Partner congruence on fertility intentions and values: Implications for birth outcomes

Abstract

In heterosexual couples, both partners’ intentions to have a baby (or not) are associated with the likelihood of a subsequent birth, yet most studies only measure women’s intentions. Therefore, little is known about the potential association of couple agreement or disagreement on intentions or on such values as importance of parenthood, career, and leisure and the implications for childbearing. The goal of this article is to assess whether couple-level agreement or disagreement in fertility intentions and values are associated with the likelihood of a subsequent birth. Guided by the Theory of Conjunctural Action, we use couple data from two waves of the U.S. National Survey of Fertility Barriers for our analysis. Based on logistic regression analysis, we find that if either partner intends a child, the odds of having a baby within 3 years are higher than if neither partner intends and that the odds are substantially higher when both partners intend a child. Couples in whom both partners and couples in whom only the woman has a high value on career success are less likely to have a baby. Our findings suggest that agreement on fertility intentions is associated with considerably higher birth probability and that values about life domains matter as well. Couple disagreement on intentions and values are related in different ways to birth outcomes depending on which partner holds which value as important. Using data from both partners allows us to examine the patterns of couple agreement, values, and gendered influences related to birth outcomes.

Understanding Parenting Intentions Among Childfree Gay Men: A Comparison With Lesbian Women and Heterosexual Men and Women

“…Future research should also include bisexual or gender minority people. Fourthly, this study did not take into account the role of partners in the participants' parenting intentions, which is important to address since the decision to become a parent is often made at a couple level rather than on an individual level (Shreffler et al, 2017). Partners could influence the parenting intentions of each other, similarly to the findings that partners can influence each other in how they think about internalized stigmas (Goldberg et al, 2012).…”

Work-family conflict and partners' agreement on fertility preferences among dual-earner couples: Does women's employment status matter?

“…Prior works employing data from both developing (see, e.g., Bankole &Singh, 1998) anddeveloped countries (see, e.g., Hohmann-Marriot, 2009;Shreffler et al, 2019;Stein et al, 2014) suggest that partner disagreement over reproductive goals is quite common. However, studies rarely utilize reports from both partners and/or dyadic data analysis (as we do here).…”

“…However, studies rarely utilize reports from both partners and/or dyadic data analysis (as we do here). This topic is especially important within the German context, since their birth rates remain very low and greater partner agreement on fertility intentions has been linked to higher birth outcomes (Shreffler et al, 2019). In contrast, greater partner disagreement over fertility intentions and fertility timing has been linked to pregnancy avoidance and higher contraceptive use among partners who already have at least one child (Testa, 2012;Testa et al, 2014;Testa & Bolano, 2021).…”

Pathways to Parenthood in Social and Family Contexts: Decade in Review, 2020

“…Increased attention to men is paralleled by an emerging body of work analyzing couple‐level data, including the development of new theories and methods to analyze dyadic data (Brehm & Schneider, ). In general, the predictive power of prospective fertility intentions increases when incorporating both partners' desires and intentions, as disagreement lowers the odds of having another child (Shreffler, Tiemeyer, McQuillan, Greil, & Spierling, ; Testa, ; Testa, Cavalli, & Rosina, ). Many factors go into couples' decisions about contraception and childbearing, such as their shared level of intimacy and sexual frequency (Wildsmith, Manlove, & Steward‐Streng, 2015), how they feel about their unions' future (Sassler, Miller, & Favinger, ), and whether they have children from prior unions (Hohmann‐Marriott, 2015).…”