Are Individuals’ Desired Family Sizes Stable? Evidence from West German Panel Data

Heiland, Frank; Prskawetz, Alexia; Sanderson, Warren C.

doi:10.1007/s10680-008-9162-x

Cited by 121 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…In contrast, Axinn, Clarkberg, and Thornton (1994) found, with US data, that the number of children a mother had borne had a positive influence on the family size preferences of their children at age 18. Heiland, Prskawetz, and Sanderson (2008) reported a positive influence of the number of siblings on the ideal family size of childless women under the age of 35 in Germany based on data from 1988and 1994. Régnier-Loilier (2006 came to a similar conclusion with a French sample of men and women ages 15-45 conducted in 1998: The more siblings the respondent had, the higher the desired number of children.…”

supporting

confidence: 60%

The influence of the number of siblings on expected family size in a cohort of young adults in Germany

Buhr¹,

Lutz²,

Peter³

2018

DemRes

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supporting

confidence: 60%

The influence of the number of siblings on expected family size in a cohort of young adults in Germany

Buhr¹,

Lutz²,

Peter³

2018

DemRes

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“…Some studies have documented that highly educated women are more likely than their less educated counterparts to say they want to have or are planning to have a large family (e.g., Heiland et al 2008;Mills et al 2008); while other studies have found that better educated women have lower completed fertility levels than less educated women. These apparent discrepancies suggest that unplanned births or early childbearing are the reasons for the higher fertility levels among less educated women (e.g., Musick et al 2009;Hayford 2009;Hayford and Guzzo 2016).…”

Section: Education and Reproductive Plansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Will highly educated women have more children in the future? Looking at reproductive plans and outcomes

Testa¹

2018

Populationyearbook

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"Will highly educated women have more children in the future?" In this contribution, I address this question by looking at both fertility and fertility intentions; i.e., the number of children people plan to have over their reproductive lives. Intended births are highly correlated with actual births, and in low-fertility settings, childbearing has become associated with the couple's agency. 1 On the other hand, education, which is a marker of income and social status, has remained an important driver of fertility choices. 2 Hence, understanding the reproductive decision-making of women and men with low, medium, and high levels of education is crucial when seeking to determine whether -and if so, to what extent -there is scope for additional policy interventions aimed at raising fertility levels.

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“…This issue has been addressed in two recent papers: Heiland et al (2008) and Liefbroer (2008). However, both these papers are based on models which conceptualise downward revisions in fertility intentions as equal and opposite to upward revisions -and which therefore constrain the determinants of upward and downward revisions to be equal and opposite.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there also exist studies based on longitudinal data which demonstrate clearly that individuals revise their fertility intentions over their lives. Studies by Westoff and Ryder (1977), Monnier (1989), Berrington (2004), Heiland et al (2008), Liefbroer (2008) and Hayford (2009) are based on samples taken at different times and from different countries; they share the finding that people do change their fertility intentions, and that while downward adjustments are more frequent than upward adjustments, adjustments in both directions are common.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two recent studies have addressed this question. Heiland et al (2008) hypothesise that life course experiences cause people to alter their perceptions of the costs and benefits of childbearing, thereby affecting desired fertility. They use a West German longitudinal survey to study changes in total desired fertility across interviews 6 to 7 years apart, estimating a linear probability model of whether a woman's total desired family size is unstable; and fixed and random effects models on desired family size.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Iacovou

Tavares

2010

SSRN Journal

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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...

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Are Individuals’ Desired Family Sizes Stable? Evidence from West German Panel Data

Cited by 121 publications

References 61 publications

The influence of the number of siblings on expected family size in a cohort of young adults in Germany

The influence of the number of siblings on expected family size in a cohort of young adults in Germany

Will highly educated women have more children in the future? Looking at reproductive plans and outcomes

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

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