Cognitive ability and fertility among Swedish men born 1951-1967: evidence from military conscription registers.

ABSTRACT: We examine the relationship between cognitive ability and childbearing patterns in contemporary Sweden using administrative register data. The topic has a long history in the social sciences and has been the topic of a large number of studies, many reporting a negative gradient between intelligence and fertility. We link fertility histories to military conscription tests with intelligence scores for all Swedish men born 1951-1967. We find a positive relationship between intelligence scores and fertility, and this pattern is consistent across the cohorts we study. The relationship is most pronounced for the transition to a first child, and men with the lowest categories of IQ scores have the fewest children. Using fixed effects models, we additionally control for all factors that are shared

SUBMITTER: Kolk M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6532519 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature