The mid-twentieth century baby boom in Sweden – changes in the educational gradient of fertility for women born 1915–1950

Abstract

This paper analyzes changes in the educational gradient of fertility among Swedish women who participated in the mid twentieth-century baby boom. Using individual-level data covering the entire Swedish population drawn from the Population and Housing Census of 1960, and the Multi-generation Register, the study determines fertility outcomes during the baby boom across educational strata. The results indicate important differences between the first wave of the baby boom during the 1940s and the second peak in the 1960s. This is the case with regard to both education and age-specific fertility patterns. The results show that a pertinent feature of the first wave was a recovery among older women who had postponed births during the 1930s, and that the educational gradient was still strongly negative at this time. On the other hand, the second wave during the 1960s was primarily created by increased fertility among younger women below 30 years of age. For these women born in the 1930s and 1940s, who increased their educational levels compared to earlier generations, fertility differentials across educational strata were almost eliminated. This convergence of childbearing behavior between high and low educated women was an important prerequisite for the second peak of the Swedish baby boom in the 1960s, as the proportion of secondary and post-secondary educated women had increased substantially in the cohorts born since the mid 1930s.

Keywords::

• fertility
• socio-economic differentials
• education
• baby boom
• Sweden

Notes

^1. Further contributions to Becker's original thoughts have been made by Mincer (1963) and Willis (1973); thus the New Home Economics approach to fertility is often referred to in the literature as the Becker–Mincer–Willis fertility model.