A new study challenges the belief that highly educated women in Sweden are choosing not to have children due to a lack of suitable partners. Contrary to popular opinion, these women are more likely to have children than their less educated counterparts. The study highlights a shift in societal patterns, with highly educated women increasingly forming families, debunking myths about education and fertility.
Debunking the Myth: Why Highly Educated Women in Sweden Are Not the Cause of Low Birth Rates
Debunking the Myth: Why Highly Educated Women in Sweden Are Not the Cause of Low Birth Rates
Politicians are frantically trying to solve the problem of low birth rates in Sweden and the Western world. However, the myth that highly educated women are "opting out" of relationships with less educated men is now being firmly debunked as a reason for Sweden's low birth rates, according to an ongoing study.
"It's quite the opposite," says Glenn Sandström, Associate Professor of Historical Demography, to TT.
Too few children are being born in Sweden and other European countries, and politicians in several EU countries have long sought a formula to boost birth rates and prevent a demographic catastrophe. Public discourse often suggests that women have surpassed men in education, making it difficult for them to form partnerships.
"We can completely dismiss that mechanism. Highly educated women with high socioeconomic status are more likely to have children than less educated women. This trend has strengthened in Sweden over the past 20 years," says Glenn Sandström, Associate Professor of Historical Demography at Umeå University, to TT.
Highly Educated Choose Each Other
Previous studies have shown that less educated men with low incomes are less likely to have children. Based on data from Statistics Sweden (SCB), which includes Swedish-born women aged 20-45, Glenn Sandström now presents unpublished results showing that the same applies to less educated women.
"To some extent, women are also being 'penalized' in the partner market if they have low socioeconomic status. Men seem less inclined than before to form partnerships with women who have lower education than themselves," says Glenn Sandström.
Shift Began with the 1970s Generation
In Sweden, there was previously a pattern where women with high socioeconomic status remained childless more often than women with lower education and incomes.
However, during the 1990s, a definitive shift occurred, according to Glenn Sandström.
"Both fertility patterns and relationships changed significantly among women born in the 1970s compared to previous generations. Higher education no longer implies a lesser inclination to have or start a family."
Over the past 20 years, the clear trend that began with the 1970s generation has intensified. Today, the proportion of women with higher education than their male partners is even greater than the opposite. Several traditionally male-dominated working-class jobs offer incomes close to or higher than some female-dominated professions that require longer education.
Not More Unstable Couples
In the quest to understand why today's young people are not having children, they are sometimes blamed for having unstable relationships. However, that argument doesn't hold, according to Sandström.
"Couples are forming at the same rate now as they did in the 1990s and at roughly the same ages. They are not more unstable than the partnerships formed by those born in the 1970s during the 1990s," he says.
Young people born from 1985-1990 onwards are moving in together at the same rate as before.
"The difference is that a significantly larger proportion of couples now remain childless," says Glenn Sandström.