Conventional wisdom says that the better educated a woman is, the more likely she is to delay motherhood. But a new study suggests personality type could be a more powerful determinant. The research found that high levels of “extroversion”, “agreeableness” and “neuroticism” accelerated the desire of a woman to have a child. Conversely, high “conscientiousness” and “openness” were associated with delaying childbirth. In the report, by the Institute of Social and Economic Research, the five personality traits were cross-referenced with the age at which more than 16,000 women had their first child. Lara Tavares, author of the study – Who Delays Childbearing? The Relationships Between Fertility, Education and Personality Traits – used data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) collected over the past five years. There is on average a two-year gap between the mean age at first birth of women with and without higher educational qualifications. But, said Tavares, personality traits could help to explain the maternity timing gap between women with differing levels of education. “Most studies do find evidence of a positive relationship between education and age at first birth,” she said. “However, the nature of this relationship is far less clear. The difficulty in studying the relationship between education and fertility is that it might be spurious. “First, personality traits influence both education and fertility decisions. Secondly, some highly educated women – the more ‘open-minded’ – severely postpone childbearing, and therefore they push up the average age at first birth within the group of more educated women, thereby creating a fertility timing gap between more and less educated women.” According to the BHPS categorizations, extroversion is mainly characterized by sociability, with extroverts tending to be talkative and assertive. Agreeableness relates to the subject’s willingness to help others – to be caring, co-operative and kind. Neuroticism indicates the subject’s emotional stability, with high scorers tending to be anxious, depressed and insecure. Those who scored highly on conscientiousness tended to follow the rules, to be reliable, well-organised and self-disciplined. “Openness” reflected an individual’s tendency to unconventionality and intellect. Open-minded women tend to enjoy being unattached, free, not tied to people, places, or obligations – and may be rebellious. “More ‘open-minded’ people might be less vulnerable to the social pressure for having children,” said Tavares.

Original Source of Personality types affect women’s approach to childbirth -study