Normative pressures on fertility planning

Using a sample of urban American women under 33 years old and their husbands, this paper examines the relationship between normative pressures and fertility planning. In general, normative pressures, both expected and experienced, are related to parity as one would expect. Pronatal pressures decrease and antinatal pressures increase with increasing parity. However, for parity two and above, there is no evidence of a normative consensus to which persons may respond in their individual behavior.This research was supported by funds from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (#N01-HD-42804). Karl E. Bauman and Boone Turchi are collaborators on the project. Thanks are due to Judith Kovenock for data analysis.     

Parity-Specific and two-sex utility models of reproductive intentions

This paper uses married couples’ anticipated consequences of having a (another) child to predict their reproductive intentions. Parity-specific models identify different variables as predictors of reproductive behavior at different parities but do not yield interpretable patterns of difference by parity. Parity-specific models are not significantly stronger predictors of reproductive behavior. Generally, wife-only models are distinctly superior to husband-only models. Two-sex models are usually better predictors than one-sex models but not enough better to justify the additional cost.