Family Formation among Serbian Millennials

Abstract

The starting point of the paper is that the Millennials highly rank professional achievement in their lives; therefore, education and career are crucial for family formation decision-making. The author started from the fact that the specific socioeconomic context of living in Serbia can create an obstacle to parenthood. The paper aims to examine the multilevel predictors of entry into parenthood among Millennials. A multilevel analysis based on the EU-SILC survey data served to study family formation as a function of individual, partner's and household socioeconomic characteristics. The results suggest that a large part of the variations in the age of entering into parenthood can be explained by individual and partner's socioeconomic characteristics, while household characteristics are not significant. The findings confirm the importance of professional achievement as a "precondition" for family formation, which is reflected through education among women and economic stability among men.