The educational gradient of fertility intentions: a meta-analysis of European studies

Testa, Maria; Stephany, Fabian

doi:10.1553/populationyearbook2017s293

Cited by 20 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…This is in accordance with the result that social capital is a regional phenomenon, see for instance(Beugelsdijk and Van Schaik, 2005) or(Pichler and Wallace, 2007).4 There are many more recent studies focusing on the socioeconomic role of trust, e. g (Stephany, 2019;Testa and Stephany, 2017). or(Freitag and Bauer, 2013).…”

supporting

confidence: 80%

United in Diversity? An Empirical Investigation on Europe's Regional Social Capital

Braeseman¹,

Stephany²

2019

Preprint

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Aiming to explain the European divide with respect to social and political values, scholars in the past have relied on a simplified four- (or even two-) dimensional regime model which tranches the continent according to the social capacities of its inhabitants. This "cartography" of "Social Europe" proves to be outdated by the results presented in this study which re-measures the social capital landscape in Europe. In this work, we apply a factor analysis model to the most commonly used approximations of social capital on the European Social Survey.In addition, we explore, as a novelty in social capital literature, a classification tree to model generalized trust. The analysis shows that three distinct dimensions of social capital measures are important in Europe: additionally to generalised social capital, which is usually approximated by generalised trust, there is one dimension of civic engagement and one of communitarian values. This distinction leads to a new social landscape of Europe, which highlights the relevance of considering regional and cross-border clusters in all relevant social capital dimensions.The results of the non-parametric model reveal that Protestantism and education are good benchmarks to classify trust on an individual level. Based on these findings we argue for the necessity of policies with a regional focus that take the different sub-national structures of social capacity in Europe into account. We re-measure the European Social Capital landscape using current data and provide a novel non-parametrical statistical method from data science for this purpose.

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confidence: 80%

United in Diversity? An Empirical Investigation on Europe's Regional Social Capital

Braeseman¹,

Stephany²

2019

Preprint

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“…Childbearing decisions continue to be the subject of intensive research, especially in the context of low fertility countries, where attention is drawn to the factors that limit these decisions (e.g., Billingsley & Ferrarini, 2014;Guzzo & Hayford, 2020;Philipov et al, 2006;Testa & Stephany, 2018). While numerous factors have been examined in this respect, we focus on three major areas, which were vividly discussed in the pre-pandemic era and which might become even more important with the COVID-19 outbreak.…”

Section: Fertility Choices In the Pre-pandemic Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and childbearing intentions in Poland

Malicka

Mynarska

Świderska

2021

JFamRes

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Objective: We aim to investigate how the perceived consequences of COVID-19 affect people's childbearing intentions in Poland. Background: With the pandemic having an impact on virtually all spheres of people's lives, some evidence already exists that it will lead to fertility postponement, as people are reluctant to make their reproductive choices in such uncertain times. Method: We analyse a nationally representative sample of 1000 respondents aged 18-49. In the sample, 234 respondents declared that they had intended to have a child before the outbreak of the pandemic and about 20% of them stated having postponed or foregone their intention because of COVID-19. We perform logistic regression analyses to verify which perceived consequences of the pandemic are most decisive for this choice. We supplement our analyses with insights from qualitative, open-ended question on the effects of the pandemic. Results: We find that people’s decision to postpone childbearing is related to respondents' perceived lower sense of financial security and worse mental well-being in the pandemic. In the model, where both factors are included, only mental well-being remains significant. Qualitative analyses point to several other factors important to fertility decisions in the pandemic, e.g., women’s fear of lonely childbirth. Conclusion: People’s decision to postpone childbearing because of COVID-19 is mostly related to pandemic-induced financial insecurity and this effect seems to be mediated by the psychological reaction to the situation.

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“…Finally, women who have obtained post-secondary higher education (i.e., university degree) were less likely to decrease their desired number of children. This finding might be explained in light of a recent meta-analysis of European fertility intention studies which found a positive association between education and intentions to reach normative family size [52]. Another explanation to these findings may be related to the greater human capital that more educated women may have, which might help them preserve their initial fertility intentions when faced with the reality and burden which might be associated with having a child.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Fertility intentions and the way they change following birth- a prospective longitudinal study

Preis

Tovim

Mor

et al. 2020

BMC Pregnancy Childbirth

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Background: Women's fertility intentions, their desired number of children and desired inter-pregnancy interval (IPI) are related to micro (personal) and macro (socio-cultural) level factors. We investigated factors that contribute to changes in women's fertility intentions in Israel, a developed country with high birth rates. Methods: Pregnant women (N = 1163), recruited from prenatal clinics and hospitals in two major metropolitan areas, completed self-report questionnaires prenatally (≥24 weeks gestation) and postpartum (2 months after childbirth). Women reported their socio-demographic background and obstetric history prenatally, their desired number of children and IPI at both time-points, and their objective and subjective birth experiences postpartum. Results: The findings indicated that background characteristics were related to prenatal fertility intentions. The strongest contributor to prenatal fertility intentions was women's degree of religiosity-the more religious they were, the more children they desired and the shorter their intended IPI. Women's postpartum fertility intentions were mostly consistent with their prenatal reports. In regression models, women who were very-religious, more educated and had previously given birth were less likely to report a lower number of desired of children at postpartum, compared to their prenatal report. Women who reported greater birth satisfaction and gave birth for the first time were less likely to change desired IPI. Conclusion: Having a negative birth experience could adversely affect women's fertility intentions. Yet, in a pronatalist and medicalized birth culture, social pressures may decrease the effects of birth experiences on fertility intentions.

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The educational gradient of fertility intentions: a meta-analysis of European studies

Cited by 20 publications

References 38 publications

United in Diversity? An Empirical Investigation on Europe's Regional Social Capital

United in Diversity? An Empirical Investigation on Europe's Regional Social Capital

Perceived consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and childbearing intentions in Poland

Fertility intentions and the way they change following birth- a prospective longitudinal study

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