Pathways and obstacles to parenthood among women in same-sex couples in Spain

BACKGROUNDEven though same-sex couples face clear obstacles to parenthood, little is known about the extent to which preferences and obstacles can explain the lower levels of parenthood among individuals in same-sex couples. OBJECTIVEThe objective is to document routes into parenthood and to quantify the gap between observed and desired number of children among women in different-sex and same-sex couples in Spain. METHODSWe use the representative 2018 Spanish fertility survey, which includes 14,556 women, of whom 139 are in a same-sex couple.We use coarsened exact matching techniques to match women across couple types who are identical on a set of observable characteristics. RESULTSLess than half of women in a same-sex couple had children by the age of 40, as compared to around 80% of women in a different-sex couple.We do not observe changes in rates of parenthood across cohorts of women in same-sex couples, but do observe changes in the pathways followed.Even though women in same-sex couples have lower levels of desired fertility, the gap between desired and realized fertility is larger for women in same-sex couples than for women in different-sex couples.