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Title: The Evolution of Fertility Expectations Over the Life Course
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Hayford, Sarah R.
The Evolution of Fertility Expectations Over the Life Course
Demography 46,4 (November 2009): 765-783.
Also: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dem/summary/v046/46.4.hayford.html
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Age at First Birth; Family Formation; Family Size; Fertility; Growth Curves; Life Course

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

In low-fertility contexts, how many children people have is largely a product of how many children they want. However, the social, institutional, and individual factors that influence how many children people want are not well understood. In particular, there is scant evidence about how fertility expectations change over the life course. This article provides an empirical description of changes in women's expected fertility over the entire span of childbearing years. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort, group-based trajectory analysis illuminates common patterns in the evolution of fertility intentions and identifies individual characteristics associated with these patterns. Factors related to family formation, such as marriage and whether a woman has a child at an early age, are found to be the most consistent correlates of patterns of change in expected family size.
Bibliography Citation
Hayford, Sarah R. "The Evolution of Fertility Expectations Over the Life Course." Demography 46,4 (November 2009): 765-783.