The Educational Gradient of New Family Behaviors in Europe and the US.

The Second Demographic Transition posits that shifts in values have led to the postponement of marriage and childbearing, increases in cohabitation and increases in childbearing within cohabitation. It is not clear, however, whether these behaviors are practiced equally by all strata of society. Here we employ harmonized union and reproductive histories from the United States and 14 countries in Europe to examine how family formation behaviors are practiced by different educational groups. We use hazard models to explore the educational gradient of 1) entrance into first co-residential union; 2) entrance into marriage versus unmarried cohabitation; and 3) entrance into parenthood. For those in a cohabiting union we specifically focus on the educational gradient of experiencing marriage, a separation or a nonmarital birth. First results suggest that in France, Norway, and Austria, although the more highly educated frequently enter unmarried cohabitation, they are less likely than the lower educated to stay in unmarried cohabitation when having children. The number of countries analyzed will be expanded to explore how the educational gradient of these new behaviors may or may not be similar across countries.