This study aimed to demonstrate how the inconsistent use and wording of a preceding relevant question affects the cross-country comparability of questions about short-term fertility intentions in the GGS. The results show that the overall share of respondents intending to have a child at some point in their life is similar in all four analysed countries. However, once the time horizon and the degree of certainty of fertility intentions are included, substantial cross-country differences appear, particularly in terms of realisation.
Due to the inconsistent adaptation of the survey questionnaire, we are not able to fully assess the role of country context for the realisation of childbearing intentions. For instance, women with definite short-term intentions seem to realise them more frequently in France than in other countries. However, we cannot determine whether this is due to their generally higher fertility or a narrower selection into that question through a more specific preceding question and the fact that it was used as a filter. Therefore, in line with Gauthier et al. (2018), we strongly recommend a coordinated, centralised and highly disciplined data collection that provides truly cross-nationally comparable data.
We also clearly demonstrate that the question “Are you currently trying to have a child?” is much better suited than “Do you want to have a baby now?” for the survey section focusing on fecundity and as a preceding relevant question. Particularly, only half of the respondents who gave a positive answer to the “want now” question in Austria and Poland were not using contraceptives. In France, the corresponding figure for those currently trying exceeded 90%. The French question seems to be understood unambiguously by the respondents whereas the Austrian and Polish one, implemented verbatim from the core GGS questionnaire, obviously does not.
In addition, in both Austria and Poland, the overlap between respondents wanting a baby now and definitely intending to have one within three years is surprisingly small, with levels as low as 30% (Austria) and 40% (Poland) among women aged 35+ . The reason for this low-reporting consistency may be found in Miller’s (2011) insights into reproductive decision-making, and the distinction he makes between desires (“to want”) and intentions (“to intend”): “the former simply reflect a wish to achieve a goal through some sort of action, whereas intentions involve a specific decision to pursue an actionable goal, with an associated commitment and, commonly, a plan for implementing the decision” (Miller 2011, p. 78). Clearly, asking respondents about whether they want a child now tells us much more about respondents’ current childbearing desire than about their actual actions undertaken to satisfy that desire.
The low correlation between the answers to these two questions encourages us to assume that the presence or absence of the “want now” question should not affect the answers to the question about short-term fertility intentions. Thus, the fact that the proportion of women who definitely intend to have a child within the next three years is lower in Italy, where the “want now” question was not asked, than in other country can be possibly attributed to other reasons than differences in the questionnaire, for example to the chronic economic and institutional problems that discourage Italians from making definite childbearing plans.
Our study offers two further insights. First, while among respondents at prime reproductive age, the realisation rates are higher for those definitely intending to have a child within three years or wanting one now than for those probably intending to have one, among respondents at late reproductive age this difference disappears. The case numbers at later ages are small, but the pattern is consistent across countries. Possibly, at a later age, higher numbers of women have fecundity problems among those who definitely intend to have a child. Alternatively, women at late reproductive age become more aware of possible age-related sterility and adapt their intentions (Wagner et al. 2019). Consequently, the certainty level becomes less predictive of childbearing behaviour.
Second, among women aged 35+ wanting a child now (Austria and Poland) and trying to have one (France), the share who actually give birth remains far below the estimated biological fecundity at this age (Leridon 2008). This is particularly puzzling in the case of France, where over nine in ten women trying to have a child adopt a proceptive behaviour and where women at younger ages have substantially higher realisation rates than in the other two countries. Furthermore, in Italy, a country with the latest childbearing schedules in the world, the realisation rates among women aged 35+ definitely intending to have a child within the next three years are significantly higher than in Austria and France, despite the fact that the figures among Italian women at prime reproductive ages are substantially lower than in these two countries. These two findings suggest that the realisation of fertility intentions at older ages may partly hinge on the prevailing social norms regarding age limits for having children.