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In most developed countries, the fertility levels of parents and children are positively correlated. This article analyzes the strength of the intergenerational transmission of family size over the last century, including a focus on this reproduction in large and small families. Using the large-scale French Family Survey (2011), we show a weak but significant correlation of approximately 0.12–0.15, which is comparable with levels in other Western countries. It is stronger for women than men, with a gender convergence across cohorts. A decrease in intergenerational transmission is observed across birth cohorts regardless of whether socioeconomic factors are controlled, supporting the idea that the family of origin has lost implicit and explicit influence on fertility choices. As parents were adopting the two-child family norm, the number of siblings lost its importance for having two children, but it continues to explain lower parity and, above all, three-child families. This suggests that the third child has increasingly become an \"extra child\" (beyond the norm) favored by people from large families.

A growing body of research has argued that the traditional categories of stopping and spacing are insufficient to understand why individuals want to control fertility. In a series of articles, Timæus, Moultrie, and colleagues defined a third type of fertility motivation—postponement—that reflects a desire to avoid childbearing in the short term without clear goals for long-term fertility. Although postponement is fundamentally a description of fertility desires, existing quantitative research has primarily studied fertility behavior in an effort to find evidence for the model. In this study, we use longitudinal survey data to consider whether postponement can be identified in standard measures of fertility desires among reproductive-age women in rural Mozambique. Findings show strong evidence for a postponement mindset in this population, but postponement coexists with stopping and spacing goals. We reflect on the difference between birth spacing and postponement and consider whether and how postponement is a distinctive sub-Saharan phenomenon.

Leveraging 2.5 years of weekly data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life Study, we investigate the relationship between young women's sexual concurrency and their contraceptive behavior. Specifically, we (1) examine whether young women changed their contraceptive use when switching from one to multiple concurrent sexual partners in the same week; (2) explore the uniformity of contraceptive responses to concurrency across relationship context; and (3) compare the contraceptive behaviors of never-concurrent women with those of ever-concurrent women in weeks when they were not concurrent. Nearly one in five sexually active young women had sex with two or more people in the same week. When they were concurrent, these women's odds of using any contraception increased threefold, and their odds of using condoms increased fourfold. This pattern of contraceptive adjustments was the same across relationship characteristics, such as duration and exclusivity. Yet when they were not concurrent, ever-concurrent women were less likely to use any contraception and used condoms less consistently than women who were never concurrent. We discuss these findings in the context of ongoing debates about the role of sexual concurrency in STI transmission dynamics.

The UN Millennium Project aims to reduce poverty, hunger, and disease while promoting education, health, gender equity, and environmental sustainability. Fertility is not mentioned anywhere within the eight goals, but population growth rates profoundly impact the achievability of all goals by increasing the budgets required to meet the population's basic needs. This paper describes the fertility patterns of men and women in three communities in Kaduna State, Nigeria. The findings reveal a total fertility rate (TFR) of 7.97, which surpasses the TFR of 7.3 reported from northwest Nigeria in the 2008 NDHS. Among both men and women, desired family size was high, with 37% of women citing 5-9 children as ideal and 32% citing 10-14 children as ideal. Fewer than 20% of women wanted less than five children, but as education increased, desired fertility significantly decreased. Among men there were significant associations between age, educational status, number of current wives and religion with the mean number of children ever fathered Le projet du millénaire des NU a comme objectif de réduire la pauvreté, la faim et la maladie tout en promouvant l'éducation, l'équité en matière des sexes et la durabilité de l'environnement. La fécondité n'a pas été mentionnée parmi les huit objectifs, mais le taux de croissance de la population influent beaucoup sur l'accomplissement de tous les objectifs en augmentant les budgets nécessaires pour répondre aux besoins essentiels de la population. Cette étude décrit les caractéristiques de la fécondité chez les hommes et les femmes dans trois communautés dans l'état de Kaduna, Nigéria. Les résultats ont révélé un taux de fécondité total (TFT) de 7,97 qui dépasse le TFT de 7,3 qui a été signalé au nord-ouest du Nigéria dans L'ENDS de l'année 2008. Parmi les hommes et les femmes, la taille familiale désirée est élevée, 37% des femmes citant 5-9 enfants comme étant le nombre idéal et 32% ont cité10-14 enfants comme étant idéal. Moins de 20% voulaient avoir moins de cinq enfants, mais au fur et à mesure que l'éducation s'est accrue, la fécondité désirée s'est baissée de manière significative. Chez les hommes, il y avait des associations importantes entre l'âge, le niveau de l'instruction reçue, le nombre de femmes du moment et la religion avec le nombre moyen d'enfants qu'ils ont jamais engendrés

The 'old' issue of religion and fertility is examined in relation to women's level of education. In-depth interviews exploring influences on parity for Adelaide parents in 2003-04 suggest that more frequent attendance at religious services in childhood, and affiliation with particular religious denominations, are related to both higher preferred and higher achieved parity, even for women with university education. For some university-educated women, their religious upbringing appears to play a part in negating the traditional relationship between higher education and lower fertility. Quantitative data on religion, fertility and educational level from the 1996 Census for women aged 40-44 in South Australia show that women with 'No Religion' had lower fertility than those 'With a Religion', while university-educated women in New Protestant-New Christian groups had higher fertility than university-educated women in other denominations. The findings provide an understanding of some social conditions that support higher fertility in a low-fertility population. Future fertility research in developed countries should include consideration of the influence of religious affiliation and religiosity at disaggregated levels of inquiry.

How persistent and universal has the two child family ideal been in Europe during the last three decades? We analyze responses of women of reproductive age from 168 surveys conducted in 37 countries in 1979–2012. A two-child ideal has become nearly universal among women in all parts of Europe. Countries that used to display higher ideal family size have converged over time toward a two-child model. Six out of ten women in Europe consider two children as ideal, and this proportion is very similar in different regions. The mean ideal family size has become closely clustered around 2.2 in most countries. Gradual shifts can be documented toward more women expressing an ideal of having one child (and, quite rarely, having no children) and a parallel decline in an ideal of three or more children. An increasing number of European countries saw their mean ideal family size falling to relatively low levels around 1.95–2.15. However, with the exception of one survey for eastern Germany and two of the surveys not included in our study owing to high nonresponse or low sample size, none of the analyzed surveys suggests a decline in mean ideal family size to levels considerably below replacement, i.e., below 1.9 children per woman.

In the United States, underachieving fertility desires is more common among women with higher levels of education and those who delay first marriage beyond their mid-20s. However, the relationship between these patterns, and particularly the degree to which marriage postponement explains lower fertility among the highly educated, is not well understood. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort to analyze differences in parenthood and achieved parity for men and women, focusing on the role of marriage timing in achieving fertility goals over the life course. We expand on previous research by distinguishing between entry into parenthood and average parity among parents as pathways to underachieving, by considering variation in the impact of marriage timing by education and by stage of the life course, and by comparing results for men and women. We find that women with a bachelor’s degree who desired three or more children are less likely to become mothers relative to women with the same desired family size who did not attend college. Conditional on becoming mothers, however, women with at least a bachelor’s degree do not have lower completed family size. No comparable fatherhood difference by desired family size is present. Postponing marriage beyond age 30 is associated with lower proportions of parenthood but not with lower parity among parents. Age patterns are similar for women and men, pointing at social rather than biological factors driving the underachievement of fertility goals.

Changes in fertility patterns are hypothesized to be among the many second-order consequences of armed conflict, but expectations about the direction of such effects are theoretically ambiguous. Prior research, from a range of contexts, has also yielded inconsistent results. We contribute to this debate by using harmonized data and methods to examine the effects of exposure to conflict on preferred and observed fertility outcomes across a spatially and temporally extensive population. We use high-resolution georeferenced data from 25 sub-Saharan African countries, combining records of violent events from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) with data on fertility goals and outcomes from the Demographic and Health Surveys (n = 368,765 women aged 15–49 years). We estimate a series of linear and logistic regression models to assess the effects of exposure to conflict events on ideal family size and the probability of childbearing within the 12 months prior to the interview. We find that, on average, exposure to armed conflict leads to modest reductions in both respondents’ preferred family size and their probability of recent childbearing. Many of these effects are heterogeneous between demographic groups and across contexts, which suggests systematic differences in women’s vulnerability or preferred responses to armed conflict. Additional analyses suggest that conflict-related fertility declines may be driven by delays or reductions in marriage. These results contribute new evidence about the demographic effects of conflict and their underlying mechanisms, and broadly underline the importance of studying the second-order effects of organized violence on vulnerable populations.

Objective This brief report examines links between environmental attitudes and fertility desires over time in the United States. Background To understand fertility decision making, it is important to identify factors that influence fertility desires. Concerns about environmental problems may be associated with lower desired fertility, especially in recent cohorts transitioning to adulthood. Youth may feel that having one less child can reduce their “carbon footprint” or may be unwilling to bring children into an uncertain and difficult future due to climate change. Method Data are from 12th graders in the Monitoring the Future study (2005–2019; N = 34,104). Regression is used to examine the relationship between number of children wanted and agreement that the government should deal with environmental problems even if it means paying more taxes. Results Those who endorsed that government should deal with environmental problems reported lower average fertility desires than those who did not. The association was driven by a decreased desire for large families (four or more children) rather than normatively sized families (2–3 children). Political identity and religiosity attenuated but did not explain the association. There was some evidence of stronger associations in 2017–2019. Conclusion Evidence showed associations between environmental attitudes and childbearing preferences that may have strengthened over time. Implications Environmental attitudes may be a factor in the recent decline in youth's fertility desires and could have consequences for future fertility.