TY - JOUR
T1 - Modelling the socio-economic determinants of fertility
T2 - A mediation analysis using the parametric g-formula
AU - Bijlsma, Maarten J.
AU - Wilson, Ben
N1 - Funding Information:
Maarten and Ben thank the many colleagues who provided helpful comments in the development of this research. This includes the organizers and attendees of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population international seminar on ?Causal mediation analysis in health and work? in September 2016. Ben is grateful for financial support received from the Swedish Resaerch Council (Vetenskapsr?det), project 2017-01021 and grant 340-2013-5164 (the Swedish initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social and Medical Sciences), and from the Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland, decision 293103 (the research consortium Tackling Inequality in Time of Austerity). Finally, we thank Joshua Perleberg for the initial data management.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the Royal Statistical Society.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/2
Y1 - 2020/2
N2 - Theories predict that the timing of childbearing and number of children born are determined by multiple socio-economic factors. Despite this, many methods cannot investigate the interrelationships between these determinants, including the direct and indirect influence that they have on fertility over the life course. Here we use the parametric g-formula to examine the interdependent influences of time-varying socio-economic processes—education, employment status and partnership status—on fertility. To demonstrate this approach, we study a cohort of women who were born in the UK in 1970. Our results show that socio-economic processes play an important role in determining fertility, not only directly but also indirectly. We show that increasing attendance in higher education has a largely direct effect on early childbearing up to age 25 years, resulting in a substantial increase in childlessness. However, childbearing at later ages is dominated by an indirect effect of education on fertility, via partnership status and employment status, that is twice as large as the direct effect. We also use the g-formula to examine bias due to unobserved heterogeneity, and we demonstrate that our results appear to be robust. We conclude that the method provides a valuable tool for mediation analysis in studies of interdependent life course processes.
AB - Theories predict that the timing of childbearing and number of children born are determined by multiple socio-economic factors. Despite this, many methods cannot investigate the interrelationships between these determinants, including the direct and indirect influence that they have on fertility over the life course. Here we use the parametric g-formula to examine the interdependent influences of time-varying socio-economic processes—education, employment status and partnership status—on fertility. To demonstrate this approach, we study a cohort of women who were born in the UK in 1970. Our results show that socio-economic processes play an important role in determining fertility, not only directly but also indirectly. We show that increasing attendance in higher education has a largely direct effect on early childbearing up to age 25 years, resulting in a substantial increase in childlessness. However, childbearing at later ages is dominated by an indirect effect of education on fertility, via partnership status and employment status, that is twice as large as the direct effect. We also use the g-formula to examine bias due to unobserved heterogeneity, and we demonstrate that our results appear to be robust. We conclude that the method provides a valuable tool for mediation analysis in studies of interdependent life course processes.
KW - Fertility
KW - g-formula
KW - Mediation
KW - Socio-economic determinants
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073945360&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/rssa.12520
DO - 10.1111/rssa.12520
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85073945360
VL - 183
SP - 493
EP - 513
JO - Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A: Statistics in Society
JF - Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A: Statistics in Society
SN - 1467-985X
IS - 2
ER -