On the links between employment, partnership quality, and the intention to have a first child: The case of West Germany

We examine the impact of precarious work (low income and job security satisfaction) on the intention to have a first child. We consider a direct and an indirect effect; the latter is mediated by partners’ conflict behaviour, conflict level, and partnership quality. We assume that a satisfactory partnership is positively associated with the intention to have a first child. The analyses are based on a subsample of the German Generations and Gender Survey. For men we found a direct effect of income and an indirect effect of job security satisfaction on childbearing intentions, whereas for women no direct and only a weak indirect impact of precarious work could be observed. 1 Universtity of Bremen, Institute Labour and Economy. Universitätsallee 21-23, 28359 Bremen, Germany. Tel.: +49(0)421-218 7774. E-mail: [email protected]. 2 University of Cologne. E-mail: [email protected]. 3 University of Cologne. E-mail: [email protected]. Berninger, Weiß & Wagner: On the links between employment, partnership quality, and a first child http://www.demographic-research.org 580 1. Problem In recent years labour markets in industrialised countries have experienced significant changes. The breakdown of the East-West divide led to a rapid intensification of competition and deregulation in the job market (Mills and Blossfeld 2005). As a result precarious employment increased, characterised by fixed-term contracts, part-time work, less social security, or insufficient income (Keller and Seifert 2006: 235). Family sociologists assume that this increase in precarious employment affects family formation negatively. For instance, Blossfeld et al. (2005) argue that young people in particular suffer from these recent developments and face uncertainty in employment situations. In countries with a high prevalence of precarious jobs young people postpone or even abandon starting a family. Research on fertility motivation differentiates the desire to have a child and childbearing intention. “The difference [...] is akin to the difference between what one would like to do given no situational constraints and what one actually plans to do given the reality within which one ordinarily operates” (Miller, Lawrence and Pasta 2004: 194). According to this definition childbearing intention is a consequence of a conscious and rational fertility decision, since the restrictions of individual living conditions are taken into account. Furthermore it displays the result of the decision even better than real fertility, because births may occur when unintended, or may not when intended. Previous research on childbearing intention has focused on the influence of attitudes, norms, and the social network or social capital (Schoen et al. 1997; Philipov, Spéder, and Billari 2006; Bühler and Fratczak 2007; Ruckdeschel 2007; Bühler 2008; Billari, Philipov, and Tester 2009; Dommermuth et al. 2009; Klobas 2010), gender equity (Mills et al. 2008; Neyer and Rieck 2009), happiness (Billari 2009), and religion (Hayford and Morgan 2008). Moreover some studies have dealt with the impact of the employment situation on childbearing intentions. Pailhé (2009) found that in France, Germany, and Russia unemployment has no significant effect on the intention of having a child within the next three years. In Georgia household income has a positive impact on the intention to have a child (Balbo 2009). In Germany men with a high income wish to have a child more often, whereas for women the contrary seems to be true (Eckhard and Klein 2006). However no multivariate tests were performed to ensure the latter findings. Additionally several studies have examined the link between precarious work and fertility behaviour. This research has mainly focused on the impact of fixed-term contracts or part-time employment (Tölke and Diewald 2003; Tölke 2005; Kurz 2005; Kurz, Steinhage, and Golsch 2005; Bernhard and Kurz 2007; Brose 2008; Gebel and Giesecke 2009). Not many studies have evaluated the effect of income on fertility in Demographic Research: Volume 24, Article 24 http://www.demographic-research.org 581 Germany. Schmitt (2005) found a positive income effect for men and a negative for women, whereas González and Jurado-Guerrero (2006) detected no significant impact of women’s income on their fertility. Research from other European countries shows that women’s income has a negative effect on birth risks in the UK (Sigle-Rushton 2008) and a positive one in Finland and Sweden (Hoem 2000; Vikat 2004; Andersson, Duvander, and Hank 2005; Andersson and Scott 2008). Studies by Kreyenfeld (2008, 2010) revealed that dissatisfaction with job security leads to a postponement of the transition to parenthood. So far research has focused on the direct effects of the employment situation on childbearing intentions or fertility. Since fertility decisions depend on the situation within a partnership (e.g. Miller, Lawrence, and Pasta 2004), we want to broaden the research focus by also considering indirect effects from employment on fertility intentions. More precisely, we take the conflicts within and the quality of a partnership into account, assuming that these variables mediate the association between employment and fertility intentions. The concern of this article is to fill three research gaps. First we examine the impact of the respondent’s income and her or his subjective job security on the frequency of conflicts and the conflict behaviour in a partnership, while also controlling for the partner’s employment situation. The frequency of conflicts and the conflict behaviour are likely to influence the partnership quality (e.g. Clements, Stanley, and Markman 2004), which in turn should affect the intention to have a child (e.g. Rijken and Thomson 2010). Second we evaluate the association between income and fertility intentions in Germany in a multivariate model. Third, since almost all previous studies that used an objective measure of job security (a fixed-term contract) found no evidence of an impact on fertility decisions, we want to examine the impact of subjective job security on the intention to have a child. We assume how the employment situation is perceived and evaluated is more relevant than the objective characteristics of the situation. We only consider the intention to have a first child, as the birth of a first child can be expected to have a stronger impact on the parents’ life than the birth of a second or third child. We assume that with the birth of a first child a restriction on the working life of at least one of the parents begins. Moreover second or third children cost less than the first one since many essential goods can be reused. Due to these reasons the decision-making process of having a first child is different from that of having a further child, and consequently we prefer not to mix these heterogeneous groups. For our analyses we use a subsample of childless men and women living in marital or non-marital partnerships in West Germany. We only consider employed respondents, because only those having a job can give information about their satisfaction with job security. The subsample was derived from the German Generations and Gender Survey Berninger, Weiß & Wagner: On the links between employment, partnership quality, and a first child http://www.demographic-research.org 582 (2005). We estimate path models to specify the consequences of the employment situation for the quality of partnerships and childbearing intentions.