Although increasing fertility rates is no longer the key reason for implementing early childhood education and care policies across most developed countries, it is often expected that providing early childhood services can help to increase fertility rates. The French offer of early childcare is diverse, with several possible formal childcare arrangements available (childminders, at-home services, nurseries), before the almost universal take-up of free public pre-school at about age 3. This diverse offer is an ideal context to test whether childcare trajectories can affect both the decision and the timing of a subsequent birth. Parents who encounter difficulties or have only access to informal or unstable childcare might be more reluctant to have another child, or may do so less quickly.

In this paper we use recent, nationally representative data to question whether childcare trajectories in the pre-school period have an impact on the probability and the timing of a subsequent birth. We explore a number of associated variables to see whether results are driven by the profiles of the families who access different types of childcare arrangements, and apply survival models that distinguish timing from quantum effects. Our results suggest that more unstable and less formalized childcare trajectories decrease the risk of a subsequent birth. When looking at families using a formal arrangement, the next child arrives more quickly when collective arrangements are used (especially for a third or subsequent child). Furthermore, those experiencing several changes to their childcare arrangements also appear to have a longer lag to their next child. However, the effects of formal and stable early childcare trajectories on subsequent fertility appear to be a timing and not a quantum effect. These results highlight the importance for parents to access stable, formal childcare arrangements for the timing of their subsequent fertility decisions.