Intentions to Have a Child: A Couple‐Based Process

• Author: Marisa Matias,Anne Marie Fontaine
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12250
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Date: 01 April 2017

M M  A M F University of Porto

Intentions to Have a Child: A Couple-Based Process

Objective: To analyze how the endorsement of

motives for and against having children act at a

dyadic level to predict childbearing intentions.

Background: Understanding what leads indi-

viduals to have children is a topic of interest

among family researchers and policy makers

given that fertility rates have been decreasing

in many countries. Most studies on this topic

have not examined intentions about childrenas a

dyadic process, yet most childbearing decisions

occur within couple relationships.

Method: Using a convenience sample of het-

erosexual dual-earner couples with (n=100

couples) and without children (n=60 couples),

Actor-Partner-Interdependence-Modelswere t-

ted to assess the linkages between motives and

childbearing intentions.

Results: Different processes occur for parents

and nonparents when formulating intentions to

have a(nother) child. Compared to nonparents,

parents are less concerned about potential

changes in lifestyle or to their marital rela-

tionship, and worries about child development

are subdued; rather, they are more focused on

the potential emotional benets of an addi-

tional child. In addition, partner effects were

found solely in the parents’ group: The more

the partner perceived an additional child as

enriching, the more the individual intended

to have another child. Childless women were

also particularly concerned about the costs of

Centro de Psicologia, Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências

da Educação, Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen,

4200-392 Porto, Portugal (marisa@fpce.up.pt).

Key Words: Childbearing intentions, dyadic analyses, fer-

tility intentions, gender, motivations, parental status,

parenthood.

parenthood, and childless men were primarily

driven by emotional enrichment motives.

Conclusion: Individual attitudes and behaviors

with regard to intentions for having a child tend

to be affected by their partner’s attitudes and

behaviors toward the same. Thus, the family

systems approach take here provides a more

holistic understanding of couple and family

decision-making processes on this issue than

is possible when only collecting data from

individuals.

Implications: For parents, interventions aimed

at enhancing communication and negotiation

skills between couple members could foster a

more shared and informed decision-making pro-

cess. Improving women’s sense of control and

mastery over the juggling of multiple roles may

help reduce childless women’s concerns about

the costs of having children.

Most European Union (EU) countries have wit-

nessed a steady decrease in fertility rates over

recent decades. Although 2.1 live births per

woman is needed to maintain a steady overall

population size (Begall & Mills, 2011; Fahlén,

2013), the fertility rate in the EU-28 has been

much lower than this. Portugal, Poland, Spain,

Hungary, Slovakia, and Greece have the lowest

fertility rates, at around 1.3 births per woman

(Eurostat, 2014). These rates are an important

societal concern due to population decline,

which may disrupt the balance of older retired

individuals (i.e., those who tend to consume

family and societal resources) and younger indi-

viduals (i.e., those who tend to provide those

family and societal resources by actively work-

ing). Governments have tried to address popu-

lation decline by providing longer paid parental

Family Relations 66 (April 2017): 231–243 231

DOI:10.1111/fare.12250