Intergenerational transmission of age at entry into parenthood: evidence from Dutch register data

Liesbeth Steenhof, Statistics Netherlands
Aart C. Liefbroer, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)

Most research on intergenerational transmission of fertility focusses on fertility quantum. In contrast, this paper focusses on the intergenerational transmission of age at entry into parenthood. It studies how strong this transmission is, whether it changes over time and depends on the ages of parents and children. Two opposing hypotheses on trends in transmission will be tested. On the one hand, one could argue that individualisation has weakened transmission. On the other hand, one could argue that increasing control over fertility has strengthened transmission. Use will be made of the register-based parent-child file constructed by Statistics Netherlands, containing demographic information of more than 13 million Dutch children and their parents. Hazard analyses on the timing of entry into parenthood of children will be performed, with the timing of entry into parenthood of their parents and addition variables as covariates.