Emerging patterns of child-spacing in Canada
Rahim, A.; Ram, B.
Journal of Biosocial Science 25(2): 155-167
1993
ISSN/ISBN: 0021-9320 PMID: 8478366 DOI: 10.1017/s0021932000020460Document Number: 328230
With a low and stable family size, understanding birth spacing contributes to firmer projections of fertility and the socioeconomic status of women. In this study, the aim was to examine the socioeconomic differences in the spacing of first, second, third, and fourth births in Canada from data in the 1984 Family History Survey. The subsample included 2534 women aged 18-44 years who were currently living with their first husband. Confounding effects were eliminated by excluding women with a disrupted marital history and premarital fertility (births 7 months prior to first marriage). Also excluded were higher than 4th order births. Life table techniques are used to counteract the censoring found in cross-sectional data collected at one point in time, which does not provide complete reproductive histories. Analysis was conducted for women aged 18-34 years and 35-44 years in order to validate reproductive history life events. Analysis of unweighted data involved proportional hazards models. The results show that having a first birth within 8 months of first marriage occurred in or was likely to occur in nearly 14% of currently married women 18-44 years. Within 24 months of marriage, 52% of women aged 35-44 and 44% of women aged 18-34 years were likely to have their first child. Within 6 years of marriage, 85% of women were likely to have their first child. Canadian women, particularly younger women, delay childbearing; subsequent children are also delayed. The effect of marriage age on birth interval is minimal for second and third birth intervals. Age at first birth was the most influential factor affecting birth interval; there was an association between young age and shorter second birth interval. Second birth intervals for women aged 35-44 years, who gave birth to their first child before the age of 23 years, was 18.7 months; interval increased as the age of first birth increased. For third births, the median duration declined as the age of the mother at first birth increased. The results of the multivariate analysis showed that length of first birth interval had a negative impact on length of second birth interval. There was a strong and significant positive relationship between age at first birth and second birth interval. A shorter second birth interval was found for women who were less educated and more educated than women with 8-13 years of schooling. There was also a curvilinear relationship between duration of first work interruption and child spacing.