• Robert Tanton

23 February 2010Do the demands of high-status professions explain childlessness among some women? Robert Tanton describes new research findings

WOMEN in high status occupations may find little time for having children and raising a family. But is it also the case that women in other occupations are increasingly remaining childless, or putting off having children?

The fertility rate in Australia is currently below the level required to replace the population. While it increased from 1.73 in 2001 to 1.93 in 2007, this is still below the replacement rate of 2.1. Australian research shows that women with a tertiary education have lower fertility rates than women without a tertiary education. Different occupations may also place much higher demands on people working in them, and therefore women working in these occupations may feel they do not have time to raise a family.

But if we look back 20 years, how different was the pattern? Were women in more prestigious occupations in 1986 not having children? Were women with degrees in 1986 not having children? And in 2006, what has changed?

Every ten years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics provides researchers with a wonderful opportunity to look at how many children Australian women are having. This opportunity comes in the form of one question, included in every second Census, asking for the total number of children each woman has borne.

In recent work published in the Journal of Population Research, researchers at the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra and the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University used this Census question to look at whether more professional women were childless in 2006 compared to 1986. The researchers, Riyana Miranti, Justine McNamara, Robert Tanton and Mandy Yap, concentrated on women aged 20–44 who were childless in selected occupations over these twenty years, as well as childlessness for women with tertiary qualifications in different fields.

The results showed that childlessness for all women (not just those with tertiary education) had increased between 1986 and 2006. In 1986, 27.6 per cent of women were childless; in 2006, the figure was 40.1 per cent. Most of this increase occurred between 1986 and 1996. In part, this is due to women putting off having children to a later age, so the researchers also looked at the figures by age group. They found that among women aged 40–44 (a group not affected as much by women putting off having children) the proportion who were childless had increased significantly, from 9 per cent in 1986 to 15.1 per cent in 2006.

When the researchers looked at women with “prestigious” degrees (medicine, law, dentistry, veterinary science) compared to women with other degrees, they found that the proportion of childless women with prestigious degrees was not much higher than the proportion of childless women with other degrees. The overall gap in childlessness between these two groups, once age was taken into account, was very small.

When considering prestigious occupations, the authors found that the proportion of childless women had increased between 1986 and 2006, from about 51 per cent in 1986 to 60.5 per cent in 2006. Most of this growth in childlessness occurred between 1986 and 1996. They also looked at women considered “professionals and managers” by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and found that the proportion of childless women had increased for this group also.

But the most interesting result from the occupation analysis was that the gap in childlessness between women in prestigious occupations (including professionals/managers) and women in other occupations had narrowed over the 20 year period from 1986 to 2006. In other words, in terms of childlessness, the women in other occupations were catching up to the women in prestigious occupations.

The reasons for this finding are complex, but may have to do with women in prestigious occupations being able to afford childcare, and having a greater capacity to balance work and family. In fact, women in other occupations may now be facing the sorts of challenges that women in prestigious occupations were facing in 1986 and 1996, in terms of increasing pressure at work and putting off having families.

The other thing that may be driving the increasing childlessness for women in all occupations, but may have more of an impact in lower income non-professional occupations, is the financial pressure of housing loans, so couples are putting off a family until the house is at least partly paid off. •

Robert Tanton is Principal Research Fellow at the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM)

Photo: Alex E. Proimos/ Flickr

'A narrowing gap? Trends in the childlessness of professional women in Australia' 1986–2006 by Riyana Miranti, Justine McNamara, Robert Tanton and Mandy Yap can be accessed here> by readers with university affiliations or by subscribing to Springerlink's Journal of Population Research.