Rethinking Couples’ Fertility in Spain: Do Partners’ Relative Education, Employment, and Job Stability Matter?

Abstract

Abstract Fertility decisions among Spanish couples have been strongly driven by economic uncertainty in a context in which dual-earner couples have become the norm and in which the gender gap in education has reversed. However, the partners’ respective jobs do not carry the same weight in such decisions. We explore how homogamous or heterogamous education, employment, and job stability between partners can provide insights into couples’ fertility decisions using data from 2002 to 2018 Spanish Labor Force Survey. The results reveal that among heterogamic couples, the woman’s job stability more than the man’s is key for childbearing decisions, while no differences are found in fertility levels for educationally heterogamous partners. In homogamous couples, the results suggest a reversal of the negative education-fertility gradient and show that highly educated couples have a higher likelihood of having a child than less-educated couples. Dual-earner couples are more likely to be parents than couples affected by unemployment and as likely as those meeting the declining male breadwinner, female caregiver model. We conclude that the role played by female employment in fertility trumps the role played by gender essentialism, highlighting the nonexclusive importance of gender egalitarianism, female employment, and economic uncertainty to fertility.