A Multilevel Analysis of Marital and Nonmarital Fertility in the U.S.

Billy, John O. G.; Moore, David E.

doi:10.2307/2580198

Cited by 72 publications

(83 citation statements)

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“…23 More secular cultures tend to have a general set of progressive societal norms about gender, family, and reproductionincluding gender egalitarianism, sex for pleasure rather than reproduction, and selfactualization-that lead to lower fertility preferences and greater readiness to use effective family planning methods (Adsera 2006;Buber-Ennser and Skirbekk 2016;Hayford and Morgan 2008). 24 More religious countries, on the other hand, tend to have values-familism, drive to family formation, idealized fertility, and even explicit injunctions to "be fruitful and multiply"-that promote pronatalist preferences and a reluctance to use modern contraceptives and abortion (Bearman and Bruckner 2001;Billy and Moore 1992;Edgell and Docka 2007;Gallagher 2003;Jong 1965;Philipov and Berghammer 2007). As I demonstrated, material conditions and cultural values related to gender, family, and reproduction fully explain differential fertility rates in more or less secular countries.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other research on contextual effects similarly suggests that whereas secularism promotes secular values and individualization, contextual religiosity may promote "traditional, pronatalist values" that produce higher fertility rates (Billy and Moore 1992). Building on these findings, I…”

Section: Hypotheses and Potential Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Adamczyk (2008) showed that although individual religious affiliation influences abortion decisions in the U.S., community-level religious affiliation did not have a strong influence on individual-level abortion. Another study by Billy and Moore (1992) considered the contextual effects of religious adherence in U.S. counties on non-marital fertility behavior, but did not find religion important enough to present in the article's main tables. A study by Cutright, Hout, and Johnson, however, directly examined the impact of the strength of Catholic religion in Latin American countries on fertility.…”

Section: Contextual Effects On Fertilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Secularism and Fertility Worldwide

Schnabel¹

2016

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This study hypothesizes a link between societal secularism and fertility. Using country-level data from multiple sources (N=181) and multilevel data from 55 countries in the World Values Survey (N=78,639), I document a strong negative relationship between societal secularism and both country-level fertility rates and individual-level fertility behavior. Secularism, even in small amounts, is associated with population stagnation or even decline, whereas highly religious countries have higher fertility rates that promote population growth. This country-level pattern is driven by more than aggregate lower fertility of individual nonreligious people. In fact, secularism is more closely linked to religious than nonreligious people's fertility behavior and appears to be a function of different cultural values related to gender and reproduction in more secular societies. Beyond its importance for the religious composition of the world population, the societal-level association between secularism and fertility is relevant to key fertility theories and may help account, in part, for below-replacement fertility. Rather than religious people becoming a smaller proportion of the world population, demographers have projected that because the nonreligious have fewer children they will make up a smaller proportion of the world population over time (Hackett et al. 2015;Kaufmann 2010;Skirbekk, Kaufmann, and Goujon 2010;Stonawski et al. 2015). This literature improves on secularization theory by highlighting how individual-level secularity limits fertility behavior and thus constrains secularization, but has thus far neglected potential impacts of societal-level secularity despite secularism being more than just an individual attribute. Culture is transmitted, and religious beliefs and preferences acquired, both vertically (i.e., within families) and 1 "Religious" and "nonreligious" can be defined in many ways. Past research has often conceptualized secularism as the inverse of absence of religion, and work on religion and fertility in particularly has frequently focused on binary measures that categorize people as religious or not. In order to consider varieties of secularism, I examine multiple religion/non-religion measures, some of which are binary and some gradational, and aggregations of these items.Secularism and Fertility Worldwide 2 horizontally (i.e., peer-to-peer within the wider culture) Verdier 2000, 2011).Research on religion and fertility has highlighted how the lower fertility of secular individuals limits vertical transmission of secularism, has thus far largely neglected potential demographic limits to horizontal transmission of secularism. The key unanswered question is whether a country-level relationship exists between secularism and fertility net of individual-level religion, which would further constrain secularization-due to fewer children being socialized in more secular contexts-and could contribute to below-replacement fertility.To examine the country-level relationship between secularism and f...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hypotheses and Potential Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Contextual Effects On Fertilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Secularism and Fertility Worldwide

Schnabel¹

2016

Preprint

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“…Low socioeconomic status has been consistently associated with increased risk of teen pregnancy (Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, Klebanov, & Sealand, 1993) and for adolescent males increased poverty is associated with frequency of intercourse, lack of contraceptive use, and, predictably, higher chances of impregnating someone (Ku, Sonenstein, & Pleck, 1993). Unemployment rates in the neighborhood, another common indicator for neighborhood disorder, have been found to be associated with high levels of impregnating someone and fathering a child among adolescent males (Ku, Sonenstein, & Pleck, 1993), and high rates of childbirth outside of marriage for female adolescents (Billy & Moore, 1992). Conversely, female adolescents that participate in the labor force seem to have more positive behavioral outcomes (Billy, Brewster, & Grady, 1994), but authors hypothesize that this could be due to increased monitoring, not increased socioeconomic status (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000).…”

Section: Neighborhood Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of Adolescent Sexual Intentions and Behavior: Attitudes, Parenting, and Neighborhood Risk

Frankel¹

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Study findings indicate that more research on adolescent sexual behavior is warranted, specifically examining the differentials between variables that affect intentions and those that affect behavior. A focus on gender and age differences during intervention development may allow for better targeting and more efficacious interventions. Adding peer and media influences to the framework of attitudes, parenting, and neighborhood may offer more insight into patterns of adolescent sexual behavior risk.

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“…Billy and Moore 1992 ;Bocquet-Appel and Jakobi 1998 ;Boyle 2014 ;Klüsener et al 2013 ;Vitali et al 2015 ) but may be attributable to the lack of data and limited access. Surveys' microdata have become the primary statistical source for family studies.…”

Section: The Motivation For a Mapmentioning

confidence: 99%