Gender egalitarianism, perceived economic insecurity, and fertility intentions in Spain: A qualitative analysis

Economic uncertainty contributes to low fertility in many European countries. On the other hand, greater gender equality may positively influence fertility. This paper examines how these two forces interact in Spain. We use in-depth interviews to analyse fertility decision-making among young and highly educated partnered adults living in urban areas. Highly gender-egalitarian interviewees are less likely to perceive economic insecurity as an obstacle to proceeding to a next birth than less egalitarian interviewees. But there is not necessarily a difference in these two groups’ overall fertility intentions, as highly egalitarian interviewees’ greater valuation of stable employment for both partners requires institutional and policy support for dual-earner couples’ childrearing. When we look only at interviewees who express economic insecurity, somewhat higher fertility intentions are expressed by those holding less gender-egalitarian attitudes. Our results underline the complexity of the interrelationships between economic insecurity, gender egalitarianism, and fertility intentions.


Introduction
A large number of post-industrial countries in Europe and East Asia are characterized by very low fertility (Kohler et al. 2002;Billari and Kohler 2004;Goldstein et al. 2009). Economic uncertainty is a major driver of low fertility in Europe, and an extensive literature has examined the relationship between macroeconomic instability and total fertility (Tölke and Diewald 2003;Mills et al. 2005;Sobotka et al. 2011;Kreyenfeld et al. 2012;Vignoli et al. 2012;Örsal and Goldstein 2018). Many social demographers have also adopted a micro-level perspective and have analysed the relationship between economic uncertainty and fertility at the couple level (Özcan et al. 2010;Kreyenfeld et al. 2012;Testa and Gietel-Basten 2014). The results of such studies have often been contradictory across different countries or even across social groups (demarcated by education, for instance) in the same country (Özcan et al. 2010;Sobotka et al. 2011;Kreyenfeld et al. 2012;Raymo and Shibata 2017). Indeed, as Sobotka et al. (2011, p. 267) have pointed out, 'Individual fertility decisions at times of economic recession will often be differentiated by sex, age (or stage in the life cycle), ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and current family size.' Advancing the understanding of the relationship between economic insecurity and fertility thus remains a key agenda for social demographers.
The impact of men's unemployment on fertility postponement has been well established in the fertility literature (Kurz et al. 2005;Kreyenfeld et al. 2012;Schmitt 2012). As women's labour force participation increased and the dual-earner model became more widely accepted in many post-industrial societies, social demographers turned their attention to the relationship between women's unemployment and fertility as well (Kreyenfeld et al. 2012). But despite this addition of gender to the literature on economic uncertainty and fertility, little attention has been paid to how gender egalitarianism within couples may interact with perceived economic insecurity in influencing fertility intentions. This paper increasingly egalitarian gender role attitudes and behaviours. We pose two research questions, of which one is descriptive and one is based on theoretical considerations.
First, how are perceptions of economic insecurity articulated in the reasoning given by young and highly educated partnered adults in Spain for their decision to have a next child? Second, how do interviewees' narratives reflect, if at all, the theorized positive link between gender egalitarianism and fertility (McDonald 2000(McDonald , 2006(McDonald , 2013Esping-Andersen and Billari 2015;Goldscheider et al. 2015)? And do these narratives differ among interviewees who express economic insecurity vs. security? We consider gender egalitarianism within Spanish couples in the context of the general economic situation, labour market structure, and policies, none of which have been very supportive of childrearing, especially for dual-earner couples wishing to benefit from paid childcare leave and more flexible work schedules. In short, Spain's macro-level institutional context is somewhat mismatched with the widespread change towards more liberal gender role attitudes among young adults (Arpino and Tavares 2013;Abril et al. 2015;Knight and Brinton 2017).
We use a qualitative approach to explore these questions. Original in-depth interviews were carried out with young and highly educated partnered adults in Madrid and Barcelona who were childless or had one child. These provide rich information about individuals' gender role attitudes, their attitudes about parental leave and other ways of adjusting employment to childrearing responsibilities, their perceptions of economic insecurity related to proceeding to a next child, and their overall fertility intentions. We focus on the highly educated for three reasons. First, higher human capital has been associated with a greater likelihood of fulfilling fertility aspirations (Toulemon and Testa 2005). Second, it has been suggested that highly educated individuals are often the forerunners of fertility change (Skirbekk 2008). Third, because our research method rests on in-depth interviews, we seek to minimize the education and social class heterogeneity, given our limited sample size.
For the analysis in this paper, we first categorize our interviewees into two groups according to whether they mention economic insecurity as an obstacle to having their next (first or second) child. We further categorize them into those holding highly egalitarian or less egalitarian gender role attitudes. Interviewees' narratives of their reasoning and certainty with regard to fertility intentions (intended total number of children) reveal how feelings of economic insecurity and ideas about gender egalitarianism interact. In summary, we find that interviewees in highly egalitarian couples are less likely to bring up economic insecurity as an obstacle to fertility. This is consistent with the logic that economic security can be obtained by either or both partners (not exclusively the male) obtaining a relatively stable job and income. Being highly gender egalitarian does not appear to be related to the level of fertility intentions among the economically secure, but does seem to be associated with lower fertility intentions among the economically insecure.
More of the interviewees who express economic insecurity are in the less gender-egalitarian group. These interviewees tend to prioritize stable employment for men over that of women, which generally seems to make feelings of economic security harder to achieve. Overall, our results suggest that gender egalitarianism and economic insecurity interact in complex ways to influence fertility within Spain's institutional and policy environment.

The Spanish context
Spain is a highly appropriate case for our theoretical purposes. Along with Italy, Spain was the first country in Europe to experience total fertility below 1.3. This marked it as a 'lowest-low fertility' country in the early 1990s. Spain has experienced a high level of economic uncertainty since the 1980s, especially among the young working-age population. Unemployment rates have exceeded those in other European countries for most of the past three decades, and the economic circumstances of young Spanish adults at all education levels have been severely impacted by the restructuring of employment away from stable jobs towards short-term contract work (Adserà 2011a;Arpino and Tavares 2013). Accordingly, it is well recognized that economic insecurity is a major reason for the country's very low fertility (Ahn and Mira 2001;Simó-Noguera et al. 2002;De La Rica and Iza 2005;Adserà 2011b) and it is also widely acknowledged that economic uncertainty was exacerbated by the Great Recession that began in 2008 (Sobotka et al. 2011).
At the same time, Spain is an unusual case among southern European societies in terms of the rapid change it has experienced in gender role attitudes (Arpino and Tavares 2013;Sullivan et al. 2014;Arpino et al. 2015). McDonald (2000McDonald ( , 2006McDonald ( , 2013 and others (Esping-Andersen and Billari 2015;Goldscheider et al. 2015;Brinton and Lee 2016) have posited that post-industrial societies with very low fertility tend to be characterized by inegalitarian gender role attitudes and behaviours. But Spain does not readily fit this profile; Spanish gender role attitudes are now considerably more egalitarian than those of other 'very low fertility' countries, such as Italy and Japan (Arpino and Tavares 2013;Brinton and Lee 2016;Knight and Brinton 2017;Grunow et al. 2018). Does gender egalitarianism in Spain exert the positive effect on couples' fertility intentions assumed by gender equity theory, and might it therefore serve as a counteracting force against the pervasive climate of economic uncertainty? While we cannot presume to fully answer this question, this is a central issue motivating our analysis.

Gender inequality and fertility
Gender equity theory (McDonald 2000) emphasizes the centrality of gender relations for post-industrial fertility. The theory posits that with women's increased labour market opportunities, fertility is likely to be low unless men's participation in housework and childcare increases and the institutional and policy support for childrearing improves.
While McDonald's theory is inherently oriented towards explaining differential fertility across postindustrial societies, most empirical research has attempted to test the theory at the micro level (for exceptions, see Feyrer et al. 2008;Mills 2010;Brinton and Lee 2016). A large number of quantitative studies have examined the relationship between the household division of labour and fertility (see, e.g., Oláh 2003;Cooke 2004Cooke , 2009Torr and Short 2004;Bernhardt and Goldscheider 2006;Puur et al. 2008;Mills 2010;Nagase and Brinton 2017), and many studies have reported a positive relationship between men's contribution to household labour and couples' fertility intentions or transition to second birth.
An empirical focus on household labour captures some of McDonald's intended emphasis on gender equity but ignores two other aspects of his theory. First, McDonald (2013) has clarified in his more recent writings the distinction between gender equality and gender equity, with the latter referring to perceptions of fairness and opportunity rather than strict equality of outcome. In relation to fertility, the equity concept allows for couples to determine the relative caring roles of the father and the mother, so long as both perceive the outcomes to be fair. (p. 983) The bulk of empirical studies to date have focused on equality and have not followed up on McDonald's emphasis on equity. Second, McDonald assigned weight not just to gender equity within the couple but also to social institutions, such as paid childcare leave and the availability of high-quality affordable childcare, which make it possible for women to balance employment and family. In addition to equity vis-à-vis the household division of labour, these macro-level features strongly affect the degree to which couples feel they are in an environment supportive of the dual roles of worker and parent. Like other researchers, we do not endeavour here to draw a clear distinction between gender equity and gender equality. But our micro-level analysis is attuned to the macro-level institutional and policy context couples face as they make fertility decisions.
We turn next to studies of economic insecurity and fertility, then consider the key institutional features of the macro-level context in Spain that are relevant for fertility decision-making.

Gender, economic insecurity, and fertility
Empirical studies in Europe have generally found gender differences in the impact of unemployment on fertility. Men's unemployment tends to delay childbearing but to have a relatively weak effect on completed fertility (Tölke and Diewald 2003;Kurz et al. 2005;Pailhé and Solaz 2012;Schmitt 2012). Kravdal (2002) found a greater negative effect of men's than women's unemployment on fertility in Norway, and Cazzola et al. (2016) reported similar results for Italy. Vignoli et al. (2012) found that in Italy the job characteristics of both partners matter for fertility decisions, but that the man's employment situation (having a permanent job) matters more than the woman's.
Understanding the relationship between women's employment circumstances and fertility has become particularly important, given increases in women's educational attainment and employment. Recent literature has suggested that economic insecurity is often linked to postponement of childbearing among highly educated women (Schmitt 2008;Kreyenfeld 2010). While study of the sex-and education-specific links between economic insecurity and fertility is important, it is also important to consider how the nature of gender relations within a Gender, economic insecurity, and fertility 249 couple may influence whose employment insecurity matters most for fertility. Raymo andShibata (2017, p. 2302) point out that 'to focus on men or women separately … may obscure insights about how fertility is associated differently with the employment circumstances of men and women as well as how those gender-specific relationships may be shaped by social and economic context'.
The Great Recession that started in 2008 became an additional stimulus for research on the relationship between economic uncertainty and fertility, particularly in the European context (Goldstein et al. 2013). Testa and Gietel-Basten (2014) found that while the Great Recession did not affect childless individuals' ideal family size, it did influence the certainty of their fertility intentions. For those who were already parents of one child, the authors found an adverse effect of the recession on the intention to have additional children. Comolli (2017) highlighted that in subsequent years of the Great Recession, women's unemployment in Europe and the United States became more important in explaining fertility decline. This is particularly the case for southern European countries, whose welfare states provide less support for families than those in other parts of Europe (Matysiak et al. 2018). In countries such as Spain, which were hit early and very hard by the Great Recession, both partners' employment has become important for household income; recession has called into question the continued appropriateness of traditional male breadwinner ideology. Our analysis in this paper sheds light on whether partnered individuals' gender egalitarianism in Spain 'cushions' the negative impact on fertility intentions that stems from feelings of economic insecurity.

Labour market structure
Features of the macro-level context, such as labour market structure and state support for childrearing, may also influence whether couple-level egalitarianism shapes how partnered individuals think about the implications of their economic insecurity. Spain is characterized by an 'insider-outsider' (dualistic) labour market. Some jobs have stable employment contracts, but many others are temporary, with fixed-term contracts (Adserà 2011a). Empirical studies have found a strong effect of job insecurity on the postponement of second births in Spain and an increased gap between desired and actual fertility (Adserà 2004(Adserà , 2006(Adserà , 2011a(Adserà , 2011b; Castro-Martín and Martín-García 2013; Castro-Martín and Seiz-Puyuelo 2014). Consistent with these findings, in their analysis of the realization of short-term fertility intentions in 22 European countries, Harknett and Hartnett (2014) found that Spain exhibits one of the lowest rates of correspondence between fertility intentions and achieved births three years later.
In societies with an insider-outsider labour market structure, such as Spain, we expect the influence of economic insecurity on fertility intentions to be affected by the strength or weakness of adherence to the male breadwinner model. Japan, for instance, exhibits a level of total fertility and a dualistic labour market structure very similar to Spain's, but Japanese couples have a gender role ideology that is much more supportive of a male breadwinner model (Brinton et al. 2018). Unlike in Japan, Spanish couples' more equal emphasis on prioritizing stable employment for the male or female partner may help couples to experience feelings of economic security more easily, as either or both partners' stable employment-not just the man's employment-is valued. But whether gender-egalitarian attitudes among the economically secure and insecure help shape fertility intentions is unclear.

State support for childrearing
Scholars have also suggested that highly educated young adults' propensity to delay childbearing is related to the structure of state support such as childcare leave. For example, in welfare states such as Sweden, paid parental leave and the right to return to a job at the same level are guaranteed to employees with permanent contracts but not necessarily to those with temporary contracts. This can lead highly educated women in particular to delay childbearing until they secure a job with a permanent contract (Brinton et al. 2018). Similarly, Adserà (2006) found that women working in the public sector in Spain are less likely than those in the private sector to report a gap between fertility ideals and intentions. She traces this to the fact that women in the public sector have greater job stability and more benefits than women in the private sector, especially those in private sector jobs with temporary contracts. Moreover, parental leave policies are more universally upheld in the public sector than the private sector in Spain (Meil et al. 2008).
Under Spanish law, new mothers are entitled to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave and fathers to eight weeks of paid paternity leave (two weeks at the time of our interviews in 2012). Maternity and paternity leave are supplemented by unpaid gender-neutral childcare leave. Childcare leave is generous in terms of length; full-time leave can be taken until a child is three years old and part-time leave until a child is twelve years old (eight years old at the time of our 2012 interviews). Childcare leave is not restricted to employees with permanent contracts. But because it is unpaid, leave usage depends heavily on the ability of a couple to afford a temporary reduction in one or both partners' working hours. Spanish women are more likely than men to use unpaid parental leave, with only five of every 100 workers who take such leave being men (Lapuerta et al. 2011).
Parents' difficulties in balancing work and family, especially during children's early years (up to age three), are aggravated by a shortage of public day care spaces. Baizán (2009) found that regional day care shortages in Spain were negatively related to aggregate fertility. Public spending on familyrelated services as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is also low, at 1.36 per cent of GDP in 2012, compared with 2.15 per cent on average for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in general and 3.99 per cent in the United Kingdom (OECD 2018). In short, Spain's welfare state is relatively undeveloped (Esping-Andersen 1999; Flaquer 2004; Sigle-Rushton and Kenney 2004), which makes it necessary for many couples to rely on themselves or on other family members to care for children (Domínguez-Folgueras et al. 2018).
In sum, increasingly egalitarian gender role attitudes, the relative weakness of Spanish institutional support for childrearing, and the economic uncertainty generated by the labour market structure and economy together create a complex environment within which young Spanish couples make fertility decisions. On the one hand, some couples' ideological flexibility in being able to rely on the income from a stable job held by either the male or female partner may produce feelings of greater economic security in proceeding to the next child and greater confidence in overall fertility intentions. On the other hand, we would expect couples expressing economic insecurity to be either: (1) those who wish to rely on the man's income, which leaves the female partner more available for childrearing responsibilities; or (2) more egalitarian couples where both partners' work is prioritized, but where income is too low or too unstable to generate feelings of economic security. In these latter couples, egalitarianism may not be related to higher fertility intentions, especially because for dual-earner couples with a low total income it is difficult to take unpaid childcare leave or to pay for childcare services.

Data
We draw on original in-depth interviews conducted in 2012 to examine how young and highly educated partnered adults in Spain formulate their fertility intentions and the reasoning behind them. While the use of qualitative methods is less common than survey research methods in demography, structured in-depth interviews are a highly effective tool for analysing individuals' reasoning about their intentions and decision-making (Randall and Koppenhaver 2004).
Our sample consists of 53 highly educated, heterosexual, native-born men and women aged 24-35 who are in a stable cohabiting partnership or marriage and live in an urban area. We stratified the sample so that half of the interviewees are childless and half have one child. This allows us to analyse the decision-making process of proceeding to a first or second birth. Equal numbers of men and women were sampled separately, and no individuals in our data set are in unions with each other. For this analysis, we define higher education as the completion of tertiary education (university or post-secondary vocational school). In addition, we restrict the sample to individuals who (1) are not full-time students; (2) are not pregnant, nor is their partner; (3) do not have children from a previous relationship; and (4) are not separated, divorced, or widowed. Samples were drawn evenly from Madrid and Barcelona, Spain's two largest urban centres. (See supplementary material for a list of interviewees and their characteristics.) Interviewee recruitment was carried out through snowball sampling, starting with a large number of individual 'seeds' who each referred up to two potential interviewees. We repeated this process until all the cells in our sampling frame were filled. A disadvantage of snowball sampling is the potential existence of clusters due to the limited network dispersion of referral chains. To address this concern, we performed post hoc cluster analysis using interviewees' responses to eleven attitude questions. This confirmed that there was no clustering of particular 'types' of like-minded individuals within the sample.
Both sampling and interviewing were carried out by the first author, who is trained as a sociologist and demographer. A strength of the study is the shared status between interviewees and interviewer (a highly educated, Spanish-born young adult in the same age range as the interviewees), which made it Gender, economic insecurity, and fertility 251 easy to establish rapport. Interviews were conducted face-to-face in Spanish, with no family members present. Interviews lasted from 60 to 120 minutes, and were voice recorded and later transcribed by a native speaker.

Interview questions
A structured interview protocol was used. The protocol included questions about current or most recent employment for the interviewee and their partner; fertility ideals, intentions, and reasoning, including perception of obstacles to proceeding to a next child (either the first or second child); perception of the household division of labour and childcare; gender role attitudes; and views on work-family and fertility policies in Spain. The interviewer also recorded biographical and financial information for each interviewee and their partner. In this paper, we draw primarily on individuals' answers to questions related to their overall fertility intentions, perceived conditions or obstacles surrounding the decision to have a next child, and gender role attitude questions.

Coding process
Coding was carried out in several stages. Using the qualitative software Dedoose, we first constructed structural codes to demarcate topical sections of the interview. We then inductively coded the obstacles, if any, that interviewees described in relation to proceeding to a first or second birth. We wrote detailed memos describing each individual's reasoning with regard to their overall fertility intentions, putting these in the context of couple-level characteristics (such as interviewees' and partners' employment circumstances, and interviewees' subjective perception of intra-household dynamics, including the distribution of housework and childcare).
Because we aim to analyse how perceived economic insecurity and gender egalitarianism are related to fertility intentions and reasoning, we follow Kravdal (2002), Bernardi et al. (2008), and Hipp (2016) in measuring individuals' subjective economic insecurity. For this analysis, we code whether individuals mention economic insecurity as an obstacle in the decision-making process for having a child (whether first or second child). If they do not, we code them as not expressing this concern. Our qualitative data provide considerable texture in terms of individuals' reasoning about economic insecurity as an obstacle to childbearing. For example, even though a number of interviewees are in couples where at least one of the partners is unemployed, they do not uniformly voice a sense of economic insecurity in relation to fertility decisions. Some of them are professionally prepared, have work experience, and feel confident in finding a job, and therefore do not express a subjective feeling of economic insecurity. Others mention receiving unemployment benefits and state that their household income has therefore barely been affected by unemployment. Under such circumstances, they may not perceive economic insecurity as an obstacle to childbearing.
We further categorize interviewees based on their gender role attitudes. Given the high levels of unemployment in Spain and in our sample (at least one partner is unemployed in 18 of the 53 couples), we prioritize gender role attitudes over behaviours. The gendered division of housework and childcare is likely to be highly skewed for couples affected by unemployment, regardless of gender role attitudes, due to the greater time availability of the unemployed partner. To measure gender role attitudes, we consider interviewees' agreement or disagreement with the following statements drawn from the World Values Survey (2010-14), as well as the reasoning they offer for their views: 'A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work' (with a follow-up question comparing full-time with part-time working mothers) and 'When children are age three or under, the mother should be a housewife and focus on childcare.' Based on consistency across the answers, we categorize interviewees as being 'highly egalitarian' or 'less egalitarian'. We note in passing that none of the female interviewees express the desire to be stayat-home wives and mothers on a long-term basis, nor do any male interviewees express the desire or expectation that their partner would do so.
We categorize interviewees as highly gender egalitarian if they agree that a working mother, regardless of how many hours she works, can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her child as a mother who does not work. Many of them mention the importance of quality vs. quantity of time with children, and reflect on the drawbacks that staying at home might imply for mothers and children. Most of these interviewees disagree that a mother should focus on childcare during the first three years of a child's life; many express the viewpoint that both the mother and the father should do so.
Interviewees whom we defined as less egalitarian also tend to feel that a working mother can establish the same warm and secure relationship with her children as a non-working mother, but consider working part-time to be more beneficial for children. These interviewees tend to favour the mother as the primary caregiver while the child is very young, if financial circumstances allow it.

Results: Perceived economic insecurity and gender egalitarianism in interviewees' reasoning about fertility intentions
Our first research question is descriptive: How are perceptions of economic insecurity articulated in the reasoning given by young and highly educated partnered adults in Spain for deciding to have a next child? We find that perceived economic insecurity in relation to fertility decisions is indeed a major theme in our interviews: over half of sampled individuals spontaneously mention it as something they are considering when they think about a next birth. This pertains to slightly more childless than one-child interviewees.
About one-third of interviewees who cite economic insecurity as an element of their reasoning are in couples with at least one unemployed partner. In couples where both partners are employed, the source of insecurity comes instead from part-time or temporary contracts, which reflect not only job precarity but low income. Among interviewees who express economic insecurity despite at least one partner holding a full-time job, uncertainty is related to feeling that the position is not stable or that the wages are too low. Many interviewees associate economic insecurity particularly with the inability to access more spacious housing, viewing this as an obstacle to expanding their family.
Mercedes is a 29-year-old childless female working full-time as an administrative assistant. Her partner is a 31-year-old draftsman who also works full-time. Mercedes' fertility ideal is three children, but she thinks she will probably have two. She states: Many times, I have imagined myself having a family, but right now I have my feet on the ground and am feeling realistic and, no, I don't presently have the chance to have a family.
When subsequently asked about the obstacles she perceives, she replies emphatically: Economic … employment … the economy of the country! Even though the price of housing has dropped, it is still sky-high, and employment conditions are worse.
She feels that in order to have children, the couple's employment conditions and income need to improve.
We also find consistency between our interviews and the literature on Spain's increasingly gender-egalitarian context. Based on our categorization, almost two-thirds of all interviewees are highly egalitarian. Consistent with our expectations, highly egalitarian individuals constitute a majority of the interviewees who feel economically secure vis-à-vis proceeding to a next birth.
We turn now to our second research question: whether interviewees' narratives reflect the supposed positive link between gender egalitarianism and fertility, and whether such narratives differ between interviewees who express economic insecurity and those who do not. We note first that about half of our entire sample state an intention to have two children; if we also include those who say 'one or two' or 'two or three', this becomes the majority of interviewees. This is consistent with the 'twochild norm' for fertility intentions in Europe (Sobotka and Beaujouan 2014). But when we divide interviewees who express economic insecurity into those with and without highly egalitarian attitudes, we find some differences in their intended number of children. Interviewees who express economic insecurity and also have highly egalitarian attitudes seem particularly inclined to limit their fertility intentions to 'one or two' or even 'one' child, while those who express less egalitarian gender role attitudes are more likely to intend to have 'two or three' or 'three' children. In contrast, the two-child norm is dominant among interviewees who do not perceive economic insecurity, regardless of whether they hold more or less egalitarian attitudes. We now examine in greater detail the variation in fertility intentions among highly egalitarian and less egalitarian interviewees in each group (economically insecure vs. economically secure). In doing so, the difficulties produced by Spain's dualistic labour market and its modest state support for childrearing come into sharper focus.

Reasoning for fertility intentions among economically insecure interviewees
Among economically insecure interviewees, nearly all those in the highly gender-egalitarian group state that both partners should achieve some stability in their careers before the couple proceeds to a birth. This contrasts with interviewees in the less genderegalitarian group, who also stress the importance of financial stability before proceeding to have a child Gender, economic insecurity, and fertility 253 but do not necessarily mention women's labour market position.
Without secure jobs for both partners, many highly egalitarian respondents seem to be engaged in a waiting game when it comes to having children. Arantxa and her partner, both 28 years old, are an example. Although she is trained as a nutritionist, Arantxa holds a temporary job in telemarketing. Her partner is an unemployed nurse. When asked about the conditions necessary for having their first child, Arantxa stresses the importance of: having more stability. He needs a job and I need a job … , adding that: the job I have now is not very secure.
She and her partner intend to have two children, but only after securing stable jobs.
Rebeca is another example of a female interviewee in a highly egalitarian, economically insecure couple. Both she and her partner are currently unemployed. While Rebeca, who is 26, would like to have two children, she thinks it is likely they will only have one because of the difficult labour market. In discussing the conditions for having their first child, she says: First of all … well, we need to be sure about it psychologically. But above all we need to be economically secure-to each have a good job, to have stability-both of us.
Manuel is a 30-year-old male interviewee with highly gender-egalitarian views, who mentions economic insecurity as an obstacle to having a child. He has considerable stability in his research job, but his partner, who is 29, is in a temporary job that she feels dissatisfied with. Manuel says that he personally feels ready to have a child, but they are waiting until his partner feels more secure in the labour market. Although he would like to have three or four children, he thinks it is more likely that they will have two. As he states: In our case, the most important thing is whether my partner wants to move forward to have a child. I have told her that whenever she wants, whenever she feels ready and considers it to be the right moment, let's go ahead. I think we can afford it now, but it will depend on when she feels fulfilled in other aspects. She wants to wait.
Manuel's case raises the issue of whether the desire of female partners to become established in the labour market is purely based on an economic rationale or also includes other motivations. In the context of a society where gender egalitarianism is more and more the norm, some female interviewees in the highly egalitarian group mention motivations that go beyond the economic, such as autonomy and fulfilment. Their comments suggest that being a dualearner couple in the Spanish context has an ideological as well as an economic rationale. Likewise, many male interviewees in the highly egalitarian group express recognition of such desires on the part of their partner.
The three cases mentioned so far in this subsection -Arantxa, Rebeca, and Manuel-all represent highly gender-egalitarian interviewees who perceive economic insecurity as an obstacle to having a first child (all three are so far childless). Their reasoning about fertility encompasses wanting both partners to become established in the labour market before proceeding to parenthood. In fact, the large majority of economically insecure interviewees who are highly egalitarian are childless at the time of the interview. As noted earlier, their fertility intentions focus generally on 'two' or 'less than two' children. The fertility intentions of less egalitarian interviewees in the insecure group tend to be higher than those of highly egalitarian interviewees. Most of the former intend to have 'two' children and some intend to have 'two or three'.
Abril is a female interviewee who perceives economic insecurity as a fertility obstacle but nevertheless intends to have 'two' children. She is 27 years old and unemployed. Abril holds less egalitarian gender role attitudes. A key difference between Abril and interviewees in economically insecure but highly egalitarian couples is that Abril is less concerned about having a stable full-time job. She states that she does not currently feel pressure to look actively for a job. When asked whether she would like to be a stay-at-home mother Abril rejects the idea, saying: I don't want to be a 'trophy wife'.
But on the other hand, she is not seriously thinking of working full-time. As she puts it: I would like to work, but also to stay with my daughter.
When the interviewer follows up by asking, 'If you had a job, what kind of job would it be?', Abril replies: Abril's case illustrates that in contrast to highly egalitarian interviewees, those who are less egalitarian are more apt to assume that the mother will adapt her work life while the father continues working full-time. Women in the less gender-egalitarian category also generally say they cannot expect their partner to reduce his working hours (i.e., take parttime unpaid parental leave) after becoming a parent. In a sense, these interviewees in our highly educated urban sample come the closest to supporting the male breadwinner model. Recall that McDonald's (2013, p. 983) gender equity theory makes a distinction between gender equity and gender equality, with equity concerning perceptions of fairness and opportunity rather than strict equality of outcome. In this sense, interviewees such as Abril do not necessarily perceive the gender distribution of labour in their household as unfair, even though they do the majority of housework and childcare.
In addition, less egalitarian interviewees are less prone than highly egalitarian ones to bring into their narratives a concern about the lack of institutional support for childrearing. Highly egalitarian respondents are, by definition, in couples where both partners are more committed to the labour market. As a result, they discuss the difficulties associated with work-life balance more than their less egalitarian counterparts do. For example, they more often mention the lack of longer-term paid parental leave for mothers and fathers, taking other northern European countries as a model (Marczak et al. 2018). In contrast, some of the less egalitarian interviewees express a hope for longer maternity leave, thus privileging the mother's responsibility for childcare. Among highly egalitarian respondents, references to the shortage of free public day care, to penalties on those taking parental leave in the private sector compared with the public sector, and to the need for time flexibility in job schedules are mentioned more often than among less egalitarian interviewees. This demonstrates the institutional constraints that highly egalitarian couples face as they prioritize both partners' jobs as well as childrearing.

Reasoning for fertility intentions among economically secure interviewees
As mentioned earlier, the majority of interviewees who do not perceive economic insecurity in relation to fertility report highly egalitarian gender role attitudes. These interviewees are evenly divided between the childless and those with one child. For most, especially those who already have a child, another aspect of the Spanish context comes into play: the difficulty of achieving work-life balance, especially given that public childcare spaces are limited, private childcare is expensive, and Spanish childcare leave is unpaid. The value they place on both members of the couple remaining employed translates into a daily time squeeze and the feeling that additional help in housework, childcare, or both, is necessary. Many of them say that time constraints are an obstacle to deciding to have a child, whether it is their first or second.
Pablo exemplifies interviewees who stress the difficulties of work-life balance as the main reason for delaying the transition to a second child. Both he and his partner had reduced their working hours substantially during the first year after their daughter was born. Pablo is a 33-year-old self-employed man who works from home. His 31-year-old partner is the higher earner in the couple. Pablo generally does more housework and childcare than his partner. He describes the time required by childrearing as follows: Our daughter is two years old and needs us constantly. She is not independent in any respect, and we would not be able to find time to take care of another child in the same way we have taken care of her. No, literally it cannot fit into our schedule … within the 24 hours of a day, another baby or small child would not fit. Now we understand what this means. Before, it was very abstract, but now it is very concrete [laughter].
Many highly egalitarian interviewees who do not perceive economic insecurity as an obstacle to their fertility goals strive to achieve work-family balance by outsourcing some housework, especially the more arduous tasks such as cleaning. Interviewees' narratives suggest that by doing this, the couple experiences less conflict and can more easily achieve an equilibrium for other tasks that need to be done. Some interviewees also say that by outsourcing housework, they can maximize the time spent with their partner and family. Despite the time constraints these interviewees report, the majority of them intend to have 'two' or 'more than two' children, with very few having an intention below 'two' children.
In contrast, mentions of a time squeeze are less frequent among less egalitarian respondents. Most interviewees in this group are parents of one child. The female partners in these couples assume most of the caregiving responsibilities; fully half are unemployed (actively seeking work) at the time of the interview. Women's unemployment is not an obstacle in deciding to have a second child, according to the reasoning of these less egalitarian interviewees. Indeed, all interviewees in this category report fertility intentions of 'two' or 'more than two' children. The majority who are already parents report having had their first child when the mother's job was not stable.
To summarize, interviewees' fertility intentions seem to be associated differentially with their egalitarianism, depending on whether they perceive themselves to be economically insecure or not. Our original expectation-that greater gender role egalitarianism would be associated with higher fertility intentions, even when individuals felt economically insecure-is not borne out. Instead, highly egalitarian interviewees' prioritization of a stable job for both the man and the woman-a scarce commodity in Spain's insider-outsider labour market-appears to lead many couples who feel economically insecure to hesitate in moving forward with their fertility plans and, overall, to report lower fertility intentions than less egalitarian interviewees who express economic insecurity. We also find among the highly egalitarian group that when both partners are in stable employment, their egalitarianism often leads both of them to be willing to reduce their work hours in order to participate in childrearing. Manuel's case and a number of others in our data fit this description.
But whether or not the fertility intentions of highly egalitarian individuals who do not express economic insecurity are positively affected by their gender egalitarianism seems to be an open question. Why? Having fought and won the difficult battle of securing stable jobs in Spain's dualistic labour market, highly egalitarian couples face a second battle: the one posed by an inadequate parental leave system and a shortage of public childcare. Unpaid leave is available, but obviously leads to short-term loss of income and thus needs to be used judiciously. This may lead respondents to lower their fertility compared with their less egalitarian counterparts who are more likely to entertain the option of the female partner being at home for some period of time.

Conclusion
This paper aims to make a theoretical contribution by bringing together two substantial literatures in lowfertility research: gender equity theory and the empirical literature on economic insecurity. We bring to bear the strengths of qualitative research in examining individuals' explanations of their reasoning with respect to fertility decisions and the conditions they consider important for reaching their decisions (DiMaggio 2014).
Consistent with the literature on Spanish fertility, many (about half) of the interviewees in our sample cite economic insecurity as an obstacle to their fertility decisions. The majority of interviewees also fit our characterization of being highly gender egalitarian in their attitudes. These two dimensions interact in complex ways in relation to fertility intentions.
Among our interviewees, individuals with highly gender-egalitarian attitudes are less apt than those with less egalitarian attitudes to express the view that economic insecurity is an obstacle to having a next child. We think that the underlying mechanism may be that greater gender egalitarianism translates into flexibility as to whether interviewees consider men's or women's job stability and income sufficient to proceed with fertility plans. Among economically secure interviewees, greater gender egalitarianism is also associated with interviewees' greater willingness and, according to their accounts, their partners' greater willingness to make adjustments in their work schedules and to outsource housework. The majority of economically secure, highly gender-egalitarian interviewees intend to have at least two children. This is also the case for less egalitarian interviewees who feel economically secure, but for a different reason: these individuals support the idea of the female partner making greater employment adjustments when children are young. This obviates the need for paid childcare. Thus, in our sample we do not find noticeable variation in the fertility intentions of economically secure interviewees according to their level of gender egalitarianism.
Turning to interviewees who express economic insecurity as an obstacle to transitioning to a next birth, they are more or less equally divided between those with highly egalitarian and less egalitarian attitudes. Highly gender-egalitarian interviewees who feel economically insecure generally want both members of the couple to be in stable employment. Facing such a challenge, their fertility intentions tend to be focused on 'two' or 'less than two' children. The fertility intentions of less egalitarian interviewees in the insecure group are relatively higher, with most intending to have 'two' children and some intending to have 'more than two'. Their principal concern is that the male partner secures a stable full-time position, with the female partner taking unpaid leave or making other job adjustments when children are very young.
Our interview data suggest that in Spain's precarious economic context, greater institutional support for dual-earner couples may be necessary for gender egalitarianism to fulfil its promise of increasing fertility. This supports McDonald's dual emphasis on gender egalitarianism within couples plus an environment supportive of such couples. Our qualitative data illustrate how Spain falls short in the institutional domain, as dual-earner egalitarian couples in stable employment wrestle with decisions about unpaid childcare leave and about balancing the dual commodities of income and time. Their fertility intentions are not necessarily lower than those of less egalitarian economically secure couples, but neither are they higher. Nor do highly gender-egalitarian attitudes appear to cushion the negative influence of economic insecurity on fertility intentions. Many interviewees who are highly gender egalitarian but feel economically insecure appear to lower their fertility intentions in anticipation of waiting until both members of the couple have stable jobs.
While in-depth interviews provide a window into individuals' reasoning that quantitative data cannot, our analysis has a number of limitations. First, we interviewed individuals rather than both members of a couple. While we gathered rich information concerning the couple from our interviewees, we nevertheless do not have direct information on the views of interviewees' partners. Second, our categorization of interviewees into highly vs. less gender egalitarian is based only on respondents' gender role attitudes. Previous research on family and fertility in Spain and elsewhere has shown that egalitarian gender role attitudes do not necessarily translate into similarly egalitarian behaviours (Abril et al. 2015). In addition, it has been argued that men tend to overestimate the level of gender egalitarianism in their relationships (Kamo 2000). Third, our sample size is obviously too small to permit generalizations or to go beyond suggesting the complexity of the relationships between gender egalitarianism, economic insecurity, and fertility. Rather, we hope to stimulate further research by exploring issues that have been neither fully theorized nor empirically tested. Our analysis leads us to conclude tentatively that the combination of gender egalitarianism among young and highly educated Spanish couples and institutional support for such couples could positively affect fertility intentions. Our findings also demonstrate the constraining role on young adults' fertility plans exerted by insider-outsider labour markets such as that of Spain.