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following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.ukfollowing lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

The Circumstances of Early Motherhood

Denise D. Hawkes

19th December 2007

The UK Millennium Cohort Study:


Presentation based on:

Denise Hawkes (2008) “The UK Millennium Cohort Study: the circumstances of early motherhood”, in R. Edwards (ed.) Researching Families and Communities: Social and Generational Change, Abingdon: Routledge. (forthcoming)


Chapter content

a description of the Millennium Cohort Study to show how birth cohort studies can be used as a

methodology to understand family, community and social change.

Using data from the first two sweeps of the Millennium Cohort Study to consider the family background and circumstances of

the children’s mothers and their relationship to the age at which they had their first birth of child


Focus of today’s presentation a description of the Millennium Cohort Study

to show how birth cohort studies can be used as a methodology to understand family, community and social change.

Using data from the first two sweeps of the Millennium Cohort Study to consider the family background and circumstances of

the children’s mothers and their relationship to the age at which they had their first birth of child

Links to other papers undertaken for this UPTAP award


Research Question Topic of Interest: Age at which the cohort child’s mother had her first child

and how far can this be predicted by: woman’s family of origin women’s own childhood state of the labour market around the time of conception

Why of interest: Joshi, Heather and Denise Hawkes (2005) “Early and Late Entry to

Motherhood in Wales: Evidence of Socio-economic Inequalities in the First Survey of the UK Millennium Cohort” Welsh Assembly Government Report, Wales

Hawkes, Denise, Heather Joshi and Kelly Ward (2004) “Unequal Entry to Motherhood and Unequal Starts in Life: Evidence from the First Survey of the UK Millennium Cohort” November 2004 CLS Cohort Studies Working Paper No. 6


Hypothesis

Association between age at which the cohort child’s mother had her first child and woman’s family of origin & women’s own childhood

more advantaged will have more reason to delay motherhood

state of the labour market around the time of conception shortage of jobs could makes early motherhood either

more attractive as fewer alternatives or less attractive financially


Model

agemoth = α + β antecendent + γ labourmarket + ε where:

agemoth is a continuous variable of the age at first birth, or motherhood,

is the constant antecedent are a set of variables which are determined

before the birth of the child labourmarket are those variables which consider the

health of the economy, national or local in the year before their first birth

is the residual.


Variables antecedent

observed at sweep one: mother’s ethnic group, whether her parents separated or divorced before the birth of the mother’s first child, whether she had experienced any time in care as a child and whether or not the mother left school at the compulsory school leaving age

retrospective data from sweep two: whether the mother was born in the UK, if her parents were born in the UK and whether her parents were employed when she was 14 years old.

labourmarket ward non participation (or economic inactivity), regional and

national unemployment rates (lagged one year).


Data - Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) A sample of 18,818 children born in the UK between September

2000 and January 2002. The initial survey was undertaken when the children were nine

months old. Two follow-up surveys have been undertaken, when the children were three and five years old (See Hansen 2006)

The MCS sample consists of all children who were living in a selected electoral ward at the age of nine months. The design over-samples from the areas with a high proportion of child poverty, high proportion of ethnic minority inhabitants and the Celtic countries. (See Plewis et al 2004)


Data – ONS Unemployment

The cluster design of the survey enables data to be added from the census and other sources at the electoral ward level The data on the national, regional unemployment rates

and ward level non participation rates were obtained from the Office for National Statistics

These are based on estimates using the Labour Force Survey


Descriptive Statistics

The average age at first birth for all the mothers 25.7 for the subset of mothers whose cohort child was the

first born, 27.0, The average unemployment rate

for the whole sample was 7.2 per cent before the cohort children were born was 5.8 per cent.


Results: antecedent MCS1 variables Those who entered motherhood earlier are more likely

to have: experienced family disruption on their own childhood

having experienced a family break-up lowers the average age at first motherhood by nearly two years

left school early having stayed on at school raises the average age at first

motherhood by nearly three years belong to an ethnic minority group

the age at first motherhood for a Bangladeshi is around five years younger than for white mothers, ceteris paribas


Results: antecedent MCS2 variables

Those who entered motherhood earlier are more likely to have: been born in the UK to parents born in the UK.

being British of British parents lowers the average age at first motherhood by nearly three years in total.

Note: interaction with ethnicity Had an unemployed father at age 14

Having a father was employed at age 14 increases the average age at first motherhood two and a half years


Results: labourmarket MCS2 variables 1 Lagged National Unemployment Rates ALL MOTHERS

MOTHER CHARACTERISTICS

AT MCS1

ADDING NATIONAL

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

ADDING MOTHER

CHARACTERISTICS AT

MCS2

(1) (2) (3)

Lagged National Unemployment Rate

-0.644 -0.715

(23.87)** (23.07)**

Observations 18671 18671 12905

R-squared 0.17 0.20 0.22


Results: labourmarket MCS2 variables 2 Regional Unemployment Rates

First Time Mothers only Insignificant and smaller effect

Area effects are important living in areas of high child poverty or high proportions of ethnic

minorities, are associated with younger mothers. living in Wales and Northern Ireland are associated with younger

mothers relative to England. regional unemployment is strongly outweighed by the area

characteristics which are probably a better measure of the local labour market.


Results: labourmarket MCS2 variables 3 MOTHER

CHARACTERISTICS AT MCS1

ADDING WARD NON-

PARTICIPATION

ADDING AREA CHARACTERI

STICS

ADDING MOTHER

CHARACTERISTICS AT MCS2

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Ward Non-Participation Rate

-0.014 (4.01)** -0.044 (2.82)** -0.037 (2.36)*

Country (reference England)

Wales -0.657 (1.94) -0.473 (1.45)

Scotland 3.17 (2.48)* 3.135 (2.41)*

Northern Ireland 2.116 (1.67) 1.516 (1.18)

Area Type

Disadvantaged -2.05 (7.49)** -1.786 (6.54)**

Ethnic -1.935 (4.24)** -2.101 (4.28)**

Observations 7658 7658 7658 5323

R-squared 0.14 0.14 0.18 0.18


Ward level conclusions 1% increase in non participation rates associated with earlier

motherhood by 0.4% Children of younger mothers more likely to be born in wards

with higher non participation rates Local employment prospects appear to encourage :

delayed motherhood when they are good earlier child bearing where they are bad

Those born to younger parents are more likely to be exposed to the disadvantages of their mother’s background as well as those of living in a more disadvantaged area


Conclusions MCS children born to mothers in their teens and early twenties

when they had their first child: tend to have mothers who experienced tougher childhoods

themselves More likely to be raised in disadvantaged area

Hawkes et al (2004) find these antecedent disadvantages are compounded by poorer circumstances in which the cohort child find themselves at sweep one

Hawkes and Joshi (2007) looking at the impact of these antecedent factors, early life experiences and parenting on child cognitive and behavioural outcomes at age three.


Timing of motherhood: NCDS and BCS70 Andrew Jenkins, Heather Joshi and Mark Killingsworth

Comparing first two births in NCDS and BCS70 Main findings for education are that

it behaves as we would expect for first birth (i.e. –ve) may be having a positive influence on second birth for NCDS.

For both cohorts unemployment has: negative association with first birth in both cohorts positive for 2nd birth in both cohorts however most of the coefficients, except for BCS first birth, are non-

significant.


Moving on to maternal employment:

Danielle Crosby and Denise Hawkes (2007) “Cross-National Research Using Contemporary Birth Cohort Studies: A Look at Early Maternal Employment in the United Kingdom and United States.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Volume 10, Issue 5, December 2007, pages 379 – 404

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713737293~db=all~tab=issueslist~branches=10#v10

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g783545711~db=all


Lastly: Child Outcomes (1).

Danielle Crosby and Denise Hawkes

“Child Outcomes and Early Maternal Employment: Evidence for the UK and the US”

in consideration for Child Development special edition Effects of Early Experience on Cognitive and/or Socio-Emotional Development


Child Outcomes (2).

Kirstine Hansen and Denise Hawkes

“Early Childcare and Child Development”

in submission at Social Policy


Child Outcomes (3).

Denise Hawkes, Heather Joshi and Kelly Ward

“Unequal Entry to Motherhood and Unequal Child Development: Evidence from the First Three Surveys of the UK Millennium Cohort”

(in preparation)


Findings from project so far Timing of Motherhood:

Associated with personal characteristics (past and present), area characteristics and labour market

Maternal Employment: Associated with mostly maternal characteristics – same

characteristics in UK and US but different directions Child Outcomes:

Associated with maternal characteristics, not employment status Associated with child care type Hoping to show a link to parenting styles

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