When the first baby arrives and the second loses chance. Changing couple’s satisfaction and fertility expectations after the arrival of the first child.

The literature describes the arrival of the first child as an “unexpected” break in the couple’s equilibrium, source of crisis between the partners and sliding down satisfaction with different dimensions of life. The paper clarifies under which conditions changes in couple’s life satisfaction can effect parents’ expectation about the progression to the second child after the arrival of the first child. Couples postponing the progression to the second child are the ones reducing more the expectations to have another child during the first year of life of the first child. Among all the dimensions of satisfaction, satisfaction with the partner seems the strongest predictor for the quickest progression to the second birth. At the same time, couples that better predict how parenthood is going to be hard reduce less the expectation to have another child. Couples that do not find confirmation in their expected level of parental commitment decrease more their level of satisfaction and postpone the decision to have the second child. The analyses are conducted based on 9 waves (from 2001) of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Panel Survey.