This session will be presented in english by Alicia Adsera, discussed by Audrey Bousselin and animated by Ariane Pailhé.
This paper presents results from a conjoint experiment in which respondents evaluate profiles of hypothetical couples considering either a first or a second birth, forcing trade-offs across domains. We field a seven-country survey of respondents aged 20–49, with a particular focus on life-course and age norms. The scenarios vary in the woman’s age at the potential birth, household and individual income levels (and their expected changes after the birth), and the expected loss of free time for the couple. We find a preference for relatively young (or around-average) maternal ages at childbirth compared to ages well above the average. Both the level of household income and expected income changes matter for first and second births, while the size of the motherhood penalty plays a more modest discouraging role. Large losses of free time are strongly penalized. We also examine how the woman’s age interacts with the other dimensions of the vignette and whether the perceived importance of these dimensions differs between female and male respondents. Finally, because the countries in the survey differ in fertility levels, female labor-force participation, income, and age norms and profiles at childbearing, we investigate cross-country heterogeneity in the relative importance assigned to the various attributes in the experiment.
