Thinking of starting a family? It’s women who decide - study

Women appear to be the decision-makers when it comes to starting a family, with a new report finding a strong correlation between a woman’s relationship satisfaction and financial security and the likelihood of pregnancy and no noticeable correlation to how a man feels and his likelihood of having children.

However the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, or Hilda report, released on Wednesday, did find a strong relationship between a man's wage and the likelihood his partner would get pregnant, with each additional $1,000 earned by a woman's partner increasing her pregnancy probability by 1.5 per cent.

The report author, Prof Roger Wilkins, said the findings were very much consistent with traditional gender roles.

“The econometric models don’t lie,” he said. “We find no association between likelihood of starting a family and men’s feelings about their partner and their satisfaction with their financial situation, but a strong association with women.”

Women, the report found, were less likely to get pregnant if they were employed, regardless of the income they earned, but that negative impact was halved if the woman worked at a company with more than 500 employees, which generally had better employment provisions.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the report found a strong link between marriage, home ownership and pregnancy.

About 58 per cent of couples lived in their own home at the time of starting a family, despite only 46 per cent of all adults in the 25-35 age range owning their own home, and 64 per cent of men and 62 per cent of women were legally married. Only 16 per cent of people were single when they got pregnant, though most coupled up soon after.

Fewer than 6 per cent of men and 9 per cent of women were single when they had their first child.

The report also found that legal marriage was an “important factor” influencing pregnancy, with couples that were legally married 13.4 per cent more likely to have a child than de facto couples.

Couples lived together for an average of 4.9 years before having a child.

Couples were 8.8 per cent less likely to have a child if they had been together and childless for more than six years.

Guardian service