Scientific Presentations

LabTalks@­SocialDemography

Department Social Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, April 29, 2025

1:00 PM: Talk with Stefano Arnolfo - The Cost of Family Complexity: How Multipartnered Fertility Shapes Earnings Trajectories in the Netherlands

Abstract

Research has highlighted the role of childbearing, union dissolution, and re-partnering in shaping the economic wellbeing of women and men. However, less is known about the economic consequences of fertility after re-partnering, especially in contexts where children are born in successive relationships. Childbearing with a new partner, also known as multipartnered fertility (MPF), is part of Europe’s demographic landscape. It reflects current changes in the stability and the number of unions across the life course and in the partnership context of childbearing and contributes to the increasing levels of family complexity in western societies. Using Dutch administrative data, our study examines the outcomes of MPF in terms of personal earnings. We analyze the partnership, fertility, and earnings life courses of more than 840,000 residents in the Netherlands born between 1977 and 1985 and use fixed-effect models to examine how union formation, union dissolution, re-partnering, and childbearing across successive partnerships influence the income trajectories of women and men. Our findings extend previous knowledge on the economic consequences of union dissolution and re-partnering in the Netherlands by showing that MPF is associated with a pronounced reduction in earnings. While we find a significant penalty when men have more children with a new partner, the economic consequences of MPF are more severe for women. Results show that, although motherhood penalties after first childbirth already contribute to gendered economic inequalities, MPF results in further substantial earnings losses for women that go well beyond the cost of parity progression with the same partner. Consequently, having children in a context of family complexity not only reduces women’s income but also deepens economic disparities among them.

LabTalk, April, 29th from 1 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Rostock time)