J. Biosoc. Sci., (2016) 48, 391–405, © Cambridge University Press, 2015 doi:10.1017/S0021932015000188 First published online 11 Jun 2015
R E S E A R C H E R S , RE L I G I O N A N D CHILDLESSNESS ISABELLA BUBER-ENNSER*1
AND
VEGARD SKIRBEKK†
*Wittgenstein Centre, Vienna Institute of Demography/Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria and †Columbia University, New York, USA Summary. This study analysed childlessness and religion among female research scientists in the Austrian context. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of religion in intended childlessness and realized childlessness. The analysis was based on a representative sample of Austrian women aged 25–45 (N = 2623), with a specific sample of female research scientists aged 25–45 (N = 186), carried out in the framework of the Generations and Gender Survey conducted in 2008/09. The results indicate that religious affiliation and self-assessed religiosity are strongly related to fertility. Multivariate analyses reveal that education has no explanatory power in terms of explaining intended childlessness, once religious affiliation and self-assessed religiosity are taken into consideration.
Introduction How do changes in faith and occupational type affect fertility? The nature of both religious belief and work is changing over time. In many Western nations, religiosity has been decreasing, although religion continues to play an important role in terms of affecting childbearing outcomes (Goujon et al., 2007; Berghammer, 2012a; PEW, 2012). At the same time, the average job task composition is shifting from routine to more cognitively demanding tasks that require higher education and greater commitment (Murnane et al., 1995; Manning, 2004; Gordo & Skirbekk, 2013). Both declining religious affiliation and job demand shifts have been more pronounced among the more educated, a group that also tends to have fewer children and a greater risk of remaining childless (Skirbekk, 2008; Choe & Retherford, 2009; Fieder et al., 2011). Academic scientists tend to have very low fertility – but the independent influence of education and religion is not yet known (Kemkes-Grottenthaler, 2003; Fieder et al., 2005; Skoog Svanberg et al., 2006; Lind, 2008). The current study sought to assess the fertility intentions and behaviour of female research scientists, focusing on variation in intended and actual childlessness using Austria as an example. A special sample was collected in
1
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
391
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Austria, a country with a relatively well-educated workforce, a significant level of secularization and relatively low fertility. Austria is among the countries where higher education is coupled with high childlessness and relatively low levels of completed fertility. Recently, the issue of fertility differentials by education has received growing attention (Spielauer, 2005; Sobotka, 2009). The share of women in Germany, Switzerland and Austria with tertiary education remaining childless at the end of their reproductive period is about twice as high as that of childless women in the population at large for the cohorts born between 1920 and 1960 (Sobotka, 2011). In this paper the focus is on a specific group of women with tertiary education, namely female researcher scientists working at universities and public or private research institutes. Previous studies have estimated childlessness among female researchers and professors in Austria born between 1940 and 1970 at around 45% (Buchholz, 2004; Fieder et al., 2005). In other words, childlessness is about three times higher among female researchers than among the population at large. In order to better understand the fertility behaviour of female researchers, this study analysed intended childlessness and compared this specific group with tertiary and less educated women. In doing so, the following questions were addressed: Is intended childlessness related to religion? Is religion a mediator for childlessness? What are the roles of religious affiliation and level of religiosity? While several studies have already dealt with the fertility of female researchers (for Austria: Buchholz, 2004; Fieder et al., 2005), the role of religion has not yet been addressed in terms of explaining the link between childlessness among female researchers. Whereas research on fertility and family behaviour of women in academia has a long tradition in the US (e.g. Hamovitch & Morgenstern, 1977; Hargens et al., 1978; Wasserman, 2002), it has only really gained attention in Europe in the last decade (Kemkes-Grottenthaler, 2003; Fieder et al., 2005; Skoog Svanberg et al., 2006; Lind, 2008). Moreover, the religious orientation of scientists has been studied in the US (Vaughan et al., 1966; Ecklund & Scheitle, 2007), but less is known in the European context about the link between the fertility and religiosity of this specific group of highly educated persons. Education may affect preferences and gender roles; it changes the opportunity costs of childbearing (increasing the amount of income and consumption one must give up in the course of childbearing), changes childbearing to later ages, with a greater degree of rationale and fewer unplanned births, and increases contraceptive knowledge and contraceptive use (Goldin & Katz, 2002; Van Bavel, 2006). Further, as most women do not have children during their schooling years, a later graduation age leads to a shorter post-graduation reproductive period. A study based on a ‘natural experiment’ approach (to overcome selectivity bias from education) found that women who exit a given school degree at an older age, all else being equal, initiate family formation at older ages (Skirbekk et al., 2004). Austria’s family-policy regime is classified as ‘conservative’, with limited childcare facilities for 0- to 3-year-old children (Gauthier, 2002). The majority of parents choose the ‘male breadwinner’ model, where the women stay at home (or work part-time), including highly educated couples (Berghammer, 2014). Parental leave is available to all mothers, irrespective of their labour force participation prior to childbirth. The longest leave programme of 30 months (+6 for fathers) remains by far the most popular option (RillePfeiffer & Kapella, 2012). Poor availability of full-day early childcare constitutes a barrier
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to combining motherhood and (full-time) employment and may be an important determinant of low fertility among highly educated women. Religion has been found to be an important factor in union and fertility behaviour in Europe (Philipov & Berghammer, 2007; Frejka & Westoff, 2008). In most European countries, the religiously affiliated have higher fertility ideals, higher odds of intending to have another child and a higher number of expected children than non-affiliated persons (Philipov & Berghammer, 2007). According to the 2001 census, the religious composition of Austria was as follows: 74% were Roman Catholic, 5% Protestants, 4% Muslims, 4% belonged to other religions, 12% were without religion and for 2% religious affiliation was unknown (Goujon et al., 2007). More recent census data on the religious composition of the population are not available, as the 2011 census was based on register data that did not include information on religious affiliation. Differences in fertility behaviour (childlessness, number of children) and labour market participation have been documented for Austria, like high childlessness among women without religious affiliation and high fertility levels among migrants with lower education, particularly among Muslims (Fassmann & Reeger, 2007; Prskawetz et al., 2008). Moreover, religiosity plays a role in family life trajectories. Religious people are more likely to directly marry and less often report non-marital childbearing, sequential cohabitation or divorce (Berghammer, 2012b). A large literature has explained the relevance of religion on fertility, showing greater fertility among the more religious in a number of different societies and settings (Goujon et al., 2007; Skirbekk et al., 2010; Kaufmann et al., 2012). Unlike for education, where the consequences of childbearing are indirect, there are explicit statements on family formation in Austria’s dominant religion, Christianity. One example is Genesis 1:28: ‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply’. Furthermore, Abrahamic faiths tend to be pro-marriage, for family stability and support of children, and against divorce and family dissolution. In the Catholic Church, the marriage between a man and a woman is considered a sacred, unbreakable union, originally coming from God. Further, religious ceremonies, teachings and religious activities tend to celebrate and endorse family formation and fertility (Lehrer, 1996; McQuillan, 2004; Goujon et al., 2007). A positive relationship between religiosity and completed fertility has been found in a number of countries (Berghammer, 2012a; Hubert, 2014). Level of education is a major determinant of the number of children a woman has. Austria is characterized by moderately low fertility, high levels of childlessness and large educational differences in childbearing behaviour (Spielauer, 2005; Sobotka, 2011). In the cohorts born in 1955–1960, women with basic education have on average 2 children, while those with tertiary education have 1.4 children. Childlessness at the end of the reproductive period increases with the level of education, ranging from 14% among women who completed at most lower secondary or basic education to 30% among tertiary educated women (Sobotka, 2011). Childlessness levels of female researchers in Austria exceed those of tertiary educated women by a large margin, with estimates ranging between 41 and 50% (Buchholz, 2004; Fieder et al., 2005; Buber et al., 2011). Childlessness among female German researchers and professors is even higher, ranging between 50 and 60% (Krimmer et al., 2004; Auferkorte-Michaelis et al., 2006; Metz-Göckel, 2009). A comparative analysis revealed that the elevated levels of childlessness in Germany and Austria are in contrast to much lower levels of
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childlessness among female professors in other countries, which are around 25% in Poland, close to 20% in Sweden and about 10% in France and Spain (Lind, 2008). There is a need to study more data on childlessness among research scientists in low-fertility settings, as growing shares of the population enter these type of professions. There is also a clear need to better understand the drivers of low fertility in this group. One study of the religious lives of scientific professionals revealed generally lower levels of religiosity among scientists than the population at large (Ecklund, 2010). Apart from demographic factors such as age, marital status and the presence of children in the household, religiosity in the home as a child turned out to be the most important predictor of present religiosity among scientists in US research universities (Ecklund & Scheitle, 2007).
Methods The analysis was based on a sample of female researchers and on nationally representative data for Austria, both collected in the framework of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) in 2008/09. Respondents with missing information on religious affiliation, religiosity and fertility intentions were excluded. As the interviewed female researchers were aged 25–45 years, this age range was a selection criterion for GGS respondents too. Three groups were distinguished: female researchers (N = 186), tertiary educated women (N = 350) and women with secondary or lower education (N = 2084). Most studies on the fertility of women in science tend to be based on small surveys (Romanin & Over, 1993; Kemkes-Grottenthaler, 2003; van Anders, 2004; O’Laughlin & Bischoff, 2005), often with low response rates (van Anders, 2004; Lind, 2010; see also Buber, 2010). The current study contacted, with support from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, all women up to the age of 45 who had applied for a research grant (cohorts 1963–84). The response rate was 22%, with a sample size of N = 247 (see Buber, 2010). The survey asked questions on religious affiliation, church attendance, self-assessed religiosity, religious socialization in the parental home and attitudes towards religious ceremonies. The wording of the questions was: (1) Which religious denomination do you adhere to, if any? Possible answers were: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, other Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, other religions, none. (2) How often, if at all, do you attend religious services (apart from weddings, funerals, baptisms, and the like)? Answers were coded number of times per week/month/year or never. (3) Apart from the fact of belonging to a religious community or not, how religious do you consider yourself? Please answer using a scale, where 0 indicates ‘not at all religious’ and 10 ‘very religious’. (4) How strongly do you agree with the following statement: When I was 15 years old, issues linked with religion and the church were considered to be very important in our home? Possible answers were: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree, not applicable. Attitudes towards religious ceremonies were captured via agreement and disagreement towards these: (5a) It is important for an infant to be registered in the appropriate religious ceremony; (5b) It is important for people who marry in registry offices to have a religious wedding too; (5c) It is important for a funeral to include a religious ceremony.
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Data included information on the actual number of children and on future fertility intentions. As interviewed female researchers were aged 25–45 years, many of them would not have completed their fertility and planned to have (further) children. Therefore, apart from the actual number of children, the focus was on fertility intentions. (Additionally) intended children were captured via: (1) Do you want to have a child now? (2) Do you intend to have a/another child during the next three years? and (3) Supposing you do not have a/another child during the next three years, do you intend to have any (more) children at all? The combination of actual fertility, current pregnancies and future fertility intentions allowed mothers, childless women who intended to have a child in the future and childless women who did not intend to have their own children to be distinguished between. Subsequently a dichotomous variable was generated for intended childlessness, distinguishing between ‘having children or wanting own children’ on the one hand and ‘being childless and intending no own children’ on the other hand. The study provided descriptive results on various aspects of religiosity and family plans and probit regressions for intended childlessness (using the dichotomous variable described above) and actual childlessness. Explanatory variables for these multivariate analyses were education (non-tertiary, tertiary, researcher), religion (affiliation, no affiliation), selfassessed religiosity (ranging from 0 to 10), age (25–29, 30–34, 35–39, 40–45 years) and partner status (no partner, cohabiting partner, living apart together (LAT)). Results The descriptive results for religious affiliation, self-assessed religiosity and childlessness among the three distinguished educational groups are provided. The majority of Austrian women aged 25–45 years belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants, Orthodox and other religious communities were a minority in the sample, whereas those without affiliation constituted the second largest group (Fig. 1). The religious composition of the sample was in line with results from the Austrian 2001 census (Goujon et al., 2007). The differences for religious affiliation between educational groups were large: whereas roughly three out of four secondary or less educated women belonged to the Roman Catholic Church the share decreased to two-thirds among the
100% 13
80%
22
6 5 4
32
6 2 5
31 10
60% 40%
72
65
55
20% 0% Non-tertiary Roman Catholic
Tertiary Protestant
Muslim
Researchers Other
No affiliation
Fig. 1. Religious affiliation by educational group.
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tertiary educated and 55% among female researchers. Having no affiliation was less common among less educated women (13%), more frequent among tertiary educated women (22%) and substantially prevalent among female researchers (32%). The Muslim faith was as frequent as Protestantism among the less educated (5%), but rare among tertiary educated women and researchers. The remaining religious communities comprised a small group (3–6%). The mean level of self-assessed religiosity decreased slightly with increasing level of education (non-tertiary: 6.0; tertiary: 5.6; researchers: 5.2) (Fig. 2). Moreover, it turned out that non-affiliated persons reported to be religious, too, although at a lower level (non-tertiary: 3.5; tertiary: 3.0; researchers: 1.5), indicating that not being affiliated to a religious group is not identical to not being religious. In-depth interviews revealed that religion is relevant for not-affiliated persons, too, in troubled times (e.g. at the death of a relative or friend) (Krivanek, 2013). Thus it is not surprising that some non-affiliated persons reported being religious (Fig. 2). But among the non-affiliated, female researchers were different from less educated or tertiary educated women, as they reported very low mean level of religiosity. The importance of religion at the time they grew up was very similar in the three educational groups (Fig. 3). As compared with tertiary educated women and female researchers, women with secondary or lower education slightly more often (strongly) agreed that when they were 15 years old, issues linked with religion and the church were considered to be very important in their parental home. But the overall distribution was about the same: (strong) agreement was 43%, 42% and 47% for researchers, tertiary educated and secondary or lower educated women, respectively (Fig. 3). Thus, regarding religiosity, the initial situation in childhood and youth was almost the same for today’s female researchers, and tertiary and less educated women in Austria. As expected, actual fertility varied substantially by educational group. With increasing level of educational attainment, the share of women aged 25–45 who had experienced motherhood decreased and the proportion of women with future family plans increased, indicating postponement of fertility by highly educated women (Fig. 4). The proportion of women wanting no children of their own increased with rising educational level from 8% (non-tertiary education), to 12% (tertiary education) and to 16% (researchers).
10
Level of religiosity (0-10)
9 8 7 6
6.0
5.6
5.2
5 3.5
4
3.0
3 1.5
2 1 0 Affilitaion
Non-tertiary
No affilitaion
Tertiary
Researchers
Fig. 2. Self-assessed religiosity by level of education.
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6
6
10
12
16
15
80%
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21 18
22
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25
26
17
17
60% 15
40% 28 20% 19 0% Non-tertiary
Tertiary
Does not apply Strongly disagree Strongly agree
Researchers
Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree
Fig. 3. Importance of religion in the parental home. 100%
80%
8
12
16
19 41 43
60%
40%
73 47
20%
41
0% Non-tertiary Has child(ren)
Tertiary Wants children
Researchers Wants no children
Fig. 4. Having children and wanting children of own by educational group.
The intention to have no children of their own varied substantially by religion and was most pronounced among women without religious affiliation (Fig. 5): among the women without religious affiliation, about one in four preferred to be childless. The proportions were much lower for women belonging to a religious group (Roman Catholic: 7%; Protestant: 11%; Muslim: 1%; other religion: 4%). Across all religions, intended childlessness amounted to 7%, as opposed to 23% without religious affiliation
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23
23
20 15 11 9
10 7
9 7
4
5 1 0 Roman Protestant Muslim Catholic
Other
No affiliation
Detailed groups
Total
Affiliation
No affiliation
Total
Broad groups
Fig. 5. Wanting no children of own by religion.
(Fig. 5: broad groups). In a second step, multivariate probit regressions were used to find out which factors were important for family plans. Positive coefficients imply a higher risk of intended childlessness, and negative coefficients indicate a lower risk. When taking into account education, religious affiliation and self-assessed religiosity as single predictors, the estimated coefficients revealed statistically significant associations (Table 1; Models 1, 2 and 3). Compared with secondary or less educated women, researchers significantly more often opted for childlessness (Model 1). Further differentiation for researchers by discipline revealed that especially women in natural sciences more often preferred to be childless, as opposed to those in social sciences and humanities. University graduates also tended towards higher levels of childlessness as compared with non-tertiary educated women, although the estimated coefficient was smaller in size and lower in statistical significance level (Model 1). Women not belonging to a religious group significantly more often intended to have no children of their own than women with a religious affiliation, the estimated coefficient being large in size and highly significant (Model 2). Self-assessed religiosity was negatively linked with intended childlessness, indicating that the higher the level of religiosity, the lower the intention to be and remain childless (Model 3). When taking into consideration both educational groups and religious aspects, education lost explanatory power and was no longer significantly associated with intended childlessness (Model 4). It no longer held that female researchers more often intended to be childless than secondary or less educated women. The estimated coefficient for level of religiosity decreased but remained statistically significant, showing that both affiliation and religiosity contribute to explaining intended childlessness. The final model additionally controlled for age and partner status (Model 5). As expected, when living in a partnership, the risk of wanting no children of their own was significantly lower as compared with having no partner. Not only cohabiting with a partner (either married or unmarried), but also reporting a ‘living apart together’
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Table 1. Estimated coefficients for intended childlessness, probit regression, Austrian women aged 25–45, 2008/09 Model 1 Education Non-tertiary (Ref.) Tertiary Researcher Religion Affiliation (Ref.) No affiliation Religiosity Age 25–29 (Ref.) 30–34 35–39 40–45 Partner status No partner (Ref.) Cohabiting partner Living apart together Constant R² N
Model 2
Model 3
0 0.18† 0.35**
Model 4 0 0.09 0.12
0 0.80*** −0.09***
0 0.64*** −0.06***
Model 5 0 0.12 0.18 0 0.60*** −0.07*** 0 −0.11 0.25* 0.48***
−1.43*** 0.0066 2623
−1.56*** 0.0609 2623
−0.92*** 0.0411 2620
−1.26*** 0.0775 2620
0 −0.75*** −0.20† −0.93*** 0.1522 2620
Ref., reference category. †p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
partnership decreased the risk for intended childless. Age was important too. The large and significant coefficient for the age group 40–45 years showed that especially childless women aged 40 years and above frequently intended to remain childless. In the multivariate model on actual childlessness, education remained significant (Table 2). Thus, female researchers, but also tertiary educated women, were substantially more often childless as compared with their less educated peers. These results are in line with findings on fertility differentials in Austria (Buchholz, 2004; Fieder et al., 2005; Sobotka, 2011). The stepwise introduction of covariates indicated that the difference between female researchers and the overall group of tertiary educated women was substantial, but decreased when controlling for religion and further decreased when controlling for age and partner status. Taking tertiary educated women as the reference group, the estimated coefficient for researchers decreased from 0.49 in Model 1, to 0.42 in Model 4 and to 0.26 in Model 5. Thus, part of the difference in actual childlessness between female researchers on the one hand and tertiary educated women on the other was explained by religious affiliation, religiosity and socio-demographic characteristics. According to the estimated coefficients, age was the most important determinant of actual fertility behaviour, followed by education and partner status. Religion has significant explanatory power for transition to motherhood, although the estimated coefficient was smaller compared with education and age.
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Table 2. Estimated coefficients for actual childlessness, probit regression, Austrian women aged 25–45, 2008/09 Model 1 Education Non-tertiary (Ref.) Tertiary Researcher Religion Affiliation (Ref.) No affiliation Religiosity Age 25–34 (Ref.) 35–45 35–39 40–45 Partner status No partner (Ref.) Cohabiting partner Living apart together Constant R² N
Model 2
Model 3
0 0.68*** 1.17*** 0 0.55*** −0.07***
Model 4
Model 5
0 0.64*** 1.06***
0 0.78*** 1.06***
0 0.33*** −0.04***
0 0.36*** −0.02 0 −0.87*** −1.28*** −1.43***
−0.65*** 0.0624 2623
−0.55*** 0.0193 2623
−0.11* 0.0175 2620
−0.49*** 0.0783 2620
0 −1.08*** 0.09 0.99*** 0.2917 2620
Ref., reference category. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p
R E S E A R C H E R S , RE L I G I O N A N D CHILDLESSNESS ISABELLA BUBER-ENNSER*1
AND
VEGARD SKIRBEKK†
*Wittgenstein Centre, Vienna Institute of Demography/Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria and †Columbia University, New York, USA Summary. This study analysed childlessness and religion among female research scientists in the Austrian context. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of religion in intended childlessness and realized childlessness. The analysis was based on a representative sample of Austrian women aged 25–45 (N = 2623), with a specific sample of female research scientists aged 25–45 (N = 186), carried out in the framework of the Generations and Gender Survey conducted in 2008/09. The results indicate that religious affiliation and self-assessed religiosity are strongly related to fertility. Multivariate analyses reveal that education has no explanatory power in terms of explaining intended childlessness, once religious affiliation and self-assessed religiosity are taken into consideration.
Introduction How do changes in faith and occupational type affect fertility? The nature of both religious belief and work is changing over time. In many Western nations, religiosity has been decreasing, although religion continues to play an important role in terms of affecting childbearing outcomes (Goujon et al., 2007; Berghammer, 2012a; PEW, 2012). At the same time, the average job task composition is shifting from routine to more cognitively demanding tasks that require higher education and greater commitment (Murnane et al., 1995; Manning, 2004; Gordo & Skirbekk, 2013). Both declining religious affiliation and job demand shifts have been more pronounced among the more educated, a group that also tends to have fewer children and a greater risk of remaining childless (Skirbekk, 2008; Choe & Retherford, 2009; Fieder et al., 2011). Academic scientists tend to have very low fertility – but the independent influence of education and religion is not yet known (Kemkes-Grottenthaler, 2003; Fieder et al., 2005; Skoog Svanberg et al., 2006; Lind, 2008). The current study sought to assess the fertility intentions and behaviour of female research scientists, focusing on variation in intended and actual childlessness using Austria as an example. A special sample was collected in
1
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
391
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Austria, a country with a relatively well-educated workforce, a significant level of secularization and relatively low fertility. Austria is among the countries where higher education is coupled with high childlessness and relatively low levels of completed fertility. Recently, the issue of fertility differentials by education has received growing attention (Spielauer, 2005; Sobotka, 2009). The share of women in Germany, Switzerland and Austria with tertiary education remaining childless at the end of their reproductive period is about twice as high as that of childless women in the population at large for the cohorts born between 1920 and 1960 (Sobotka, 2011). In this paper the focus is on a specific group of women with tertiary education, namely female researcher scientists working at universities and public or private research institutes. Previous studies have estimated childlessness among female researchers and professors in Austria born between 1940 and 1970 at around 45% (Buchholz, 2004; Fieder et al., 2005). In other words, childlessness is about three times higher among female researchers than among the population at large. In order to better understand the fertility behaviour of female researchers, this study analysed intended childlessness and compared this specific group with tertiary and less educated women. In doing so, the following questions were addressed: Is intended childlessness related to religion? Is religion a mediator for childlessness? What are the roles of religious affiliation and level of religiosity? While several studies have already dealt with the fertility of female researchers (for Austria: Buchholz, 2004; Fieder et al., 2005), the role of religion has not yet been addressed in terms of explaining the link between childlessness among female researchers. Whereas research on fertility and family behaviour of women in academia has a long tradition in the US (e.g. Hamovitch & Morgenstern, 1977; Hargens et al., 1978; Wasserman, 2002), it has only really gained attention in Europe in the last decade (Kemkes-Grottenthaler, 2003; Fieder et al., 2005; Skoog Svanberg et al., 2006; Lind, 2008). Moreover, the religious orientation of scientists has been studied in the US (Vaughan et al., 1966; Ecklund & Scheitle, 2007), but less is known in the European context about the link between the fertility and religiosity of this specific group of highly educated persons. Education may affect preferences and gender roles; it changes the opportunity costs of childbearing (increasing the amount of income and consumption one must give up in the course of childbearing), changes childbearing to later ages, with a greater degree of rationale and fewer unplanned births, and increases contraceptive knowledge and contraceptive use (Goldin & Katz, 2002; Van Bavel, 2006). Further, as most women do not have children during their schooling years, a later graduation age leads to a shorter post-graduation reproductive period. A study based on a ‘natural experiment’ approach (to overcome selectivity bias from education) found that women who exit a given school degree at an older age, all else being equal, initiate family formation at older ages (Skirbekk et al., 2004). Austria’s family-policy regime is classified as ‘conservative’, with limited childcare facilities for 0- to 3-year-old children (Gauthier, 2002). The majority of parents choose the ‘male breadwinner’ model, where the women stay at home (or work part-time), including highly educated couples (Berghammer, 2014). Parental leave is available to all mothers, irrespective of their labour force participation prior to childbirth. The longest leave programme of 30 months (+6 for fathers) remains by far the most popular option (RillePfeiffer & Kapella, 2012). Poor availability of full-day early childcare constitutes a barrier
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to combining motherhood and (full-time) employment and may be an important determinant of low fertility among highly educated women. Religion has been found to be an important factor in union and fertility behaviour in Europe (Philipov & Berghammer, 2007; Frejka & Westoff, 2008). In most European countries, the religiously affiliated have higher fertility ideals, higher odds of intending to have another child and a higher number of expected children than non-affiliated persons (Philipov & Berghammer, 2007). According to the 2001 census, the religious composition of Austria was as follows: 74% were Roman Catholic, 5% Protestants, 4% Muslims, 4% belonged to other religions, 12% were without religion and for 2% religious affiliation was unknown (Goujon et al., 2007). More recent census data on the religious composition of the population are not available, as the 2011 census was based on register data that did not include information on religious affiliation. Differences in fertility behaviour (childlessness, number of children) and labour market participation have been documented for Austria, like high childlessness among women without religious affiliation and high fertility levels among migrants with lower education, particularly among Muslims (Fassmann & Reeger, 2007; Prskawetz et al., 2008). Moreover, religiosity plays a role in family life trajectories. Religious people are more likely to directly marry and less often report non-marital childbearing, sequential cohabitation or divorce (Berghammer, 2012b). A large literature has explained the relevance of religion on fertility, showing greater fertility among the more religious in a number of different societies and settings (Goujon et al., 2007; Skirbekk et al., 2010; Kaufmann et al., 2012). Unlike for education, where the consequences of childbearing are indirect, there are explicit statements on family formation in Austria’s dominant religion, Christianity. One example is Genesis 1:28: ‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply’. Furthermore, Abrahamic faiths tend to be pro-marriage, for family stability and support of children, and against divorce and family dissolution. In the Catholic Church, the marriage between a man and a woman is considered a sacred, unbreakable union, originally coming from God. Further, religious ceremonies, teachings and religious activities tend to celebrate and endorse family formation and fertility (Lehrer, 1996; McQuillan, 2004; Goujon et al., 2007). A positive relationship between religiosity and completed fertility has been found in a number of countries (Berghammer, 2012a; Hubert, 2014). Level of education is a major determinant of the number of children a woman has. Austria is characterized by moderately low fertility, high levels of childlessness and large educational differences in childbearing behaviour (Spielauer, 2005; Sobotka, 2011). In the cohorts born in 1955–1960, women with basic education have on average 2 children, while those with tertiary education have 1.4 children. Childlessness at the end of the reproductive period increases with the level of education, ranging from 14% among women who completed at most lower secondary or basic education to 30% among tertiary educated women (Sobotka, 2011). Childlessness levels of female researchers in Austria exceed those of tertiary educated women by a large margin, with estimates ranging between 41 and 50% (Buchholz, 2004; Fieder et al., 2005; Buber et al., 2011). Childlessness among female German researchers and professors is even higher, ranging between 50 and 60% (Krimmer et al., 2004; Auferkorte-Michaelis et al., 2006; Metz-Göckel, 2009). A comparative analysis revealed that the elevated levels of childlessness in Germany and Austria are in contrast to much lower levels of
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childlessness among female professors in other countries, which are around 25% in Poland, close to 20% in Sweden and about 10% in France and Spain (Lind, 2008). There is a need to study more data on childlessness among research scientists in low-fertility settings, as growing shares of the population enter these type of professions. There is also a clear need to better understand the drivers of low fertility in this group. One study of the religious lives of scientific professionals revealed generally lower levels of religiosity among scientists than the population at large (Ecklund, 2010). Apart from demographic factors such as age, marital status and the presence of children in the household, religiosity in the home as a child turned out to be the most important predictor of present religiosity among scientists in US research universities (Ecklund & Scheitle, 2007).
Methods The analysis was based on a sample of female researchers and on nationally representative data for Austria, both collected in the framework of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) in 2008/09. Respondents with missing information on religious affiliation, religiosity and fertility intentions were excluded. As the interviewed female researchers were aged 25–45 years, this age range was a selection criterion for GGS respondents too. Three groups were distinguished: female researchers (N = 186), tertiary educated women (N = 350) and women with secondary or lower education (N = 2084). Most studies on the fertility of women in science tend to be based on small surveys (Romanin & Over, 1993; Kemkes-Grottenthaler, 2003; van Anders, 2004; O’Laughlin & Bischoff, 2005), often with low response rates (van Anders, 2004; Lind, 2010; see also Buber, 2010). The current study contacted, with support from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, all women up to the age of 45 who had applied for a research grant (cohorts 1963–84). The response rate was 22%, with a sample size of N = 247 (see Buber, 2010). The survey asked questions on religious affiliation, church attendance, self-assessed religiosity, religious socialization in the parental home and attitudes towards religious ceremonies. The wording of the questions was: (1) Which religious denomination do you adhere to, if any? Possible answers were: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, other Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, other religions, none. (2) How often, if at all, do you attend religious services (apart from weddings, funerals, baptisms, and the like)? Answers were coded number of times per week/month/year or never. (3) Apart from the fact of belonging to a religious community or not, how religious do you consider yourself? Please answer using a scale, where 0 indicates ‘not at all religious’ and 10 ‘very religious’. (4) How strongly do you agree with the following statement: When I was 15 years old, issues linked with religion and the church were considered to be very important in our home? Possible answers were: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree, not applicable. Attitudes towards religious ceremonies were captured via agreement and disagreement towards these: (5a) It is important for an infant to be registered in the appropriate religious ceremony; (5b) It is important for people who marry in registry offices to have a religious wedding too; (5c) It is important for a funeral to include a religious ceremony.
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Data included information on the actual number of children and on future fertility intentions. As interviewed female researchers were aged 25–45 years, many of them would not have completed their fertility and planned to have (further) children. Therefore, apart from the actual number of children, the focus was on fertility intentions. (Additionally) intended children were captured via: (1) Do you want to have a child now? (2) Do you intend to have a/another child during the next three years? and (3) Supposing you do not have a/another child during the next three years, do you intend to have any (more) children at all? The combination of actual fertility, current pregnancies and future fertility intentions allowed mothers, childless women who intended to have a child in the future and childless women who did not intend to have their own children to be distinguished between. Subsequently a dichotomous variable was generated for intended childlessness, distinguishing between ‘having children or wanting own children’ on the one hand and ‘being childless and intending no own children’ on the other hand. The study provided descriptive results on various aspects of religiosity and family plans and probit regressions for intended childlessness (using the dichotomous variable described above) and actual childlessness. Explanatory variables for these multivariate analyses were education (non-tertiary, tertiary, researcher), religion (affiliation, no affiliation), selfassessed religiosity (ranging from 0 to 10), age (25–29, 30–34, 35–39, 40–45 years) and partner status (no partner, cohabiting partner, living apart together (LAT)). Results The descriptive results for religious affiliation, self-assessed religiosity and childlessness among the three distinguished educational groups are provided. The majority of Austrian women aged 25–45 years belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants, Orthodox and other religious communities were a minority in the sample, whereas those without affiliation constituted the second largest group (Fig. 1). The religious composition of the sample was in line with results from the Austrian 2001 census (Goujon et al., 2007). The differences for religious affiliation between educational groups were large: whereas roughly three out of four secondary or less educated women belonged to the Roman Catholic Church the share decreased to two-thirds among the
100% 13
80%
22
6 5 4
32
6 2 5
31 10
60% 40%
72
65
55
20% 0% Non-tertiary Roman Catholic
Tertiary Protestant
Muslim
Researchers Other
No affiliation
Fig. 1. Religious affiliation by educational group.
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tertiary educated and 55% among female researchers. Having no affiliation was less common among less educated women (13%), more frequent among tertiary educated women (22%) and substantially prevalent among female researchers (32%). The Muslim faith was as frequent as Protestantism among the less educated (5%), but rare among tertiary educated women and researchers. The remaining religious communities comprised a small group (3–6%). The mean level of self-assessed religiosity decreased slightly with increasing level of education (non-tertiary: 6.0; tertiary: 5.6; researchers: 5.2) (Fig. 2). Moreover, it turned out that non-affiliated persons reported to be religious, too, although at a lower level (non-tertiary: 3.5; tertiary: 3.0; researchers: 1.5), indicating that not being affiliated to a religious group is not identical to not being religious. In-depth interviews revealed that religion is relevant for not-affiliated persons, too, in troubled times (e.g. at the death of a relative or friend) (Krivanek, 2013). Thus it is not surprising that some non-affiliated persons reported being religious (Fig. 2). But among the non-affiliated, female researchers were different from less educated or tertiary educated women, as they reported very low mean level of religiosity. The importance of religion at the time they grew up was very similar in the three educational groups (Fig. 3). As compared with tertiary educated women and female researchers, women with secondary or lower education slightly more often (strongly) agreed that when they were 15 years old, issues linked with religion and the church were considered to be very important in their parental home. But the overall distribution was about the same: (strong) agreement was 43%, 42% and 47% for researchers, tertiary educated and secondary or lower educated women, respectively (Fig. 3). Thus, regarding religiosity, the initial situation in childhood and youth was almost the same for today’s female researchers, and tertiary and less educated women in Austria. As expected, actual fertility varied substantially by educational group. With increasing level of educational attainment, the share of women aged 25–45 who had experienced motherhood decreased and the proportion of women with future family plans increased, indicating postponement of fertility by highly educated women (Fig. 4). The proportion of women wanting no children of their own increased with rising educational level from 8% (non-tertiary education), to 12% (tertiary education) and to 16% (researchers).
10
Level of religiosity (0-10)
9 8 7 6
6.0
5.6
5.2
5 3.5
4
3.0
3 1.5
2 1 0 Affilitaion
Non-tertiary
No affilitaion
Tertiary
Researchers
Fig. 2. Self-assessed religiosity by level of education.
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80%
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21 18
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25
26
17
17
60% 15
40% 28 20% 19 0% Non-tertiary
Tertiary
Does not apply Strongly disagree Strongly agree
Researchers
Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree
Fig. 3. Importance of religion in the parental home. 100%
80%
8
12
16
19 41 43
60%
40%
73 47
20%
41
0% Non-tertiary Has child(ren)
Tertiary Wants children
Researchers Wants no children
Fig. 4. Having children and wanting children of own by educational group.
The intention to have no children of their own varied substantially by religion and was most pronounced among women without religious affiliation (Fig. 5): among the women without religious affiliation, about one in four preferred to be childless. The proportions were much lower for women belonging to a religious group (Roman Catholic: 7%; Protestant: 11%; Muslim: 1%; other religion: 4%). Across all religions, intended childlessness amounted to 7%, as opposed to 23% without religious affiliation
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23
23
20 15 11 9
10 7
9 7
4
5 1 0 Roman Protestant Muslim Catholic
Other
No affiliation
Detailed groups
Total
Affiliation
No affiliation
Total
Broad groups
Fig. 5. Wanting no children of own by religion.
(Fig. 5: broad groups). In a second step, multivariate probit regressions were used to find out which factors were important for family plans. Positive coefficients imply a higher risk of intended childlessness, and negative coefficients indicate a lower risk. When taking into account education, religious affiliation and self-assessed religiosity as single predictors, the estimated coefficients revealed statistically significant associations (Table 1; Models 1, 2 and 3). Compared with secondary or less educated women, researchers significantly more often opted for childlessness (Model 1). Further differentiation for researchers by discipline revealed that especially women in natural sciences more often preferred to be childless, as opposed to those in social sciences and humanities. University graduates also tended towards higher levels of childlessness as compared with non-tertiary educated women, although the estimated coefficient was smaller in size and lower in statistical significance level (Model 1). Women not belonging to a religious group significantly more often intended to have no children of their own than women with a religious affiliation, the estimated coefficient being large in size and highly significant (Model 2). Self-assessed religiosity was negatively linked with intended childlessness, indicating that the higher the level of religiosity, the lower the intention to be and remain childless (Model 3). When taking into consideration both educational groups and religious aspects, education lost explanatory power and was no longer significantly associated with intended childlessness (Model 4). It no longer held that female researchers more often intended to be childless than secondary or less educated women. The estimated coefficient for level of religiosity decreased but remained statistically significant, showing that both affiliation and religiosity contribute to explaining intended childlessness. The final model additionally controlled for age and partner status (Model 5). As expected, when living in a partnership, the risk of wanting no children of their own was significantly lower as compared with having no partner. Not only cohabiting with a partner (either married or unmarried), but also reporting a ‘living apart together’
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Table 1. Estimated coefficients for intended childlessness, probit regression, Austrian women aged 25–45, 2008/09 Model 1 Education Non-tertiary (Ref.) Tertiary Researcher Religion Affiliation (Ref.) No affiliation Religiosity Age 25–29 (Ref.) 30–34 35–39 40–45 Partner status No partner (Ref.) Cohabiting partner Living apart together Constant R² N
Model 2
Model 3
0 0.18† 0.35**
Model 4 0 0.09 0.12
0 0.80*** −0.09***
0 0.64*** −0.06***
Model 5 0 0.12 0.18 0 0.60*** −0.07*** 0 −0.11 0.25* 0.48***
−1.43*** 0.0066 2623
−1.56*** 0.0609 2623
−0.92*** 0.0411 2620
−1.26*** 0.0775 2620
0 −0.75*** −0.20† −0.93*** 0.1522 2620
Ref., reference category. †p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
partnership decreased the risk for intended childless. Age was important too. The large and significant coefficient for the age group 40–45 years showed that especially childless women aged 40 years and above frequently intended to remain childless. In the multivariate model on actual childlessness, education remained significant (Table 2). Thus, female researchers, but also tertiary educated women, were substantially more often childless as compared with their less educated peers. These results are in line with findings on fertility differentials in Austria (Buchholz, 2004; Fieder et al., 2005; Sobotka, 2011). The stepwise introduction of covariates indicated that the difference between female researchers and the overall group of tertiary educated women was substantial, but decreased when controlling for religion and further decreased when controlling for age and partner status. Taking tertiary educated women as the reference group, the estimated coefficient for researchers decreased from 0.49 in Model 1, to 0.42 in Model 4 and to 0.26 in Model 5. Thus, part of the difference in actual childlessness between female researchers on the one hand and tertiary educated women on the other was explained by religious affiliation, religiosity and socio-demographic characteristics. According to the estimated coefficients, age was the most important determinant of actual fertility behaviour, followed by education and partner status. Religion has significant explanatory power for transition to motherhood, although the estimated coefficient was smaller compared with education and age.
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Table 2. Estimated coefficients for actual childlessness, probit regression, Austrian women aged 25–45, 2008/09 Model 1 Education Non-tertiary (Ref.) Tertiary Researcher Religion Affiliation (Ref.) No affiliation Religiosity Age 25–34 (Ref.) 35–45 35–39 40–45 Partner status No partner (Ref.) Cohabiting partner Living apart together Constant R² N
Model 2
Model 3
0 0.68*** 1.17*** 0 0.55*** −0.07***
Model 4
Model 5
0 0.64*** 1.06***
0 0.78*** 1.06***
0 0.33*** −0.04***
0 0.36*** −0.02 0 −0.87*** −1.28*** −1.43***
−0.65*** 0.0624 2623
−0.55*** 0.0193 2623
−0.11* 0.0175 2620
−0.49*** 0.0783 2620
0 −1.08*** 0.09 0.99*** 0.2917 2620
Ref., reference category. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p
