# **1. Introduction**

Turkey is currently undergoing important socioeconomic transitions. Economic development comes hand in hand with changes in education and employment patterns, particularly for women for whom secondary and tertiary school enrollment is drastically increasing. And even though female employment rates are still relatively low, they also have been increasing over the past decade, especially for young cohorts.

At the same time, fertility rates have been rapidly decreasing in Turkey over the last decades. On average, Turkish women have still somewhat more than two children, but many policy makers fear an ongoing decline below replacement level. Given the fact that on average, women and men declare wanting to have between two and three children in Turkey (Sobotka and Beaujouan, 2014; Testa, 2012), a drop of fertility below replacement level would imply that parents face barriers for realizing their fertility intentions. If these barriers result not only in birth postponement (tempo effect), but in a decision against child birth, at least of higher rank (quantum effect), completed fertility would drop below replacement level for the near future.

This paper intends to shed light on the continuous fertility decline in Turkey by identifying who is most at risk of deciding against childbirth.

Based on a combination of census and cross-sectional survey data (Survey of Income and Living Conditions, SILC), we first focus on the evolution of completed cohort fertility and find that the proportion of families with three or more children is on the decline, while two-child families are more and more the norm in Turkey. If completed fertility is going to drop below replacement level in the future due to an assimilation process towards Europe, the drop is likely to be caused in main part by parents deciding against second and third child arrival.

The decline in completed fertility in Turkey can be observed for all levels of education, but is most pronounced for low educated women, while higher educated women have low but stagnating fertility rates. However, as the proportion of educated women is increasing, low fertility for educated women explains nevertheless one-half of the decline in completed fertility in Turkey (structure effect), and this part is likely to increase for younger cohorts.

In a second step, we mobilize longitudinal survey data (SILC) to analyze potential determinants of women’s and their partners’ decision for or against child birth, whereas we distinguish between child ranks. We focus our analysis on women’s activity status and control for important covariates such as educational background and the partner’s situation in the labor market. To reduce inverse causality, both women’s and their partner’s activity status is observed during a certain period _before_ potential conception. We find that it is graduate women being attached to the formal labor market who are most at risk of deciding against child arrival, and this concerns in particular the third child.

Women who are integrated in the labor market are more at risk of deciding against child arrival than inactive women, most likely because child arrival implies job loss in the absence of possibilities of combining work and family life. The negative effect of employment on child arrival is consistent with the weakness of family policies in Turkey towards educated women in stable employment (work life balance policies such as child care and parental leave for example). The negative effect is particularly pronounced for women already having two children, and most negative for those with a partner who is himself not in stable employment. This reveals the importance of women’s contribution to family income. If this contribution cannot be maintained, couples are likely to decide against the third child.

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