Family Background Influences on Educational Differences in Completed Fertility? A Cohort Study Based on Finnish Household Register Data

Jessica Nisén, University of Helsinki
Karri Silventoinen, University of Helsinki
Pekka Martikainen, University of Helsinki

The role of family background for women’s educational differences in fertility has been discussed but still remains unclear. This study explored the role of family background for educational differences in Finnish women’s completed fertility. The data consisted of 35,222 women born in 1940–1950 who were living in households sampled from the Finnish Census of Population in 1950. Poisson regression analysis with adjustment of measured socio-demographic family background characteristics and family fixed effects were employed to study the effect of family background on the association between educational level and completed fertility. A negative association was found: age-adjusted RR of the tertiary level educated group was 0.89 (95%CI 0.87, 0.91) as compared to the basic educated group. The adjustment of measured family background covariates moderately attenuated this association. All in all family background seemed to have a moderate contribution to educational differences in Finnish women’s completed fertility.