February 14, 2012 | News

Congratulations!

On 6th of February 2012, Karin Tesching defended her doctoral thesis titled “Education and fertility - Dynamic interrelations between women’s educational level, educational field and fertility in Sweden” at Stockholm University.

Karin Tesching analyzed the interrelations between the educational trajectory of women and their childbearing behavior, focusing in particular on the field of education, next to educational enrolment and educational level. Her dissertation reveals strong variations in the fertility behavior of women who had pursued training in different fields. She also found out that mothers who had obtained degrees in fields where it is difficult to get established in the labor market, such as the humanities, tend to go for further educational training - more so than do others: Giving birth to a child seems to prompt them to take further training in a field that offers more stable and family friendly employment prospects. In addition, the dissertation shows  that the educational and fertility decisions of women are correlated because both life domains are influenced by individual preferences and the social background. 

Karin Tesching's thesis was supervised by Gunnar Andersson, Professor of Demography at Stockholm University, and MPIDR director emeritus Jan M. Hoem.