TY - JOUR
T1 - Young Women's Dynamic Family Size Preferences in the Context of Transitioning Fertility
AU - Yeatman, Sara
AU - Sennott, Christie
AU - Culpepper, Steven
N1 - Funding Information:
Tsogolo la Thanzi is a research project designed by Jenny Trinitapoli and Sara Yeatman, and funded by Grant R01 HD058366 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Details are available online ( http://projects.pop.psu.edu/tlt ).
Funding Information:
This study was supported by two grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: R01 HD058366 and R03 HD067099. We are indebted to Jenny Trinitapoli, Stefanie Mollborn, Margaret Frye, Rob Warren, colloquium participants at the University of Colorado’s Institute of Behavioral Science, and Demography’s reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article; any errors are our own. This research was made possible by the efforts of the Tsogolo la Thanzi fieldwork team, headed by Abdallah Chilungo, Sydney Lungu, and Hazel Namadingo.
PY - 2013/10
Y1 - 2013/10
N2 - Dynamic theories of family size preferences posit that they are not a fixed and stable goal but rather are akin to a moving target that changes within individuals over time. Nonetheless, in high-fertility contexts, changes in family size preferences tend to be attributed to low construct validity and measurement error instead of genuine revisions in preferences. To address the appropriateness of this incongruity, the present study examines evidence for the sequential model of fertility among a sample of young Malawian women living in a context of transitioning fertility. Using eight waves of closely spaced data and fixed-effects models, we find that these women frequently change their reported family size preferences and that these changes are often associated with changes in their relationship and reproductive circumstances. The predictability of change gives credence to the argument that ideal family size is a meaningful construct, even in this higher-fertility setting. Changes are not equally predictable across all women, however, and gamma regression results demonstrate that women for whom reproduction is a more distant goal change their fertility preferences in less-predictable ways.
AB - Dynamic theories of family size preferences posit that they are not a fixed and stable goal but rather are akin to a moving target that changes within individuals over time. Nonetheless, in high-fertility contexts, changes in family size preferences tend to be attributed to low construct validity and measurement error instead of genuine revisions in preferences. To address the appropriateness of this incongruity, the present study examines evidence for the sequential model of fertility among a sample of young Malawian women living in a context of transitioning fertility. Using eight waves of closely spaced data and fixed-effects models, we find that these women frequently change their reported family size preferences and that these changes are often associated with changes in their relationship and reproductive circumstances. The predictability of change gives credence to the argument that ideal family size is a meaningful construct, even in this higher-fertility setting. Changes are not equally predictable across all women, however, and gamma regression results demonstrate that women for whom reproduction is a more distant goal change their fertility preferences in less-predictable ways.
KW - Family size preferences
KW - Fertility
KW - Malawi
KW - Sub-Saharan Africa
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U2 - 10.1007/s13524-013-0214-4
DO - 10.1007/s13524-013-0214-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 23619999
AN - SCOPUS:84884756486
VL - 50
SP - 1715
EP - 1737
JO - Demography
JF - Demography
SN - 0070-3370
IS - 5
ER -