Religiosity and trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions

• Verfasst von: Bein, Christoph [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Passet-Wittig, Jasmin [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Bujard, Martin [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Gauthier, Anne Hélène [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Religiosity and trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions
• Titelzusatz: evidence from a German panel study
• Verf.angabe: Christoph Bein, Jasmin Passet-Wittig, Martin Bujard, Anne H. Gauthier
• E-Jahr: 2023
• Jahr: December 2023
• Umfang: 14 S.
• Fussnoten: Online verfügbar: 10. Oktober 2023, Artikelversion: 10. November 2023 ; Gesehen am 24.01.2024
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Advances in life course research
• Ort Quelle: Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2000
• Jahr Quelle: 2023
• Band/Heft Quelle: 58(2023) vom: Dez., Artikel-ID 100578, Seite 1-14
• ISSN Quelle: 1879-6974
• DOI: doi:10.1016/j.alcr.2023.100578
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: Fertility intentions
• Sach-SW: Growth curve models
• Sach-SW: Life course perspective
• Sach-SW: Religiosity
• Sach-SW: Stability of intentions
• K10plus-PPN: 1878843095

Abstract

Much of the literature on fertility intentions has shown that they are broadly predictive of fertility behaviour. Fertility intentions tend to change over a person’s life. How religiosity affects these changes over time has rarely been the subject of investigation. In this paper, we focus on whether and how religiosity affects trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions. Specifically, we examine whether highly religious people start with higher fertility intentions and are more likely to sustain them during their life course compared to their less religious counterparts. We apply random and fixed effects growth curve models to data from the German family panel pairfam, using a sample of 6214 women and 5802 men aged 14-46. We find that religiosity mainly contributes to explain the starting level at teenage years but not the trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions as people get older. Highly religious people start with higher intentions than less religious people. However, similarly to less religious people they experience a decline in their fertility intentions with age. This study demonstrates that religiosity is an important variable in research on fertility intentions but with changing relevance over the life course.