Competing Care Burdens and Fertility: Are Extended Care Needs Reducing the Number of Children?

Tomass Nielsen , Tallinn University
Martin Klesment, Tallinn University

This paper examines how competing demands for time and financial resources, otherwise known as care capacity, for young- and middle aged adults’ is associated with fertility. We hypothesise that individuals who have care obligations, e.g. simultaneously caring for elderly parents and dependent children, are less likely to have more children than those who do not. We analyse this question using data from the Generations & Gender Survey (GGS). Using the longitudinal design of the GGS, we make an analysis of the respondents’ likelihood of having another child between the two waves. It is found that the group of young adults who reported that they provide care also for others besides their children, had a lower likelihood of having another child compared with those who were not engaged in providing care.

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 Presented in Session P1. Poster Session Fertility, Family and the Life Course