The Effect of Couple Disagreement about Child‐Timing Intentions: A Parity‐Specific Approach

Using couple data from a longitudinal study conducted in Italy, a country with persistently low fertility levels, we examined the effect of partners' discrepant child‐timing intentions on reproductive behavior. We found that the effect of couple disagreement on subsequent fertility is parity‐specific and does not depend on whether only the male or the female partner intends to have a(nother) child. The disagreement tends to produce an intermediate childbearing outcome at parities zero and one, while the outcome is shifted more toward agreement on not having a(nother) child at parity two. The empirical evidence suggests that gender equality in reproductive decisionmaking is not driven by partners' equal bargaining power or partners' equal access to economic resources. The findings indicate that the predictive power of child‐timing intentions strongly improves if both partners' views are considered in fertility models, and thus support the adoption of couple analysis in fertility research.     

Intended and Ideal Family Size in the United States, 1970–2002

Cross‐nationally, observed fertility is well below mean levels of reported ideal family size and also usually well below survey respondents' fertility desires and intentions. The United States is an exception. In this article we: (1) discuss the importance of fertility ideals and intentions for understanding observed fertility levels, (2) propose a model that can account for variable attitude‐behavior consistency, and (3) use this model as a framework to examine trends in American women's fertility ideals, intentions, and actual fertility. Our study uses data from the General Social Surveys and the Current Population Surveys. We ask whether preferences and intentions for moderate family sizes have eroded with time. The answer is remarkably clear: the dominant American ideals and intentions are for two or three children, and these preferences have persisted across the last three decades. The unusual aggregate correspondence between fertility intentions and behavior in the United States is explained by an apparent offsetting of factors that increase/decrease fertility relative to intentions.     

Failure to Realize Fertility Intentions: A Key Aspect of the Post-communist Fertility Transition

Our paper focuses on the realization of fertility intentions, exploring a new aspect of the post-communist fertility transition. By making use of a follow-up study, it was possible to compare five European countries and to analyze the chances of realizing short-term, time-dependent fertility intentions. There is always a difference between intention and behavior. It is partly due to demographic and social factors, such as age, parity, partnership status, but once these are accounted for, important differences remain between western European and post-communist countries. In the period after the turn of the millennium, chances of realizing intentions are significantly lower in post-communist countries than in western European countries. The lower chance of realization is a consequence of social anomie originating from discrepancy between slow value shift and the increased dynamism of structural changes.     

Assessing the Predictive Value of Fertility Expectations Through a Cognitive–Social Model

This paper grounds its analysis in a novel model (Bachrach and Morgan in Popul Dev Rev, 39:459–485, 2013) that suggests that responses to questions about fertility intentions may reflect distinct phenomena at distinct points in the life course. The model suggests that women form "true" intentions when their circumstances make the issue of childbearing salient and urgent enough to draw the cognitive resources needed to make a conscious plan; before this, women report intentions based on cognitive images of family and self. We test the implications of this model for reported fertility expectations using NLSY79 data that measure expectations throughout the life course. We find that early in the life course, before marriage and parenthood, women’s fertility expectations are associated with family background and cognitive images of family and future self. Later in the life course, as women experience life course transitions that confer statuses normatively associated with childbearing—such as marriage—and parenthood itself, their reported expectations are better predictors of their fertility than before they passed these life course milestones. Our empirical results provide support for a model which has important implications for both the measurement and conceptualization of women’s intended and expected fertility.     

Old Habits Die Hard? Lingering Son Preference in an Era of Normalizing Sex Ratios at Birth in South Korea

South Korea was among the first countries to report both an abnormally high sex ratio at birth (SRB) and its subsequent normalization. We examine the role of son preference in driving fertility intentions during a period of declining SRB and consider the contribution of individual characteristics and broader social context to explaining changes in intentions. We employ data from the National Survey on Fertility, Family Health and Welfare that span 1991–2012. We find that reported son preference declined to a great extent but remained substantial by the end of the observation period, and that the intention to have a third child still differed by sex of existing children. Change in individual-level factors does not explain the decline in son preference, suggesting that broad social changes were also important. This study provides a better understanding of how son preference evolves in the post-transitional context of very low fertility.     

The Correspondence Between Fertility Intentions and Behavior in the United States

Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we describe the correspondence between intended family size and observed fertility for US men and women in the 1957–64 birth cohorts. Mean fertility intentions calculated from reports given in the mid‐20s modestly overstate completed fertility. But discrepancies between stated intent and actual fertility are common—the stated intent at age 24 (for both women and men) is more likely to miss than to match completed fertility. We focus on factors that predict which women and men will have fewer or more children than intended. Consistent with life‐course arguments, those unmarried, childless, or (for women) still in school at approximately age 24 were most likely to underachieve their intended parity (i.e., had fewer children than intended at age 24). We discuss how such discrepancies between intentions and behavior may cumulate to produce sizable cross‐group fertility differences.     

Gender egalitarianism,perceived economic insecurity,and fertility intentions in Spain: A qualitative analysis

Economic uncertainty contributes to low fertility in many European countries. On the other hand, greater gender equality may positively influence fertility. This paper examines how these two forces interact in Spain. We use in-depth interviews to analyse fertility decision-making among young and highly educated partnered adults living in urban areas. Highly gender-egalitarian interviewees are less likely to perceive economic insecurity as an obstacle to proceeding to a next birth than less egalitarian interviewees. But there is not necessarily a difference in these two groups’ overall fertility intentions, as highly egalitarian interviewees’ greater valuation of stable employment for both partners requires institutional and policy support for dual-earner couples’ childrearing. When we look only at interviewees who express economic insecurity, somewhat higher fertility intentions are expressed by those holding less gender-egalitarian attitudes. Our results underline the complexity of the interrelationships between economic insecurity, gender egalitarianism, and fertility intentions.     

Cultural Endorsement of Broad Leadership Prototypes and Wealth as Predictors of Corruption

Corruption is a social ill that involves public officials’ misuse of entrusted power, which is a function of sociocultural factors. Rarely, however, do researchers view corruption as a leadership-related problem. In the current research, we conceptualize corruption as a leadership-related problem, and propose three broad leadership prototypes based on social value orientation theory and research. We seek to examine (1) how cultural endorsement of self-serving, prosocial, and individualistic leadership prototypes is related to corruption at the societal level and (2) how wealth moderates the relationship between cultural endorsement of self-serving leadership and corruption. Using archival data of 53 societies, we found that cultural endorsement of self-serving leadership was positively related to corruption, strengthened by wealth. Cultural endorsement of prosocial leadership and individualistic leadership, however, was not significantly related to corruption, and wealth did not moderate either of the relationships. The implications of these findings for theory and future research are discussed.     

Fertility Intentions and Residential Relocations

This research addresses the question of whether fertility intentions (before conception) are associated with residential relocations and the distance of the relocation. We empirically tested this using data from two birth cohorts (aged 24–28 and 34–38 in the first survey wave) of the German Family Panel (pairfam) and event history analysis. Bivariate analyses showed that coupled individuals relocated at a higher rate if they intended to have a(nother) child. We found substantial heterogeneity according to individuals’ age and parental status, particularly for outside-town relocations. Childless individuals of average age at family formation—a highly mobile group—relocated at a lower rate if they intended to have a child. In contrast, older individuals who already had children—the least-mobile group—relocated at a higher rate if they intended to have another child. Multivariate analyses show that these associations are largely due to adjustments in housing and other living conditions. Our results suggest that anticipatory relocations (before conception) to adapt to growing household size are importantly nuanced by the opportunities and rationales of couples to adjust their living conditions over the life course. Our research contributes to the understanding of residential mobility as a by-product of fertility decisions and, more broadly, evidences that intentions matter and need to be considered in the analysis of family life courses.     

Evolutionary contributions to the study of human fertility

Demography, lacking an overarching theoretical framework of its own, has drawn on theories in many other social sciences to inform its analyses. The aim of this paper is to bring to the demographic community’s attention research in the evolutionary sciences on fertility, and to demonstrate that evolutionary theory can be another useful tool in the demographer’s toolkit. I first dispel some myths which impede the incorporation of evolutionary theory into demography: I make it clear that evolutionary explanations do not assume that all human behaviour is hardwired and functions to maximize genetic fitness; that they are able to explain variation in human behaviour; and that they are not necessarily alternatives to social science explanations. I then describe the diversity of work on fertility by evolutionary researchers, particularly human evolutionary ecologists and cultural evolutionists, and illustrate the usefulness of the evolutionary approach with examples of its application to age at first birth and the fertility transition.     

Conflicting Preferences: A Reason Fertility Tends to Be Too High or Too Low

Fertility has often seemed to be too high or too low, relative not only to social and economic goals, but also to reproductive preferences. In developing countries actual fertility has often been higher than desired family size, while in developed societies fertility tends to be below replacement level even though people generally say that they want at least two children. In explanations of fertility extremes, or of the discrepancies between desired and actual fertility, the effect of partners' holding different preferences has tended to be overlooked. Individual preferences expected to lead to replacement‐level reproduction may in combination generate substantially higher or lower fertility. In explaining such outcomes, a crucial question is what happens when spousal preferences diverge. Given that personal practices or social norms may systematically favor high or low preferences in the event of disagreement, chance alone will ensure that desired and actual fertility do not coincide.     

Demographic Theory: A Long View

This essay argues that demographic theory over the last half‐century has substituted short‐term explanations, often focusing on single demographic events, for long‐term theory. This means not only that the explanations cannot be employed to forecast the situation in the more distant future, but they are inadequate even for short‐term analysis. A basis for a longer‐term theory of fertility transition is proposed, employing the concept of social structure and demographic behavior adjusting, slowly and after a considerable lag, to each of three modes of production. The focus is on the transition from agricultural to industrial production, especially as this is occurring in the most advanced industrial societies. Three major conclusions are drawn. (1) Unanticipated fertility changes over the last 50 years can be incorporated within a single demographic transition theory. (2) Societal and demographic changes are still at an early stage of their transition to full adjustment to industrialization. (3) The trend, associated with women's participation in the work force, toward below‐replacement fertility will continue, but at some stage most governments will probably attempt to raise fertility to replacement level even if the effort is extremely expensive and slows economic growth.     

Research on gender in demography: Limitations and constraints

This paper explores the issue of gender in demography, focusing on the question of why we don't know more than we do about the role of gender in demographic processes. Our lack of knowledge is partly explained by demography's research and policy focus on the two questions central to the field in recent decades, fertility decline and the relationship between economic and demographic change. The focus on these issues – sometimes at the expense of other research questions and issues – has meant that some social processes surrounding demographic change, including the role of gender, have not received the attention they deserve. Understanding gender's complex relationship to social behaviors, such as demographic behavior, requires attention to social/cultural context and to power. Demography needs to expand our knowledge of gender through the development of new research questions, research designs, and methodologies. Doing so will give us new insights into demographic processes.     

The effects of social capital and social pressure on the intention to have a second or third child in France, Germany, and Bulgaria, 2004-05

This study investigates the importance of the effect of an individual's web of informal relationships with family and peers on the intention to have a second or third child. Drawing on sociological theories of social capital (help with childcare, emotional support) and social pressure, the study extends existing research by evaluating cross-national differences (between France, Germany, and Bulgaria) in the impact of personal network and institutional circumstances. It tests a non-linear relationship between social capital and fertility intentions. Social pressure and social capital are highly institutionally filtered, with the impact of personal network stronger where institutions are less family-supportive.     

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.     

Evolutionary Theory and Historical Fertility Change

Probably no issue divides social scientists and natural scientists more demonstrably than their attitudes on the value of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The present essay suggests the role that Darwinian theory can play in the study of human fertility. After examining the nature of Darwinian theory, the essay considers research carried out on fertility by biologists and anthropologists with methods based on it and possible reformulations of demographic methods and analyses that could benefit fertility research. It ends with suggestions for further research to explore the value of Darwinian approaches to demographic issues.     

Muslim and Non‐Muslim Differences in Female Autonomy and Fertility: Evidence from Four Asian Countries

On the basis of research on paired Muslim and non‐Muslim communities selected in India, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, the authors test the hypothesis that greater observed Muslim pronatalism can be explained by less power or lower autonomy among Muslim women. Indeed, wives in the Muslim communities, compared to the non‐Muslim ones: 1) had more children, 2) were more likely to desire additional children, and 3) if they desired no more children, were less likely to be using contraception. However, the authors do not find that Muslim communities consistently score lower on dimensions of women's power/autonomy. Thus, aggregate‐level comparisons provide little evidence of a relationship between lower autonomy and higher fertility. Individual‐level multivariate analysis of married women in these paired settings similarly suggests that women's autonomy differentials do not account for the higher fertility, demand for more children, and less use of contraception among Muslim wives. These results suggest that explanations for Muslim/non‐Muslim fertility differences lie elsewhere.     

On Net Intergenerational Wealth Flows: An Update

Almost 30 years have passed since I introduced the concept of “net intergenerational wealth flows” in a PDR essay, “Toward a restatement of demographic transition theory.” A great deal of research has been published since then, and accordingly an update is needed. That research suggests the following propositions. Immediately before fertility transition, children's farm labor may not quite offset their consumption, although much depends on how far into adulthood they continue to perform at least some work for their parents. In premodern times children may have paid their way because of lower consumption. Research on the pre‐transitional value of children's work produced contradictory results because it examined both hunter‐gatherer societies, in which both adults and children worked comparatively few hours, and farming societies, in which both worked longer hours. In pre‐transitional societies, the insurance value of children was almost unlimited. For most people in most societies, alternative ways of maintaining savings from the earlier to the later stage of the life cycle first became available only when large‐scale investment in children's education was possible. The costs and gains from that investment played a major role in the onset of the fertility transition.     

Gender Equity,Religion, and Fertility in Europe and North America

Religion has historically been a pronatalist force, but because it fosters traditional gender role attitudes, its importance for fertility may wane where gender equity is thought to be emerging as the new natalism. In this study, I used World Values Survey and European Values Survey data from 1989 to 2018 to determine whether more religious Northern countries are slower to develop the widespread egalitarian gender role attitudes associated with fertility recovery. I concluded that the “old natalism” and the “new natalism” do not compete with each other as much as their negative association implies that they might. By tracing the evolution of country‐level gender equity in more‐ and less religious countries of Europe and North America, I showed how country‐level religiosity does not dampen the potential for a gender equity‐stimulated fertility recovery. This paper also contributes by showing that the curvilinear relationship between gender equity and fertility has continued into more recent time periods than covered by previous work.