Studying No Children? Factors and Diversity of Event Sequences in Women’s Female Educational and Childbearing Trajectories

Educational trajectories after high (secondary) school are closely interlinked with other life choices to be made during the transition to adulthood, including those related to marriage and childbearing. This study examines relationship between these choices and aims to establish whether these events compete in the lives of young Russian women born in the 1990s.

The study uses longitudinal data of the first ten waves of the survey “Educational and Professional Trajectories” (2011-2021), whose participants in the first wave were ninth-year high school students (panel sample N = 992). The study applies sequence analysis, clusteranalysis to reveal most typical trajectories, and regression analysis.

The latter shows that the early motherhood trajectory is chosen by young women who from the beginning have no plans for a long course of study. Giving birth while studying tends to lengthen the educational trajectory rather than put an end to it altogether. However, the preferred strategy of Russia’s young females is a long course of study and delayed childbearing. The predictors of this choice include: high socioeconomic status of the parental family, residence in large urban centers, good grades at high school, individual plans to study at university, and greater educational expectations of parents. These factors affect both educational and reproductive choices.