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Author: Mills, Melinda C.
Resulting in 2 citations.
1. Stulp, Gert
Sear, Rebecca
Schaffnit, Susan B.
Mills, Melinda C.
Barrett, Louise
The Reproductive Ecology of Industrial Societies, Part II: The Association between Wealth and Fertility
Human Nature 27,4 (December 2016): 445-470.
Also: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-016-9272-9
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Fertility; Gender Differences; Net Worth; Wealth

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Studies of the association between wealth and fertility in industrial populations have a rich history in the evolutionary literature, and they have been used to argue both for and against a behavioral ecological approach to explaining human variability. We consider that there are strong arguments in favor of measuring fertility (and proxies thereof) in industrial populations, not least because of the wide availability of large-scale secondary databases. Such data sources bring challenges as well as advantages, however. The purpose of this article is to illustrate these by examining the association between wealth and reproductive success in the United States, using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979. We conduct a broad-based exploratory analysis of the relationship between wealth and fertility, employing both cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches, and multiple measures of both wealth (income and net worth) and fertility (lifetime reproductive success and transitions to first, second and third births). We highlight the kinds of decisions that have to be made regarding sample selection, along with the selection and construction of explanatory variables and control measures. Based on our analyses, we find a positive effect of both income and net worth on fertility for men, which is more pronounced for white men and for transitions to first and second births. Income tends to have a negative effect on fertility for women, while net worth is more likely to positively predict fertility. Different reproductive strategies among different groups within the same population highlight the complexity of the reproductive ecology of industrial societies. These results differ in a number of respects from other analyses using the same database. We suggest this reflects the impossibility of producing a definitive analysis, rather than a failure to identify the "correct" analytical strategy. Finally, we discuss how these findings inform us about (mal)adaptive decision-m aking.
Bibliography Citation
Stulp, Gert, Rebecca Sear, Susan B. Schaffnit, Melinda C. Mills and Louise Barrett. "The Reproductive Ecology of Industrial Societies, Part II: The Association between Wealth and Fertility." Human Nature 27,4 (December 2016): 445-470.
2. Verweij, Renske M.
Stulp, Gert
Snieder, Harold
Mills, Melinda C.
Explaining the Associations of Education and Occupation with Childlessness: The Role of Desires and Expectations to Remain Childless
Population Review 60,2 (2021): DOI: 10.1353/prv.2021.0016.
Also: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/839240
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Sociological Demography Press
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Expectations/Intentions; Fertility; Labor Force Participation; Occupational Status

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Although there are well-established relationships between women's higher education, labour force participation (LFP), and occupation on the one hand and childlessness on the other hand in the US, the underlying reasons and the role that childlessness desires and expectations play remain unclear. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in the United States (N=4,198 women) and apply both logistic regression models to examine the role of childlessness desires early in life, and multilevel models for repeated measures to examine the role of childlessness expectations throughout the life course. We find that higher educational attainment and LFP are positively associated with childlessness. We do not find, however, that higher educated and working women more often desire or expect to remain childless. In contrast, we find that among women who ultimately remain childless, those women who work fulltime and have higher status occupations have higher expectations to have children throughout their life course. These results suggest that education and occupation produce constraints, resulting in the postponement of childbearing which hinders women in realizing their desires and expectations. Since many working women remain childless despite the desire and expectation to become a mother, our findings stress the importance of work-life reconciliation. It furthermore highlights the importance of increasing public awareness regarding the decrease in fecundity with age.
Bibliography Citation
Verweij, Renske M., Gert Stulp, Harold Snieder and Melinda C. Mills. "Explaining the Associations of Education and Occupation with Childlessness: The Role of Desires and Expectations to Remain Childless." Population Review 60,2 (2021): DOI: 10.1353/prv.2021.0016.