Pathway to a third child in France. impact of family policy and sociodemographic factors

Didier Breton, Université Marc Bloch Strasbourg 2 and Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
France Prioux, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

French family policy has always provided specific support to families with three or more children, over the period 1978-1982 in particular. We discuss the effectiveness of this policy and show that these measures did indeed influence the frequency of third births, but that this influence is limited and difficult to quantify. We then focuse on the characteristics associated with the parity progression ratio (PPR) at parity two in the cohorts of men and women who had a second child around 1975 and 1985. The PPR is most strongly influenced by age at second birth, the length of the interval between the second and third births and nationality. All the other variables examined – sex of first two children, parents’ sibship size, union history, mother’s occupational history, educational attainment and socio-occupational category of each partner – are significant, even after controlling for structural effects.