Couples’ Attitudes and the Transition to First Births in Germany

Sandra Krapf, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Sabine Zinn, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of a couple’s expectations of cost and rewards of having children on first birth risks. Using newly available panel data on Germany (pairfam waves 1 to 4), we are able to analyze the effect of both partners’ attitudes toward parenthood on subsequent first births. To approach the problem of item nonresponse we impute missing values based on multivariate imputation by chained equations (MICE). This allows us to avoid biased regression estimates caused by systematic missings in surveys. In a second step, we run discrete-time hazard models to analyze the occurrence of a first birth in couples.