Impact of Educational Attainment on the Transition to the Second Child in Post Socialistic Poland

Paulina Galezewska, European Doctoral School of Demography (EDSD)

After the collapse of state socialism in 1989 Poland experienced a rapid decline of fertility closely followed by educational expansion. A rapid increase in the number of young women with university degrees may influence the future fertility development, as highly educated Polish women tend to postpone their childbearing and more often than others decide to have smaller families. Considering that the birth of a first child is quite universal in the lives of Polish women, our analysis focuses on the transition to the second child. Using data from the Employment, Family and Educational Survey 2006, several piecewise exponential models were estimated. Our results show a strong negative impact of women’s educational attainment on the risk of a second birth. We conclude that highly educated Polish women face higher opportunity costs that are not sufficiently reduced by family policies or labor market regulations related to working mothers.