Persistence and change in decisions to remain childless

Citation: Heaton, Tim B., Jacobson, C. K., Holland, K. (1999) Persistence and change in decisions to remain childless. JMF (RSS)
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Persistence and change in decisions to remain childless
Tagged: uw-madison (RSS), wisconsin (RSS), sociology (RSS), demography (RSS), prelim (RSS), qual (RSS), WisconsinDemographyPrelimAugust2009 (RSS)

Summary

They utilize the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the trends in intentions to remain childless. They included demographic (age, sex, race, income, desired hours of work, perceived stability of the relationship and marital status) and ideational variables (lifestyles and familial considerations) in the analysis. They focused in respondents between the ages 19 and 39 years who had not had children at the beginning of the study and who were not sterilized. Only never married and respondents in their first marriage were selected. The results indicate that postponers constitute the largest group (45%) in the analysis. This is particularly important to explain final childless, because as postponers age, the chances that they will actually have a child decreases because of biological processes and lifestyle preferences that make childbearing less attractive. Those who carry out their intentions to have children constitute the second largest group and those switching from wanting children to not wanting children compose the third largest group. Education: higher educational attainment is associated with a decrease in the likelihood of having a child and an increase in postponing having children. Race: Black Americans are consistently less likely than White Americans to be postponers, to switch to childless intention, and to express consistent childless intentions.