Yearning, Learning and Conceding: (Some of) the Reasons People Change Their Childbearing Intentions

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may Non-Technical SummaryIf people of childbearing age are asked how many children they expect to have over the course of their reproductive lives, and asked the same question again several years later, the majority will give the same answer on both occasions, but a substantial percentage of people will give a different answer. This paper looks at the factors which are associated with these changes in childbearing expectations, and asks: what is it that makes people change their plans?This issue is important for a number of reasons. Birth rates have fallen to very low levels across large parts of the Western world, and in many countries stand well below the 2.1 births per woman needed to sustain a stable population. Expected fertility has also fallen, but by less than actual fertility. This gap between expectations on the one hand, and actual childbearing on the other, has been conceptualised as an "unmet need for children" -people are in some way prevented from having all the children they want, because of (for example) economic constraints, infertility, or the difficulty of reconciling family and paid work.However, there is another possible explanation for this gap, namely that people just change their minds about the number of children they want to have. In this paper we identify a number of such reasons why people may change their minds, and use a statistical model to test whether they are indeed significantly associated with changes to childbearing plans.We use data from the British Household Panel Survey -a survey of around 10,000 adults. Participants are re-interviewed every year, giving a picture of how their lives are evolving. As well as background information on people's age, sex, income, work status, partnership status and so on, the survey contains information on (a) how many children people have, and (b) how many children they expect to have over their lives. We take a sample of people aged 18-39, and analyse how their expectations have changed between two points in time, six years apart.Our findings show that people's expectations do change; and that at least some of these changes are not related to constraints. Changes occur both upwards and downwards: although on average people's childbearing expectations decline over their fertile years, this is made up of some people increasing their expectations, and rather more people reducing their expectations. Research which has previously been done in this area...

REFEREED ARTICLES - Differences between fertility desires and intentions: implications for theory, research and policy

“…Although there have been a number of recent studies of changes in both fertility intentions (e.g. Liefbroer 2009;Iacovou and Tavares 2010;and Ni Bhrolcháin et al 2010) and desires (e.g. Adsera 2006;Heiland et al 2008), it is rare for the two to be studied together (but see Hagewen and Morgan 2005).…”

Las trayectorias de las mujeres sin hijos en Uruguay

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“…The few longitudinal studies that have focused on changes in the desired number of children demonstrate that women who have a job, higher earnings, work more hours, and have higher levels of education decrease their desired fertility over time (Iacovou & Tavares, 2008;Liefbroer, 2009). However, in these studies desired fertility is based on both the actual and the desired number of children (Berrington & Pattaro, 2014;Heaton et al, 1999;Iacovou & Tavares, 2008;Liefbroer, 2009).…”

“…The few longitudinal studies that have focused on changes in the desired number of children demonstrate that women who have a job, higher earnings, work more hours, and have higher levels of education decrease their desired fertility over time (Iacovou & Tavares, 2008;Liefbroer, 2009). However, in these studies desired fertility is based on both the actual and the desired number of children (Berrington & Pattaro, 2014;Heaton et al, 1999;Iacovou & Tavares, 2008;Liefbroer, 2009). As fertility is so strongly associated with educational and occupational outcomes, differences between educational/occupational groups in later life might be a consequence of differences in achieved fertility rather than attributed to differences in desires for particular family sizes.…”