WHERE IS WOMEN¿S REVOLUTION GOING?THE EFFECTS OF EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT ON FERTILITY BEHAVIOURS ACROSS EUROPE

The contribution of this thesis consisted of investigating the effect of education and employment on fertility, exploring mechanisms in social reproductive behaviour by focusing on the main two domains of an individual’s life: education and employment. Using GGS (first and second wave) and FSS data on a sample of women born between 1940 and 1979 and applying piecewise exponential model, we have tried to answer to very broad questions: how does education affect the transition to motherhood and higher order births? How does employment affect the transition to motherhood and higher order births? In order to provide an answer to the research questions, in the first section (Chapter 1) of the thesis we gathered some theoretical tools that helped us to explain the different effects of these two dimensions both within and between countries. Firstly, we presented the theories avoiding the distinction between fields, presenting the theories as if they are on a continuum, identified by four “poles”: micro/macro and material/ideal. The aim of Chapter 2 is to observe the relationship between education and fertility, focusing on the effect of educational attainment on the transition to the first, second and third childbirth. The results suggest that transition to second and third birth are more in line with Gender Revolution hypothesis in Western European countries, in which higher educated women have a higher relative risk to have the second and third child compared to lower educated women. The polarisations between more educated women and lower educated women and between West and East are leading to social inequalities across countries. Chapter 3 aims to extend the literature about the effect of women’s employment, on fertility behaviours, observing in particular the thesis found at the macro level, concerning the period after the mid-80s, when the association between employment and fertility changed from negative to positive. The result suggests a deep difference across countries, opposing, on the one hand, all post-socialist regimes (aside Hungary) and social democratic regimes and on the other hand, Italy and Hungary. In general, results regarding the transition to the first child suggest that post-socialist and social democratic regimes countries support more working women. Furthermore, findings on the transition to second birth reveal that for working mothers is more difficult to combine work and childcare duties compared to their counterparts and therefore the risk of postponement is higher. Based on the previous results, the last chapter (Chapter 4) sheds light on the relationship between employment and fertility behaviours in Italy and Hungary. Previous empirical research on attitudes toward double income and gender equity theorises that while the former is more developed in Hungary than in Italy, the latter is more spread in Italy. This distinction permits to explain results for which in Italy employed women with tertiary education have a higher relative risk to become mother compared to their counterparts; while in Hungary tertiary educated women experience lower propensity. These findings can be interpreted in terms of the spread of attitudes towards gender equity that is more developed in Italy than Hungary.