Are Individuals’ Desired Family Sizes Stable? Evidence from West German Panel Data: La taille de famille désirée est-elle stable? Analyse de données de panel en Allemagne de l’Ouest

Uncertainty and flexibility of fertility intentions

Large-scale survey data is widely used to study the intention to have a(nother) child. However, there are further opportunities to understand how these intentions are revised over the life course and the uncertainty surrounding them. We aim to further outline the importance of simultaneously considering change and uncertainty in fertility decision-making. Specifically, we identify uncertainty in the "probably not" and "probably yes" responses to questions on whether an individual intends to have a(nother) child, and compare the differences in individuals' stated intention between survey waves. Using panel data from the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) for Austria, France, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, we study short-term followed by long-term (overall) fertility intentions. First, descriptive analyses compare and visualise the prevalence of uncertainty intentions at first and second wave using Sankey diagrams. Next, multivariate analyses on transitions in intentions focus on partnership and employment context. The results reveal that for both short-term and overall intentions, four in ten respondents are uncertain about intending a (further) child. Further, one in two report a different intention between waves, with changes mainly occurring from one "probably" response to another (e.g., "probably not" to "probably yes") or through a shift in increasing or lessening certainty (e.g., "probably yes" to "definitely yes"). The childless exhibit by far the greatest uncertainty and revision. Multivariate analyses show that partnership and employment are associated with gradual transitions and larger changes in intentions. Our results also show that fertility intentions form to a large extent along a spectrum of certainty-from "definitely not," to "probably not," to "probably yes," to "definitely yes," and finally to the birth of a child.

How genuine are sub-replacement ideal family sizes in urban China?

Ideal family sizes remain at or above two in most low-fertility settings, but sub-replacement fertility ideals have been reported for urban China. The presence of restrictive family planning policies has led to a debate as to whether such ideals are genuine. This study exploits the ending of the one-child policy and the beginning of a universal two-child policy in October 2015 to investigate whether relaxing the restrictions led to an increase in ideal family size. We apply difference-in-differences and individual-level fixed-effect models to longitudinal data from a near-nationwide survey. For married individuals aged 20-39, relaxing the restrictions from one to two children increased the mean ideal family size by around 0.2 and the proportion who desired two or more children by around 19 percentage points. Findings suggest that although reported ideal family sizes have been reduced by policy restrictions, sub-replacement ideal family sizes in urban China appear to be genuine.

Explaining uncertainty in women's fertility preferences

People's fertility preferences are often considered an important determinant of fertility. What is often neglected in studies of preferred fertility, is the uncertainty that people may have about their preferences. In this study, using data on Dutch women through the Longitudinal Internet studies for the Social Sciences (collected early 2018), we examined women's fertility preferences and asked detailed questions about the certainty of these preferences. We also examined whether women agreed with their partner on preferred family size, and to what extent partner (dis)agreement shaped uncertainty. We show that Dutch women expressed much uncertainty about their fertility preferences, with only one-third feeling strongly about their preferences. Uncertainty strongly increased when women preferred higher numbers of children, whereas already having children reduced it. Women who wanted no children were most certain about their preference. Higher preferred family sizes also led to more disagreement with the partner about these preferences, and greater partner disagreement, in turn, led to more uncertainty. These findings imply that people are more likely to downgrade their fertility preferences than to increase them, as women are more certain about their preferences for lower numbers of children and are more open to family sizes below than above their preferred choice. Partner disagreement is often resolved by not having (more) children, lowering realised fertility. Hence, these findings provide another explanation for why many people have fewer children than desired.

Religiosity and trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions - Evidence from a German panel study

Much of the literature on fertility intentions has shown that they are broadly predictive of fertility behaviour. Fertility intentions tend to change over a person's life. How religiosity affects these changes over time has rarely been the subject of investigation. In this paper, we focus on whether and how religiosity affects trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions. Specifically, we examine whether highly religious people start with higher fertility intentions and are more likely to sustain them during their life course compared to their less religious counterparts. We apply random and fixed effects growth curve models to data from the German family panel pairfam, using a sample of 6214 women and 5802 men aged 14-46. We find that religiosity mainly contributes to explain the starting level at teenage years but not the trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions as people get older. Highly religious people start with higher intentions than less religious people. However, similarly to less religious people they experience a decline in their fertility intentions with age. This study demonstrates that religiosity is an important variable in research on fertility intentions but with changing relevance over the life course.

Women's fertility knowledge and their number of children ever born: A cross-sectional study in Shiraz, Iran

Background and Aims

Remarkable changes in the demographic behaviors of Iranian women have led to declining fertility since the 1980s. Therefore, the study of fertility has become very important. Iranian policy makers are developing new population policies. Because fertility knowledge influences women's childbearing, the purpose of this study was to look into the relationship between women's fertility knowledge and the total number of children born.

Methods

A cross-sectional design and a survey were used in this investigation. In 2022, 1065 married women of reproductive age in Shiraz were surveyed. The data was collected using a standard questionnaire and multistage clustering sampling. The interviewers were first given the necessary training. At the time of the survey, the interviewers first gave information about the research to the surveyed women to gain their trust. To analyze the data, the characteristics of women were described first, and then the relationships between the variables were examined using correlation tests.

Results

Increasing women's fertility knowledge reduced the number of children. Women's actual fertility had increased in tandem with their ideal fertility. The number of children increased as women's ages and the ages of their husbands grew older. Increased women's education resulted in a decrease in the number of children. Women with employed husbands had more children than their other counterparts. Women with middle class identity had lower fertility than women who belonged to the lower class.

Conclusion

In confirmation of the findings of previous studies, the low level of fertility knowledge, especially in the issue of factors affecting infertility, was the most important finding of this research. This study, in continuation of previous studies, showed the decreasing effect of fertility knowledge of the number of children. Regarding the low fertility knowledge of women, population and health policies should consider improving women's knowledge of fertility.

Fertility Intentions and Sexual Orientation: Evidence from the 2020 Youth Survey in Estonia

Attitudes towards sexual minorities have undergone a transformation in Western countries recently. This has led to an increase in research into the experiences of sexual minorities in a variety of life domains. Although parenthood is a valued life goal only a few small-scale studies have looked into the parenthood goals of individuals in relation to their sexual orientation. The aims of this study are to analyse the diversity of sexual orientation, the factors associated with it and the relationship to fertility intentions among adolescents aged 16 to 19. The study draws on a nationally representative youth survey conducted in 2020 in Estonia (N = 1624), and employs descriptive methods and logistic and linear regression models. The results show that adolescents in Estonia exhibit considerable diversity of sexual orientation, with one-fifth reporting some degree of attraction to their own sex. The minority sexual orientation is more frequent among groups which can be regarded as more open or exposed to new behaviours, but is also associated with a disadvantaged family background. The results reveal a clear negative association between the intended number of children and the minority sexual orientation, which is not explained by other available variables.

Second-Child Fertility Intentions among Urban Women in China: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

With the adjustment of China's fertility policy, the topic of women's fertility has attracted much attention. In particular, urban women face a difficult choice between family and work. This study analyzed the prevalence and determinants of second-child fertility intention among urban women in China and aimed to provide evidence for improving fertility rate measures. A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted using quantitative primary studies. We identified 16 cross-sectional studies that investigated a total of 24,979 urban women. The prevalence of second-child fertility intentions was 37%. A subgroup analysis revealed that the highest prevalence was observed between 2016 and 2017, and the lowest was observed in first-tier cities. Meta-analyses indicated that 18 factors were significantly associated with second-child fertility intentions, including demographic factors, fertility attitude, husbands, children, parents, or others. The findings of this study highlight the low second-child fertility intentions among urban women in China. Therefore, policymakers should consider various aspects, gradually optimizing fertility-supporting facilities, while encouraging fertility.

Types of reproductive orientations of modern students

The aim of the study is to analyze the socio-demographic and activity-motivational factors that determine the type of youth reproductive orientations. The object of the study is students of Vavilov Saratov State Agrarian University. Formation of the target sample is due to the need to consider the reproductive orientations of young people in conjunction with the desire to live and work in rural areas. The information base of the study is the results of a sociological study conducted by the Institute of Agrarian Problems RAS (216 respondents). The work shows that the cause of the formation of narrowed reproductive orientations is the shift of the value of family and children to the last places in the system of life priorities of this group of young people who prefer to focus on development of individual human capital and self-realization in profession. They are convinced that children are associated with a great responsibility and restriction of freedom, so any measures to increase the birth rate are of little interest to them. Young people with extended reproductive orientations are characterized by child-centric attitudes, with a high value of family lifestyles and traditional gender stereotypes. Most of them associate effectiveness of measures to increase the birth rate with economic instruments and development of a social infrastructure for maternity and child support. It has been found out that the selected typological groups of reproductive orientations of today's youth are characterized by different potential for future reproductive behavior, which leads to differentiation of tools to increase the birth rate for these groups of young people.

Mental health and the wish to have a child: a longitudinal, cross-cultural comparison between Germany and China

BACKGROUND

The desire to have children has been declining globally, especially in industrialized nations. This study examines the physical health correlates, and positive and negative mental health correlates of the wish to have a child across time and in two countries.

METHOD

Questionnaire data were obtained from large-scale university samples of 12,574 participants in Germany and China.

RESULTS

The wish to have a child (child wish) is related to positive and negative mental health in China and, to a lesser degree, in Germany. Child wish is positively related to some aspects of mental and somatic health for Chinese women and men, negatively to depression for Chinese and German men and Chinese women, and positively to stress for German men, with generally small effects. Effects hold when controlling for age, partnership status, and family affluence. Most relationships were almost equal between women and men (in both China and Germany), and between countries with the exception of two different paths in each gender group. That is, having a partner is associated with a higher child wish in both Chinese and German female students. In China, older female students are more likely to want to have a child, while older female students in Germany are less likely to want to have a child. Neither partnership nor age predict child wish for the next year.

CONCLUSION

In sum, Chinese students reported feeling more positively about having children when they were happy and healthy, with the exception that highly satisfied Chinese males report lower child wish in the next year. More depressed Chinese and German men and Chinese women reported lowered child wish, and stressed German men reported more child wish. Older students reported more (Chinese) or less (German) child wish depending on country.

Effects of sociodemographic background on fertility motivation patterns in the Beni-Suef governorate, Upper Egypt

Objectives

Subjects and methods

Results

Conclusion

Does women's health matter for fertility? Evidence from Norwegian administrative data

Women's health status may affect their opportunities and preferences for children through various mechanisms. We examine the relationship between health and fertility using Norwegian registry data (2004-18). Measuring verifiable and persistent health problems, we use uptake of doctor-certified sickness absence and long-term health-related benefits as proxies for health. In contrast to the expectation that poor health limits women's opportunities for children, our results show that sickness absence is positively associated with transitions to parenthood. The uptake of long-term benefits is, however, negatively associated with fertility. The selection of healthy women into parenthood weakens the association for higher-order births. The impact of long-term health indicators on fertility is comparable in magnitude to that observed for more conventional predictors, such as education and income. With continued postponement of childbearing and thus higher maternal ages, the influence of health as a fertility determinant is likely to grow and further research appears warranted.Supplementary material for this article is available at: http://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2022.2041075.

Is Leave for Fathers Pronatalist? A Mixed-Methods Study of the Impact of Fathers’ Uptake of Parental Leave on Couples’ Childbearing Intentions in South Korea

While many countries with low birth rates have implemented policies incentivizing fathers to take parental leave with the anticipation that it will contribute to raising birth rates, there is scant research empirically testing whether fathers’ uptake of leave is pronatalist. Existing research is limited to a few European (mostly Nordic) countries, and it is unclear whether there exists a positive causal relationship. Using mixed methods, this paper seeks to explore the processes and mechanisms by which fathers’ uptake of parental leave impacts intentions for additional children in South Korea, a country characterized by lowest-low fertility and low but rapidly expanding uptake of leave by fathers. Results based on multinomial logistic regression models suggest that in comparison to fathers who expect to take their first leave shortly, fathers with leave experience are less likely to report couple-level intentions for another child, significantly so at parity two. Interviews of fathers with parental leave experience confirm that fathers attenuate their fertility intentions downwards in light of the difficulties of childcare during their leave. While these intentions may change further down the line and/or couples may decide to continue an unplanned pregnancy, results suggest that fathers’ parental leave has an anti- rather than pronatalist effect in South Korea. This study demonstrates that in countries with poor support for the reconciliation of employment and childcare, equalizing the gendered division of parental leave may not be sufficient to see a reversal in its fertility trends.

Women's education and desire for additional children in Vietnam: regional differences and the role of son preference

This paper investigates the relationship between women's education and desire for additional children across the six economic regions of Vietnam. The study employed data from the nationally representative Vietnam Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2014. Probit regression results showed that for women with one child, higher levels of education were associated with higher fertility desire in two out of six regions. Similar results were found for women with two or more children. Children's sex composition played a role in the desire for additional children, reflecting both son preference and mixed-gender preference. In Vietnam overall, among women with at least one boy, those with lower levels of education were more likely not to want another child. The results, however, differed by region. The findings suggest that the social and economic context of each region, particularly sex ratio at birth and total fertility rate, should be taken into account when designing population policies in Vietnam.

Changing lives, dynamic plans: Prospective assessment of 12-month changes in pregnancy timing intentions and personal circumstances using data from HER Salt Lake

OBJECTIVES

To explore the association between changes in personal circumstances and shifts in pregnancy intentions.

STUDY DESIGN

New start contraceptive clients, who desired to prevent pregnancy for at least one year enrolled in the survey arm of the HER Salt Lake Contraceptive Initiative (September 2015 -March 2017) and responded to the question "What are your future pregnancy plans?" at enrollment and 12-month follow-up. We estimated multivariable binary logistic fixed-effects regressions to examine the association between changes in personal circumstances and a change from never desiring a pregnancy at enrollment to considering one in the future at 12-month follow-up.

RESULTS

The majority of the 2825 participants (2246, 79%) maintained their pregnancy timing intention over the 12-month study period. Multivariable analyses of the 208 participants who changed from never desiring a pregnancy to considering pregnancy in the future at 12-month follow-up indicated that entering cohabitation (aOR 3.14, 95% CI 1.30-7.58), increased household income (aOR 1.06, 95% CI 1.00-1.13), and changes from unemployment to full-time employment (aOR 5.94, 95% CI 1.29-27.36) are associated with increased the odds of desiring a future pregnancy after never wanting one a year prior.

CONCLUSIONS

Pregnancy intentions are dynamic over twelve months and covary with partner status, household income, and employment status. Pregnancy intentions are linked to changes in life circumstances. Health care providers need to frequently assess pregnancy intentions and resulting contraceptive or preconception needs.

Didn't Plan One but got One: Unintended and sooner-than-intended Parents in the East and the West of Europe

The realisation rates of short-term childbearing intentions are known to be consistently lower in post-socialist countries than in the rest of Europe. However, the East-West differences in the outcomes of intentions to postpone or forego (further) childbearing have not been previously examined. We employ two panel waves of the Generations and Gender Survey in six countries (three from Eastern and three from Western Europe), and, based on the short- and long-term fertility intentions expressed by respondents at the first survey wave, we classify the births occurring between two waves as intended, sooner-than-intended, or unintended. We find that in our study population of non-teenage respondents who had the same partner at both survey waves and a child between the two survey waves, between around 10% (Western European countries) and 30% (Eastern European countries) experienced an unintended or a sooner-than-intended birth. The East-West divide is largely driven by the share of unintended parents which is clearly higher in the post-socialist countries. However, the geographical pattern fades away once we control for the anticipated costs of having a child. Our study gives insight into East-West differences in attitudes to childbearing and into how they affect reproductive behaviour. It also offers methodological improvements of cross-national panel surveys designed to examine childbearing intentions that would allow for a more accurate assessment of childbearing intendedness.

Preferences, Partners, and Parenthood: Linking Early Fertility Desires, Marriage Timing, and Achieved Fertility

In the United States, underachieving fertility desires is more common among women with higher levels of education and those who delay first marriage beyond their mid-20s. However, the relationship between these patterns, and particularly the degree to which marriage postponement explains lower fertility among the highly educated, is not well understood. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort to analyze differences in parenthood and achieved parity for men and women, focusing on the role of marriage timing in achieving fertility goals over the life course. We expand on previous research by distinguishing between entry into parenthood and average parity among parents as pathways to underachieving, by considering variation in the impact of marriage timing by education and by stage of the life course, and by comparing results for men and women. We find that women with a bachelor's degree who desired three or more children are less likely to become mothers relative to women with the same desired family size who did not attend college. Conditional on becoming mothers, however, women with at least a bachelor's degree do not have lower completed family size. No comparable fatherhood difference by desired family size is present. Postponing marriage beyond age 30 is associated with lower proportions of parenthood but not with lower parity among parents. Age patterns are similar for women and men, pointing at social rather than biological factors driving the underachievement of fertility goals.

Is perception of inability to procreate a temporal phenomenon?: A longitudinal exploration of changes and determinants among women and men of reproductive age in Germany

Continued postponement of births and increasing use of reproductive medicine enhance the relevance of infertility and related perceptions for fertility research. Fertility researchers tend to assume that an existing perception of inability to procreate is a stable trait among persons of reproductive age. This assumption is questionable from a life course perspective and has not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore we investigate the prevalence, stability, and correlates of perceived inability to procreate. We apply between-within logit models to annual panel data (2008-2015) to study variation in perceived inability to procreate within individuals over time and between individuals. We find that approximately every 20th person of reproductive age is affected. There is considerable instability among those who ever perceive an inability to procreate: On average, 39 % of women and 48 % of men who perceive an inability in one year change to not perceiving an inability in the next year. Multivariate analysis shows that increases in age and perception of one's partner as unable to procreate are associated with higher odds of perceiving an inability to procreate. Not using contraception is associated with higher odds of perceiving an inability to procreate. Perceived procreative ability further differs by parity, level of education, immigration background, and religious denomination. In summary, perception of inability to procreate is a temporal phenomenon that is shaped by lifecourse contexts and social group differences.

Reproductive preferences during middle childhood and early adolescence in Guatemala

Reproductive preferences and the spread of low fertility norms occupy a key position in debates regarding the causal mechanisms underlying sustained fertility declines. Most of the literature on reproductive preferences focuses on stability and variability of adult fertility preferences, and their relationship with behavioural outcomes. Little work has focused on the developmental origins of these preferences, particularly in populations undergoing rapid social and demographic change. This study explores the utility of integrating the ontogeny of fertility preferences into accounts of fertility declines. We analyse data on child and adolescent (age 8-15) reproductive preferences collected from a semi-rural community in the Guatemalan Highlands. We explore (1) the distribution of reproductive preferences across age and gender, (2) relationships between family structure and preferences, (3) the relationship between personal economic and occupational aspirations and reproductive preferences, and (4) the effects of parental investments in education on reproductive preferences. Findings reveal the early development of gender and ethnic differences in reported reproductive preferences, as well as evidence for the differential impact of family background and personal aspirations on the timing of reproductive events and ideal family size.

Childless Expectations and Childlessness Over the Life Course

Using nineteen panels of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY-79), we construct life-lines characterizing women's childless expectations and fertility behavior. One-quarter of women in the NLSY-79 cohort ever reported an expectation for childlessness but only 14.8 percent of women remain childless. Childless women follow two predominant life course paths: (1) repeated postponement of childbearing and the subsequent adoption of a childless expectation at older ages or (2) indecision about parenthood signaled through vacillating reports of childless expectations across various ages. We also find that more than one in ten women became a mother after considering childlessness: an understudied group in research on childlessness and childbearing preferences. These findings reaffirm that it is problematic to assign expected and unexpected childlessness labels to the reproductive experience of childless women. In addition, despite their variability over time, childless expectations strongly predict permanent childlessness, regardless of the age when respondents offer them. Longitudinal logistic regression analysis of these childless expectations indicates a strong effect of childbearing postponement among the increasingly selective group of childless women. However, net of this postponement, few variables commonly associated with childlessness are associated with reports of a childless expectation. We thus conclude that the effects of socio-demographic and situational factors on childless expectations are channeled predominantly through repeated childbearing postponement.

Women's relative status and childbearing intentions: Empirical evidence from Iran

Childbearing intentions are primary predictor of childbearing behaviors, particularly in low fertility societies. This study examined the role of relative status of women in childbearing intentions in Iran where fertility has been declining since 1986 and it has been around the replacement level during the last two decades. Data from the 2010 Iran’s Multiple Indicator Demographic and Health Survey (IrMIDHS) were used to estimate the effect of relative status of women on intention to have more children among women with one child and those with two children. The results showed modest effect of relative status of women on future childbearing intentions at both parity one and two controlling for socioeconomic and demographic factors. One implication from this finding is that within low fertility regimes where fertility level is around or below replacement level, the relative status of women is no more as important determinant of childbearing intention as in situations of high fertility regimes. This interpretation is consistent with the fact that most of the studies showing strong effect from relative status of women on childbearing are based on data from the situations where fertility level has been at the pre-transitional level.

Fertility Preferences and Cognition: Religiosity and Experimental Effects of Decision Context on College Women

Better models of culture and cognition may help researchers understand fertility and family formation. We examine cognition about fertility using an experimental survey design to investigate how fertility preferences of college women are affected by two prompts that bring to mind fertility-relevant factors: career aspirations and financial limitations. We test the effects of these prompts on fertility preferences and ask how effects vary with respondent religiosity, an aspect of social identity related to fertility preferences. We find significant effects of treatment on fertility preferences when accounting for religiosity: less religious women who considered their career aspirations or financial limitations reported smaller desired family size, but this effect was attenuated for more religious women. Our study demonstrates how fertility preferences are shaped by decision contexts for some socio-demographic groups. We discuss how the findings support a social-cognitive model of fertility.

Determined to stop? Longitudinal analysis of the desire to have no more children in rural Mozambique

Classic demographic theories conceptualize desired family size as a fixed goal that guides fertility intentions over the childbearing years. However, a growing body of research shows that fertility plans, even nominally long-term plans for completed childbearing, change in response to short-term conditions. Because of data limitations, much of this research has focused on low-fertility contexts, but short-term conditions are likely to be even more important in high-fertility contexts. This paper uses three waves of survey data collected in rural Mozambique to study predictors of the desire to stop childbearing in a context of relatively high fertility and high individual and social instability. We use fixed effects models to assess how women's desires to stop childbearing are shaped by demographic factors, household economic conditions, and health status, controlling for constant individual characteristics. Results provide evidence that fertility desires both reflect stable underlying goals and evolve in response to individual and social circumstances.

Why Childless Men and Women Give Up on Having Children

In this paper we address the question why childless women and men aged 35 years and older, who originally were considering having children, voluntarily gave up on having children. We hypothesise that this adjustment could be attributed to five mechanisms: adaptation to a lifestyle without children; resignation because of severe hindrances to having children; approaching the end of the fecund period; perceiving a low degree of social influence from significant others to have children; and a low degree of personal persistence in pursuing life goals. We analyse data from the first six waves of the German Family Panel (Pairfam) and employ multinomial logistic regression models. As the dependent variable we distinguished four types of sequences over the observation period: "permanently considering having children", "given up on having children", "switching", and "permanently not considering having children". Being female, being not employed, and having low scores on the emotional autonomy scale increased the likelihood of giving up on having children, while anticipating positive consequences of parenthood and perceiving influence from parents to have a child decreased it. The results show that all mechanisms addressed by the hypotheses were at work to a certain extent. In particular, the integration of personality factors and the importance of other life goals beyond parenthood provided valuable insights into the reasons for giving up on having children. Future research in this field should focus more than was possible in our study on societal age norms and the role of partners in giving up on having children.

The Relationship between Partners' Family-Size Preferences in Southern Malawi

Studies of the relative influence of partners' fertility preferences on behaviors tend to treat preferences as fixed, largely independent traits despite existing theoretical arguments and empirical evidence suggesting that they are moving targets that may be jointly developed within relationships. In this study, we use couple-level panel data from married and unmarried young adults in southern Malawi to examine the relationship between partners' family-size preferences. We find evidence of assortative mating: young Malawians are more likely to partner with individuals who have similar family-size goals. Additionally, although partners' family-size preferences do not perfectly converge, changes among men's and women's preferences are significantly more likely to be "toward" than "away from" those of their partner. Our findings point to a need for studies regarding the relative influence of partners on reproductive outcomes to consider the interdependence of partners' preferences and the varied ways in which partners can influence shared reproductive behaviors.

The sensitivity of measures of unwanted and unintended pregnancy using retrospective and prospective reporting: evidence from Malawi

A thorough understanding of the health implications of unwanted and unintended pregnancies is constrained by our ability to accurately identify them. Commonly used techniques for measuring such pregnancies are subject to two main sources of error: the ex post revision of preferences after a pregnancy and the difficulty of identifying preferences at the time of conception. This study examines the implications of retrospective and prospective measurement approaches, which are vulnerable to different sources of error, on estimates of unwanted and unintended pregnancies. We use eight waves of closely-spaced panel data from young women in southern Malawi to generate estimates of unwanted and unintended pregnancies based on fertility preferences measured at various points in time. We then compare estimates using traditional retrospective and prospective approaches to estimates obtained when fertility preferences are measured prospectively within months of conception. The 1,062 young Malawian women in the sample frequently changed their fertility preferences. The retrospective measures slightly underestimated unwanted and unintended pregnancies compared to the time-varying prospective approach; in contrast the fixed prospective measures overestimated them. Nonetheless, most estimates were similar in aggregate, suggesting that frequent changes in fertility preferences need not lead to dramatically different estimates of unwanted and unintended pregnancy. Greater disagreement among measures emerged when classifying individual pregnancies. Carefully designed retrospective measures are not necessarily more problematic for measuring unintended and unwanted fertility than are more expensive fixed prospective ones.

Does Schooling Affect Women's Desired Fertility? Evidence From Malawi, Uganda, and Ethiopia

Demographic scholarship suggests that schooling plays an important role in transforming fertility preferences in the early stages of fertility decline. However, there is limited evidence on the relationship between schooling and fertility preferences that addresses the endogeneity of schooling. I use the implementation of Universal Primary Education (UPE) policies in Malawi, Uganda, and Ethiopia in the mid-1990s to conduct a fuzzy regression discontinuity analysis of the effect of schooling on women's desired fertility. Findings indicate that increased schooling reduced women's ideal family size and very high desired fertility across all three countries. Additional analyses of potential pathways through which schooling could have affected desired fertility suggest some pathways--such as increasing partner's education--were common across contexts, whereas other pathways were country-specific. This analysis contributes to demographic understandings of the factors influencing individual-level fertility behaviors and thus aggregate-level fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa.

A Re-Interpretation of the 'Two-child Norm' in Post-Transitional Demographic Systems: Fertility Intentions in Taiwan

Taiwan currently has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, leading to projections of rapid population ageing and decline. In common with other territories in Pacific Asia, policies designed to support childbearing have recently been introduced. Some optimism for the future success of these policies has been drawn from the fact that the ‘ideal’ number of children stated in Taiwanese surveys is over two. In this way, Taiwan appears to fit the ‘two-child norm’ model identified for Europe and North America. Furthermore, this feature has led commentators to state that Taiwan is not in a ‘low fertility trap’–where positive feedback mechanisms emanating from the normalisation of small families, slow economic growth and ageing/declining population mean attempts to increase fertility become ever less likely to succeed. Using a recent national representative survey, and arguing that ‘intentions’ are a more reliable guide to understanding the circumstances of family formation, this paper explores fertility intentions in Taiwan with a special focus on women at parity one and parity two. This will form the first full-length examination of fertility intentions in Taiwan published in English and one of the few studies of Pacific Asia that reports a micro-level analysis. We argue that using intentions should provide a better ‘barometer’ of attitudes towards childbearing in Taiwan, and that through micro-level analysis, we can better identify the predictors of intentions that could, in turn, provide useful clues both for projections as well as shaping policy responses. While we found some evidence for a ‘two-child norm’ among childless women, this could be an unrealistic ideal. This is supported by the fact that a majority of women with one child do not intend to have another.

Fertility intentions and outcomes: Implementing the Theory of Planned Behavior with graphical models

This paper studies fertility intentions and their outcomes, analyzing the complete path leading to fertility behavior according to the social psychological model of Theory Planned Behavior (TPB). We move beyond existing research using graphical models to have a precise understanding, and a formal description, of the developmental fertility decision-making process. Our findings yield new results for the Italian case which are empirically robust and theoretically coherent, adding important insights to the effectiveness of the TPB for fertility research. In line with TPB, all intentions' primary antecedents are found to be determinants of the level of fertility intentions, but do not affect fertility outcomes, being pre-filtered by fertility intentions. Nevertheless, in contrast with TPB, background factors are not fully mediated by intentions' primary antecedents, influencing directly fertility intentions and even fertility behaviors.

On the positive correlation between education and fertility intentions in Europe: Individual- and country-level evidence

Increasing shares of European women are making large investments in their human capital. Whether and to what extent these investments are in conflict with reproductive behaviour are issues that have repercussions for fertility levels. Using two Eurobarometer survey data (2006 and 2011) on individuals clustered in the 27 EU countries, I investigate the relationship between women's education and lifetime fertility intentions. Results suggest that a positive association between women's level of education and lifetime fertility intentions exists at both the individual and country levels, as well as in a micro-macro integrated framework. The main explanation for these findings--which remains to be proven by future research--is that, in institutional contexts allowing highly educated women to have large families, women of reproductive ages are more prone to make investments in both human capital and family size, because these choices are not seen as incompatible alternatives.

Educational differences in fertility desires, intentions and behaviour: A life course perspective

Despite a long tradition of studying the relationship between education and fertility outcomes less is known about how educational differences in fertility intentions are formed and translated into achieved births over the life course. This paper provides new insights using data from a large cohort study and Miller's Traits-Desires-Intentions-Behaviour framework for understanding childbearing. We examine how parental aspirations for education, educational ability in childhood, and educational attainment in young adulthood relate to: males' and females' fertility desires in adolescence; fertility intentions in early adulthood; and educational differences in the achievement of fertility intentions. We conclude that family building preferences expressed in adolescence, especially those for the timing of entry into parenthood are shaped by parental socio-economic background, mediated through educational ability and parental expectations for education. In young adulthood, no clear, consistent educational gradient in intended family size is found. However, there is a negative educational gradient in the likelihood of achieving intended births by age 46, especially for women. The findings indicate the importance of educational differences in employment and partnership behaviour in mediating these relationships.

Fertility analysis from a life course perspective

In the past decades, the life course approach has gained importance in studies on the timing and incidence of childbirth. It allows a complex analysis of fertility. Following this approach, family formation and parenthood are perceived as instrumental goals of individual welfare production over the life course. In addition, the analysis of fertility has to take into account three kinds of essential interdependence: time dependence of the life course, multilevel structure of the life course and multidimensionality of the life course. As a consequence future fertility research should emphasize more on pre-decisional individual dispositions and behavioral intentions, should take into account more seriously that fertility takes place in the context of interdependent social relationships and social groups, and address changes in the cultural and institutional environment. The aim of this special issue is to present a series of empirical studies touching upon some of these aspects and therefore substantially contributing to progress in contemporary longitudinal fertility research. The twelve contributions deal with childbearing intentions and outcomes in multidimensional life courses; dyadic decision-making and social influences on fertility; and the interdependence of spatial mobility, regional context, culture, and fertility.

Young women's dynamic family size preferences in the context of transitioning fertility

Dynamic theories of family size preferences posit that they are not a fixed and stable goal but rather are akin to a moving target that changes within individuals over time. Nonetheless, in high-fertility contexts, changes in family size preferences tend to be attributed to low construct validity and measurement error instead of genuine revisions in preferences. To address the appropriateness of this incongruity, the present study examines evidence for the sequential model of fertility among a sample of young Malawian women living in a context of transitioning fertility. Using eight waves of closely spaced data and fixed-effects models, we find that these women frequently change their reported family size preferences and that these changes are often associated with changes in their relationship and reproductive circumstances. The predictability of change gives credence to the argument that ideal family size is a meaningful construct, even in this higher-fertility setting. Changes are not equally predictable across all women, however, and gamma regression results demonstrate that women for whom reproduction is a more distant goal change their fertility preferences in less-predictable ways.

Childbearing desires of childless men and women: when are goals adjusted?

This paper examines the concept of desired future fertility. Childbearing desires are often conceptualized in the literature as representing an individual's ideal future fertility where there are no constraints or obstacles to achieve the desired outcome. As such, childbearing desires, unlike fertility intentions, are thought to be relatively unaffected by changing life circumstances. Using a theoretically driven model incorporating goal adjustment, we test whether desires of childless men and women do in fact change over time. Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey (2001-2010) we specifically investigate whether changing life circumstances do effect a change in childbearing desires. We find that age is strongly related to adjusting childbearing desires, as is relationship formation. Desires are however, not greatly influenced by short-term shocks such as an episode of poor health or unemployment, although these events have different effects for women and for men. Overall, the findings are consistent with psychological theories of goal adjustment, that is, individuals will revise their desires for having children if they perceive that their desires are not likely to be fulfilled.

Yearning, learning, and conceding: reasons men and women change their childbearing intentions

People's childbearing intentions change over the course of their reproductive lives. These changes have been conceptualized as occurring in response to the realization that an individual is unlikely to achieve his or her intended fertility, because of constraints such as the "biological clock" or lack of a partner. In this article, we find that changes to child-bearing plans are influenced by a much wider range of factors than this. People change their plans in response to the wishes of their partners, in response to social norms, as the result of repartnering, and as the result of learning about the costs and benefits of parenthood; there are also differences between the factors that influence men's and women's decision-making. In a departure from existing studies in this area, we use a flexible analytical framework that enables us to analyze increases in planned fertility separately from decreases. This allows us to uncover several complexities of the decision-making process that would otherwise be hidden, and leads us to conclude that the determinants of increases in planned fertility are not simply equal and opposite to the determinants of decreases.

Changes in Family Size Intentions Across Young Adulthood: A Life-Course Perspective

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence in the interest in family size intentions and ideals in developed societies, partially stemming from the idea that realized fertility in these societies is lower than intended fertility. This paper addresses the question of the stability of family size intentions. Based on Heckhausen’s life-span theory of control, it is hypothesized that young adults’ family size intentions are likely to change as a result of their experiences in the family and occupational life domains. To study this issue, data are used from a Dutch panel survey in which respondents are questioned on their family size intentions six times over the course of 18 years. The results show that family size intentions are not stable, but are adjusted as people age. On average, the adjustment is downward, but some people do not adjust their intentions or even adjust them upwards. Much of this difference in age patterns can be explained by changes in the partner, educational, and occupational careers of young adults. Not finding a suitable partner and pursuing a career—for women—are important factors. But also the timing of the fertility career itself is of major importance. If respondents postpone having children until their thirties, they are much more likely to adjust their intentions downwards than if they start their childbearing career earlier.