Trends in Completed Fertility by Educational Field: Swedish Men and Women Born 1946–1975

Previous research on fertility by field of education has revealed stronger fertility variation than by the more frequently studied metric of educational level. However, this line of research has not focused on both men and women and changes across cohorts. Our study is the first to analyse cohort trends in fertility by field of education for women and for men and include the cohorts of educational expansion and the development towards the dual earner–dual carer family model. We focus on native Swedes born 1946–1975. Swedish register data are used to depict educational orientation, educational level, and number of children at age 45. The ranking of educational fields by childlessness and completed fertility is remarkably similar for men and women, and stable across cohorts. Distinguishing the fields by educational level gives a largely analogous picture, but detailing educational fields reveals some different developments by sex and cohort. The similarity in patterns between men and women suggests that field-based educational attributes and conditions in resulting occupations may matter more than gender conformity for fertility outcomes. The persistence and changes in fertility and childlessness across cohorts, gender, and educational fields expose how complex the interplay of preferences, structural factors and gender norms is in shaping fertility behaviour.