Are graduates less likely to become mums?

Women of your generation who went to university are less likely to have had children than women who didn’t. But new research from BCS70 has found that it’s mainly first-generation graduates — those who were the first in their family to go to university — driving this difference.

What we asked you

Over the years, you’ve told us about your education and family life, including whether you have a degree and how many children you have. During your childhood, your parents shared information about their own education.

What the research found

A team of researchers led by UCL looked at the relationship between going to university and becoming a parent.

They found that female study members with a degree were less likely to have become mums by their mid-30s than those without this level of qualification. This was true whether or not their parents were graduates.

By their mid-40s, female graduates whose parents had been to university too were just as likely to be mums as non-graduates. However, there was still a gap between women who had been the first in their family to go to university and other women. They had a 40% lower chance of being mums.

But those who did become mums tended to have, on average, the same number of children as other female graduates.

The researchers did not find the same patterns in parenthood among men. Although fewer first-generation male graduates were dads than other men, the difference was too small to be significant.

What drives these differences?

First-generation female graduates tended to earn less and have more student debt during their 30s and 40s than other female graduates. However, financial issues did not seem to increase the odds of being childless for this group.

Instead, other factors seemed to have a bigger impact on whether women became mothers. First-generation female graduates whose mothers stayed at home were less likely to have children than those whose mothers went to work. This could suggest that the presence of a female role model — balancing a career and family — in childhood influences a daughter’s path through life.

Self-esteem and rates of parenthood were also linked. In general, people in your generation who reported low self-esteem as teenagers were less likely to go on to have children. Women who were the first in their family to go to university tended to report having worse self-esteem in their teenage years than other graduates.

Why this research matters

In recent years, fertility rates have dropped. This change has raised concerns about the ageing population. Because of this, governments want to find out why some people don’t have children.

Dr Anna Adamecz, the paper’s lead author, called for policies that support both women’s careers and family lives. She said:

“Policies that support women’s educational and career ambitions without compromising their choices and ability to have children could help promote gender equality in access to opportunities.”

The Times covered this research in September 2025, ‘Fewer first-generation female graduates have children, study finds’.

Read the full research report

‘Beyond the degree: Fertility outcomes of ‘first in family’ graduates’ by Anna Adamecz, Anna Lovász and Suncica Vujic was published in the Review of Economics of the Household in July 2025.