A theoretical analysis of antecedents of young couples’ fertility decisions and outcomes
- 1 November 1983
- journal article
- Published by Duke University Press in Demography
- Vol. 20 (4) , 519-533
- https://doi.org/10.2307/2061117
Abstract
Longitudinal survey data from 509 couples who at Time 1 interview had recently married or had their first child did not support the hypothesis that demographic factors influence fertility intentions, decisions, and outcomes only indirectly through their effects on attitudes and motivations. Husbands’ and wives’ attitudes exerted reciprocal influence on one another. However, while husbands’ sex-role traditionalism and motivation for parenthood strongly influenced wives’ traditionalism and motivation in the case of recently married couples, this pattern was reversed for riew parents. Birth control use was directly affected by wives’ fertility intentions, but not by husbands’ intentions. Difficulties in examining couple interaction variables such as relative power and the possible limitations of fitting these data to a complex theoretical model using LISREL are discussed.Keywords
This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- Is Zero Preferred? American Attitudes toward Childlessness in the 1970sJournal of Marriage and Family, 1979
- Perceived satisfactions and costs of motherhood and employment among married womenPopulation and Environment, 1979
- Couples' Decision-Making Processes Regarding FertilityPublished by Elsevier ,1978
- Taking ChancesPublished by University of California Press ,1975
- Population psychology: A new look at an old problem.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975
- U. S. Women's Sex-Role Ideology, 1970American Journal of Sociology, 1975
- Wanted and Unwanted Pregnancies: A Fertility Decision‐Making ModelJournal of Social Issues, 1974
- Who wants the children?: Some relationships among attitudes toward children, parents, and the liberation of women.American Psychologist, 1973
- Toward an Understanding of Family Planning BehaviorsJournal of Applied Social Psychology, 1972
- A Comparison of Power Structure and Marital Satisfaction in Urban Greek and French FamiliesJournal of Marriage and Family, 1967