CROSS-SECTIONAL AND LONGITUDINAL PREDICTIONS OF INTENDED AND ACTUAL FERTILITY AMONG MEN AND WOMEN: A RESEARCH NOTE ON DIFFERENTIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Analyses designed to identify causal directions among predictors of fertility have become increasingly complex in an effort to understand such phenomena within the inherent limitations of cross-sectional designs. When such issues are investigated using longitudinal data with multiple cohorts, it is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International review of modern sociology 1989-04, Vol.19 (1), p.1-25
Main Authors: McBROOM, WILLIAM H., REED, FRED W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Children
Employment
Female fertility
Men
Single status
Statistical significance
Statistical variance
Traditionalism
Workforce
Working women
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Summary:Analyses designed to identify causal directions among predictors of fertility have become increasingly complex in an effort to understand such phenomena within the inherent limitations of cross-sectional designs. When such issues are investigated using longitudinal data with multiple cohorts, it is discovered that while fertility intentions do not change significantly over time for one cohort, the predictors of such intentions do. For a second cohort, there are substantial changes in fertility intentions over time. As well, there are differences in the predictors for females as opposed to males, and there are differences in predicting fertility intention as opposed to experienced fertility. For example, sex-role orientations predict fertility intentions of single women but actual fertility of married women. And, the sets of predictors for men bear little correspondence to these found for women. The implications of these findings are discussed.
ISSN:0973-2047