain. After the age of 40, how many childless women would have liked to have children? Which are the reasons reported by them for not having had children? Are they less likely to be in stable relationships, or are they more vulnerable in the labor market? Which paths lead to childlessness? Using data from the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey, we use a combination of sequence analysis and multistate models to identify and describe childless women trajectories in Spain. Initial results seem to indicate that partnership history is more relevant than labor-market paths to understand childlessness once women reach their forties. Compared to mothers, childless women after the age of 40 have spent more time in singlehood during their lives, and they report not having found the right partner as the main reason for their childlessness.

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 Presented in Session 58. Childlessness and parenthood in the life course