Partnership life courses and completed fertility in Spain
Vidal, Sergi (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Sociologia)
Lozano, Mariona (Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics)
Bolano, Danilo (Università degli Studi di Firenze)
Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics

Date:	2026
Description:	38 pàg.
Abstract:	BACKGROUND Fertility in Spain has declined and shifted to later ages alongside diversification of family formation, raising questions about how partnership life courses shape completed fertility by late reproductive age. OBJECTIVE We aim to assess how key features of partnership trajectories - timing, duration, and sequencing - relate to motherhood and parity by age 41 among women in contemporary Spain, and whether associations differ by education. METHODS We analyze 7,656 women, born 1962-1977, in the Spanish Fertility Survey (2018). A feature-selection approach identifies salient aspects of union histories (e. g. , postponement or absence of union, stability, cohabitation, higher-order unions) associated with (1) entry into motherhood and (2) progression to higher-order births by age 41, with results stratified by educational attainment. RESULTS Delayed or foregone union formation during the reproductive years is strongly associated with lower fertility, particularly a lower likelihood of entering motherhood. Stable marriage is consistently linked to higher probabilities of both becoming a mother and progressing to higher-order births. Cohabitation and post-separation trajectories show more nuanced and generally weaker associations with fertility in these cohorts. Associations between partnership status at later reproductive ages and fertility outcomes are more pronounced among highly educated women. CONCLUSIONS Partnership life courses are central to understanding low and late fertility in Spain, and our results shed light on how traditional and emerging partnership dynamics jointly shape fertility outcomes by late reproductive ages. CONTRIBUTION We move beyond a narrow event-based focus to provide an integrated, trajectory-based account of how partnership timing, duration, and sequencing relate to motherhood and parity in a sustained low-fertility setting, documenting educational differences in these associations.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Partnership trajectories ; Spain ; Feature selection ; Fertility ; Life course
Published in:	Demographic Research, Vol. 54 (2026) , art. 29, ISSN 2363-7064

DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2026.54.29

40 p, 1.3 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Centre for Demographic Studies (CED-CERCA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles