Children are costly, but raising them may pay

Werding, Martin

doi:10.4054/demres.2014.30.8

Cited by 36 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Interviewees’ concern with the cost of raising children is consistent with the findings of other studies (Schoen et al. ; Werding ) and with demographers’ emphasis on parents’ interest in child quality (Becker and Lewis ; Easterlin ). In Spain and Sweden, financial concerns were generally expressed in terms of the importance of securing a stable job.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 81%

“…Financial considerations were dominant in every country, despite the fact that all of our interviewees are highly educated and the large majority have middle-or upper-middle-class incomes for their age group (except in Spain, where close to 40 percent of our interviewees are either unemployed or have an unemployed partner). Interviewees' concern with the cost of raising children is consistent with the findings of other studies (Schoen et al 1997;Werding 2014) and with demographers' emphasis on parents' interest in child quality (Becker and Lewis 1973;Easterlin 1976). In Spain and Sweden, financial concerns were generally expressed in terms of the importance of securing a stable job.…”

Section: Reasoning For Ideals and Intentions: Country Similarities Ansupporting

confidence: 79%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Postindustrial Fertility Ideals, Intentions, and Gender Inequality: A Comparative Qualitative Analysis

Brinton¹,

Bueno²,

Oláh³

et al. 2018

Population & Development Rev

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 81%

Section: Reasoning For Ideals and Intentions: Country Similarities Ansupporting

confidence: 79%

Postindustrial Fertility Ideals, Intentions, and Gender Inequality: A Comparative Qualitative Analysis

Brinton¹,

Bueno²,

Oláh³

et al. 2018

Population & Development Rev

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“…In order to understand individuals' incentives and constraints in fertility decisions, Becker's seminal contribution to economic analysis of fertility [ 36 ] and subsequent works by economists (e.g.,[ 37 , 38 ]) have provided theoretical foundations to analyzing fertility from the perspective of cost-benefit analysis. As Werding noted, economic theory of fertility offers a unique approach to analyzing relevant motives and outcomes of fertility behavior [ 39 ]. Based on a rational-choice paradigm, children are considered durable consumption goods, production goods or long-term investment goods, and thus, raising children could have significant impacts on the well-being or "utility" of parents in terms of costs and benefits, or costs and returns [ 23 , 36 ].…”

Section: Economic Theory Of Fertility and The Changing Context Of Fermentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioeconomic determinants of rural women's desired fertility: A survey in rural Shaanxi, China

2018

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There has been evidence demonstrating that China has had a persistently low and below-replacement level fertility since early 1990s, causing concerns of a rapidly aging population and sustainability of the Chinese economy. To avoid adverse effects of excessively low fertility, the Chinese government has recently changed its family planning policy from "one-child policy" to "two-child policy." Nonetheless, the effectiveness of the newly initiated two-child policy is questionable if women's average desired number of children or desired fertility for their lifetime is below the threshold fertility allowed by the two-child policy. Therefore, this study argues that it would be interesting and pertinent to know women's fertility desires under the circumstances of no policy restrictions and understand major factors that may affect their desired fertility. Based on a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling survey with 2,516 women respondents in rural Shaanxi, this study tries to estimate desired fertility of rural women and evaluate the impact of important socioeconomic factors on their desired fertility. The results of this study reveal that the average lifetime desired fertility for rural women of childbearing age in Shaanxi is about 1.71, below the total fertility rate at the replacement level. The findings of this study suggest that women's marriage age, the pecuniary costs of having children, women's income forgone for having children, and social security benefits available for rural residents at retirement age, are significantly and negatively related to desired fertility. However, rural women's cultural views towards fertility are significantly but positively related to their desired fertility. This study further confirms that China has entered an era of low fertility, and thus, any policy restrictions on fertility may no longer be necessary. Instead, government programs which support childbearing and childrearing are needed to prevent excessive low fertility and rapid aging of the population.

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“…Such data can also provide greater insights into reproductive decision-making because they reflect the serial nature of fertility decisions [52,53], and because wealth may have differential effects at different parities (e.g. becoming a parent, having a third child) [11,54], factors that are ignored when examining completed family size and wealth in later life.…”

Section: (A) Issues With Cross-sectional Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wealth, fertility and adaptive behaviour in industrial populations

Stulp

Barrett

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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The lack of association between wealth and fertility in contemporary industrialized populations has often been used to question the value of an evolutionary perspective on human behaviour. Here, we first present the history of this debate, and the evolutionary explanations for why wealth and fertility (the number of children) are decoupled in modern industrial settings. We suggest that the nature of the relationship between wealth and fertility remains an open question because of the multi-faceted nature of wealth, and because existing cross-sectional studies are ambiguous with respect to how material wealth and fertility are linked. A literature review of longitudinal studies on wealth and fertility shows that the majority of these report positive effects of wealth, although levels of fertility seem to fall below those that would maximize fitness. We emphasize that reproductive decision-making reflects a complex interplay between individual and societal factors that resists simple evolutionary interpretation, and highlight the role of economic insecurity in fertility decisions. We conclude by discussing whether the wealth–fertility relationship can inform us about the adaptiveness of modern fertility behaviour, and argue against simplistic claims regarding maladaptive behaviour in humans.

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Children are costly, but raising them may pay

Cited by 36 publications

References 56 publications

Postindustrial Fertility Ideals, Intentions, and Gender Inequality: A Comparative Qualitative Analysis

Postindustrial Fertility Ideals, Intentions, and Gender Inequality: A Comparative Qualitative Analysis

Socioeconomic determinants of rural women's desired fertility: A survey in rural Shaanxi, China

Wealth, fertility and adaptive behaviour in industrial populations

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