title: UNIVERSAL VERSUS ECONOMICALLY POLARIZED CHANGE IN AGE AT FIRST BIRTH: A FRENCH-BRITISH COMPARISON.
abstract: France and the United Kingdom represent two contrasting institutional models for the integration of employment and motherhood, respectively the 'universalistic' regime type that offers subsidized child-care and maternity-leave benefits to women at all income levels, and the 'means-testing' regime type that mainly offers income-tested benefits for single mothers. Using the two countries as comparative case studies, we develop and test the hypothesis that the socio-economic gradient of fertility timing has become increasingly mediated by family policy. We hypothesize and find increasing polarization in age at first birth by pre-childbearing occupation between the 1980s and 1990s in the U.K. but not in France. Early first childbearing persisted in the U.K. only among women in low-skill occupations, while shifts towards increasingly late first births occurred in clerical/secretarial occupations and above. Increases in age at first birth occurred across all occupations in France, but this was still much earlier on average than for all but low-skill British mothers.
authors: RAND, Santa Monica.
authors: Michael S
authors: MS
authors: Rendall
authors: Olivia
authors: O
authors: Ekert-Jaffé
authors: Heather
authors: H
authors: Joshi
authors: Kevin
authors: K
authors: Lynch
authors: Rémi
authors: R
authors: Mougin