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Eur J Population (2016) 32:339354
DOI 10.1007/s10680-016-9385-1
Arnstein Aassve1 Bruno Arpino2 Nicoletta Balbo1
Published online: 22 August 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract The existing literature has so far considered the role of the individuals subjective well-being on fertility, neglecting the importance of the partners well-being. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and event history models estimated separately by parity, we nd that in a couple, womens happiness matters more than that of the male partner in terms of having the rst child. Specically, we observe that couples in which either partner is happier than usual are more at risk of having the rst child, but the effect is stronger with higher happiness of the woman. For the transition to the second child, we nd that couples in which the woman declares to be happier or less happy than usual have a lower risk of childbirth. We, moreover, nd support for a multiplicative effect of partners SWB on the decision to have a rst child. Our results show that failing to acknowledge that the subjective well-being of both partners matters for the inherently joint decision making of childbearing can lead to an incomplete view of how subjective well-being affects fertility.
Keywords Couples Happiness Fertility BHPS
& Arnstein Aassve [email protected]
Bruno Arpino [email protected]
Nicoletta Balbo [email protected]
1 Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management and Carlo F. Dondena Centre for
Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policies, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
2 Department of Political and Social Sciences and the Research and Expertise Centre for Survey Methodology (RECSM), Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
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Web End = It Takes Two to Tango: Couples Happiness and Childbearing
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1 Introduction
No longer limited to psychology, studies on subjective well-being and the way it links with various behavioral aspects are nding their way into the social sciences. Within demography, there has been a particular focus on the relationship between subjective well-being and childbearing. Recent years have witnessed a large number of studies that consider the dynamic interplay between childbearing and subjective well-being (SWB) (e.g., Aassve et al. 2005, 2012, 2015; Billari 2009; Margolis and Myrskyla 2011, 2015). Although the majority of them focus on the...