According to the 'reproductive polarization' hypothesis, family-policy regimes unfavourable to the combination of employment with motherhood generate greater socio-economic differentials in fertility than other regimes. This hypothesis has been tested mainly for 'liberal' Anglo-American regimes. To investigate the effects elsewhere, we compared education differentials in age at first birth among native-born women of 1950s and 1960s birth cohorts in seven countries representing three regime types. Women with low educational attainment have continued to have first births early, not only in Britain and the USA but also in Greece, Italy, and Spain. Women at all other levels of education have experienced a shift towards later first births, a shift that has been largest in Southern Europe. Unlike the educationally heterogeneous changes in age pattern at first birth seen under the Southern European and Anglo-American family-policy regimes, the changes across birth cohorts in the study's two 'universalistic' countries, Norway and France, have been educationally homogeneous.

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Au 1er janvier 2050, en supposant que les tendances demographiques recentes se maintiennent, la France metropolitaine compterait 70,0 millions d'habitants, soit 9,3 millions de plus qu'en 2005.

Progressively later starting of childbearing has been a feature of cohort change in fertility across Europe and elsewhere over recent decades. Growing differences in the age patterns of childbearing between the Anglo-American and continental European countries, however, have also been found. The present study uses large linked-record databases in Britain, France and Norway to analyse these differences in more detail, focussing on age at entry to motherhood (first childbearing) by level of educational attainment among women born in the 1950s and in the 1960s. The shift between these two cohorts towards a later pattern of first childbearing in Britain was confined to women with secondary school qualifications and above. For women born in the 1960s, the peak age for risk of first childbearing among those with secondary school qualifications grew to be between seven and eleven years later than among women without secondary school qualifications. In France and Norway, the peak ages for risk of first childbearing shifted more uniformly across education levels between the two cohorts. For these 1950s and 1960s cohorts, improvements in women's educational levels also occurred more uniformly in France and Norway, moving more women into education categories characterised by later patterns of first childbearing.

Nousestimons unmodèlededécisiondesmèresdejeunesenfantsenmatièrederecours àunegardeextérieurepayanteet d’offre de travail (participation et heures de travail sous la forme mi-temps, 80 %, plein temps), sur des données microéconomiques françaises. Nos résultats suggèrent que le coût de la garde influe sur le recours à une garde payante, mais peu sur la décision d’activité féminine. La suppression de l’APE (Allocation Parentale d’Éducation) ferait augmenter le taux de recours à une garde payante de 2 points et le taux d’emploi féminin de 4 points, au sein des couples mariés avec au moins un enfant de moins de 3 ans. Le temps partiel féminin est fortement sensible aux incitations financières de l’APE.

We use French household data to estimate a structural model of female labor supply and use of paid child care outside the home. Child care costs are found to have little impact on the labor market participation decision of mothers. The model is used to study various policy issues. The influence of the current tax credit on child care expenditures on the mothers' labor supply is weak. Suppressing the APE (Parental Allowance for the Education) would cause the female participation rate in our sample to rise by 4 points and the proportion of mothers using paid care to rise by 2 points. The responses of women to policy changes are very heterogenous. Macroeconomic changes in female labor supply are equally due to switches between non-participation and participation and switches between working hours by working women.