Are daughters’ childbearing intentions related to their mothers’ socio-economic status?

BACKGROUND Unlike actual fertility, fertility intentions are often found to be positively correlated with education. The literature explaining this paradox is scarce. OBJECTIVE We aim to fill the gap in the existing scientific literature by searching for the main factors that influence highly educated women to plan a larger family size. METHODS Using the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey for four countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, and Norway), we analyse the relationship between mother’s socio-economic status and daughter’s fertility intentions, controlling for daughter’s socio-economic status and sibship size. Zero-inflated Poisson regression models are employed to estimate the predictors of women’s additionally intended number of children. RESULTS We find that the effect of family of origin is exerted mainly through sibship size among childless daughters: Daughters with more siblings intend to have more children. After the transition to parenthood, the effect of family of origin is exerted mainly through themother’s level of education: Daughters with highly educated mothers intend to have more children. CONCLUSIONS The empirical results suggest that the positive link between births intentions and level of education might not merely be an artefact generated by the design of cross-sectional surveys but the outcome of a better socio-economic status that allows forming positive reproductive plans. CONTRIBUTION The positive role of mother’s socio-economic status on daughter’s fertility decision-making offers a valuable interpretation of the positive link between education and fertility intentions which goes beyond the alternative explanations referring to self-selection, partner effect, or time squeeze, and needs to be confirmed by further research.