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Family Attitudes and Fertility Timing in Sweden

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Abstract

Employing a novel latent attitude profile approach, as developed by Moors (Eur J Popul 24:33–57, 2008), within the theory of planned behavior, this paper models the association between attitudes and the transition to parenthood. We use survey data from the Young Adult Panel Study (1999) and linked prospective population register data (1999–2009) to investigate the family attitudes and fertility timing of a sample of three birth cohorts in Sweden, a country at the leading edge of family change in Europe. We generate latent attitude profiles of men and women based on attitudes related to the Value of Children, the Second Demographic Transition, and Competing Alternatives. We then show that compared with Children- and Partnership-Oriented individuals, the Partnership-Oriented and Non-Family-Oriented were less likely to transition to parenthood. We found greater diversity in fertility behavior by latent attitude profiles than previous work, suggesting that more attention should be given to the role of attitude profiles in determining modern-day fertility intentions and behavior.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful suggestions from Eva Bernhardt, Helga de Valk, Dana Garbarski, Kia Sorensen, Elizabeth Thomson, Kimberly Turner; two anonymous reviewers; and the participants of the international conference on “Changing Families and Fertility Choices,” sponsored by the Research Council of Norway and Statistics Norway (Oslo, Norway; June 2013). This work was supported in part by the European Research Council Starting Grant project “Families of migrant origin: a life course perspective” (project number 263829) and a Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research Veni grant (grant number 016.125.054).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Statistics and Demography, University of Southampton, Highfield Campus, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

    Jennifer A. Holland

  2. Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Jennifer A. Holland

  3. Department of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Renske Keizer

  4. Research Institute of Child Development and Education (CDE), Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Renske Keizer

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Correspondence to Jennifer A. Holland.

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Holland, J.A., Keizer, R. Family Attitudes and Fertility Timing in Sweden. Eur J Population 31, 259–285 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-014-9333-x

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