Access to Childcare and Second Child Arrival in European Countries

This paper shows that differences in fertility across European countries mainly emerge in the transition from the first to the second child and that childcare services enabling women to work are an important determinant for this transition to occur. The theoretical framework proposed accounts for these two findings: in countries where childcare coverage is low, there is a U-shaped relationship between a couple's probability to have a second child and female potential wage, while in countries with easy access to childcare, this probability is positively related with the woman's potential wage. Both of these implications are confirmed empirically when utilizing the European Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for estimating a woman's probability of having a second child as a function of education.