Background: Over the past few decades, cohort fertility rates in the different countries of the United Kingdom (England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) have diverged, yet the role of parity-specific patterns, including childlessness, is not known. Studies across Europe have found a reversal in the educational gradient of childlessness from positive to negative, which has been attributed to economic uncertainty, new patterns of parity progression, and increased polarization of behaviours across educational subgroups, raising the question of how the United Kingdom fits into these emerging trends. Objective: This paper uses large-scale administrative data from each of the United Kingdom’s countries to identify how childlessness and childbearing at higher birth orders are driving these differences and to explore potential explanations. Results: For the birth cohorts 1956–1978, we find a persistently positive educational pattern of childlessness across all UK countries, albeit with smaller educational differences in Northern Ireland. We also find, across educational groups, divergent country trends in family size distribution, with Scotland trending towards smaller families but not higher levels of childlessness, and Northern Ireland having larger families. England and Wales remain firmly entrenched in the two-child norm. Family size differences between countries are not explained by postponement alone since mean age at first birth is relatively similar across countries. Contribution: Our findings show that the UK countries have unique fertility regimes, emphasizing the value of examining countries separately for their different empirical contributions to the unfolding patterns of contemporary cohort fertility change in Europe.

中文翻译：

---

按出生顺序划分的队列生育率教育趋势：英格兰和威尔士、苏格兰和北爱尔兰的比较（作者：Bernice Kuang、Ann Berrington、Sarah Christison、Hill Kulu）


背景：在过去的几十年里，英国不同国家（英格兰和威尔士、苏格兰和北爱尔兰）的队列生育率出现了差异，但胎次特异性模式（包括无子女）的作用尚不清楚。欧洲各地的研究发现，无子女的教育梯度从积极到消极发生了逆转，这归因于经济不确定性、平等发展的新模式以及教育子群体之间行为两极分化的加剧，这引发了英国如何适应这些新兴趋势的问题。目的：本文使用来自英国每个国家的大规模行政数据来确定高出生顺序的无子女和生育如何导致这些差异，并探索可能的解释。结果：对于 1956-1978 年的出生队列，我们发现所有英国国家/地区都存在持续积极的无子女教育模式，尽管北爱尔兰的教育差异较小。我们还发现，在教育群体中，家庭规模分布的国家趋势不同，苏格兰倾向于家庭规模较小，但无子女率没有较高，而北爱尔兰的家庭人数较多。英格兰和威尔士仍然牢牢地坚持二孩规范。国家之间的家庭规模差异并不能仅用推迟来解释，因为各国首次生育的平均年龄相对相似。贡献： 我们的研究结果表明，英国国家具有独特的生育制度，强调了分别研究国家对欧洲当代队列生育率变化模式的不同实证贡献的价值。