Abstract
The frequency of uncertainty in response to survey questions on fertility expectations is relatively high. This is inconsistent with the classical rational choice model implicit in much demographic research. Whether for this or other reasons, the phenomenon is by and large overlooked. Uncertainty in relation to fertility is, we suggest, genuine rather than the result of faulty measurement or poorly motivated responses. Its relatively high frequency requires that it is accounted for in any theory of fertility decision making.
Adapting ideas from behavioral economics, psychology, and political science we propose an alternative theoretical approach in which fertility intentions and preferences are thought of as constructed. Preferences are constructed when they are not drawn from a stored memory but assembled on the spot from information accessible at the time; reports of such preferences can be very sensitive to context. In this approach, uncertainty is not anomalous and some enduring apparent contradictions in survey findings on fertility intentions, expectations and preferences are explicable. Ideas in political science have the potential to enhance our understanding of responses to survey questions on preferences and intentions. Preference construction theory could provide an avenue to a better understanding of fertility preferences. Desired family size may, we suggest, be a discovery rather than a goal. Establishing the nature, origin and operation of fertility preferences is essential to answering the question whether fertility differentials and trends reflect choice or constraint or some mixture of the two.
If we’ve got questions, then they’ve got answers
It is perhaps a testimony to the coerciveness of interview situations how rarely participants say don’t know, much less try to bolt…
(Fischhoff 1991)
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Notes
- 1.
Early skepticism is evident in Hauser’s (1967) comment that “(i)t is quite possible that many of the responses in KAP surveys are efforts at politeness to meaningless queries or forced responses to questions to which the respondent really has no answer either before or after the question is put.”
- 2.
Of the studies on ideals/intentions/expectations identified, 43 employed survey data. In three quarters of these (33/43), some information was available on uncertainty (including “don’t know” answers); just over a third of the total (15/43) used the uncertainty information for analytic purposes, and just 28% (12/43) reported any figures on uncertainty. Details of the search terms used and the journals covered are available from the authors.
- 3.
Westoff and Ryder (1977b:431) comment that “(a)lthough most of the data from surveys refer to expectations…. (i)t is our judgment that no sensible difference results from these different wordings.”
- 4.
It can be suggested that a person can “intend” to do something but lack control over the fulfilment of this intention and so “expect” a quite different outcome. This would be a misuse of the word “intend”. A person may desire some outcome, but if major barriers to the outcome can be foreseen, they can hardly be said to “intend” it. They could, however, reasonably say that they “intend to try” to reach that end result. In addition, to tell an interviewer that they intend to do something, but that they expect some quite different result, is to acknowledge considerable lack of control. It is therefore not surprising to find that reports of intended and expected fertility differ very little. Further, if a person has a strong desire for something that they know they are extremely unlikely to achieve, one wonders how likely they are to report and perhaps even be aware of that preference. It seems possible, perhaps even likely, that cognitive dissonance will close the gap between reports of preference and expectation.
- 5.
The General Household Survey data series used in this paper are weighted throughout by a set of weights constructed on a consistent basis for annual GHS rounds from 1979 to 2009, for use in analysis of individuals responding to the Family Information section of the questionnaire with valid revised fertility histories. Details of the revisions to the fertility histories are given in Ní Bhrolcháin et al. (2011) and of the weights in Beaujouan et al. (2011).
- 6.
The birth expectations question is: “Do you think that you will have any (more) children (at all) (after the one you are expecting)?” The wording remained almost the same from 1979 to 2009 (with a minor change in 1995 and 1996; see Smallwood and Jefferies 2003); the words “at all” were omitted from 1998 on. From 1979 to 1990 precoded answer categories were “yes”, “no” and “don’t know”. From 1991 onwards, a showcard was used, with answer options “yes”, “probably yes”, “probably not”, and “no”; those initially answering “don’t know” are probed further and recoded “probably yes” or “probably not” where possible. “Don’t know” and no answer are a small group, just 1–2% overall, and 2–6% of those classified here as uncertain, from 1991 on.
- 7.
Kuhnt and Buhr (2016) adopt what they describe as a narrow definition of uncertainty and exclude from the “uncertain” category people who have never thought about their fertility expectations or who answer simply that they “don’t know”. This is too restrictive in our view. A person who has never given their future fertility any thought or who says they don’t know what they want or expect is, in our view, uncertain in their preference.
- 8.
In a less developed country context, Trinitapoli and Yeatman (2017) appear to equate uncertain intentions with flexible intentions. That does not seem altogether accurate. If a person has not yet formed any fertility desires or intentions, they are uncertain and it would be inaccurate to describe them as flexible. A person who has considered what they want but remains uncertain might possibly be flexible in preference but that cannot be assumed.
- 9.
The term “stated preferences” is used here to describe the answers given to questions in questionnaire surveys, rather than in the sense used in environmental valuation exercises conducted in applied economics.
- 10.
Some social groups, especially the least well educated, have children at relatively early ages. To what extent such early childbearing results from well-articulated preferences and to what extent through the fuzzier and less intentional processes documented in the family planning literature is an open question. In general, we would suggest that the older the age at childbearing in a social group, and the more distant the prospect, the less well-formed preferences and intentions will be at any given age.
- 11.
See Kahneman (1996) on how we would expect an agent whose preferences are constructed to act.
- 12.
This is sometimes interpreted as reflecting a lack of realism in the fertility expectations of young people. The lack of realism might be more accurately attributed to the survey practice of asking questions on fertility preferences and expectations of young people who have not yet formed such desires and expectations or are vague on the subject.
- 13.
The pseudo cohorts are the sequence of observations of people born in a particular year of period, and observed, at successive ages, in a series of annual cross-sectional surveys. The data are from a time-series database of annual cross-sectional General Household Surveys in the UK.
- 14.
In commenting on the difficulties associated with asking people whether an unplanned pregnancy was mistimed or unwanted altogether, he writes “…there may be no answer to the question. From the standpoint of the actions necessary to fulfill their reproductive intentions, all that a couple needs to have in mind is whether to permit the next ovulation to come to fruition. Should they decide in the negative, use contraception, and fail, then they know that they have failed to prevent the pregnancy, but they may not have had any opinion before the fact as to whether they were trying to delay or to terminate. For others, the answer may be difficult because their minds were less than certain on the subject” (Ryder 1973, 502).
- 15.
The assumption that people have clear goals in their everyday lives may be a natural one for achievement-oriented academic scientists. It is less clear how valid it is of the general population. The self-help section of, e.g., amazon.com abounds in books offering advice not only on achieving personal goals but on identifying such goals in the first place. Such titles as‘I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It’, ‘Goal Setting: The Ultimate Guide To Achieving Goals That Truly Excite You’ and ‘The Magic Lamp: Goal Setting For People Who Hate Setting Goals’ give a flavour of the genre.
- 16.
Effective preferences may have an implicit component, a largely unconscious motivation or orientation of the type now widely accepted and discussed in dual process theory in psychology (Wilson et al. 2000; Evans 2008). See also Miller (1994) and Bachrach and Morgan (2013) in relation to implicit fertility desires and intentions.
- 17.
- 18.
It seems likely that there are a host of factors that shape fertility preferences. Hayford (2009) and Bachrach and Morgan (2013) suggest a range of potential influences. Johnson-Hanks (2005) and Johnson-Hanks et al. (2011) emphasize in particular the social and cultural embeddedness of fertility intentions and preferences.
- 19.
- 20.
Adaptive preference formation occurs when a person comes to prefer what is feasible, and may involve a change from a preference for an option that proved not to be feasible. Trinitapoli and Yeatman’s (2017) proposal that preferences are flexible could be seen as an instance of adaptive preference formation. Our theoretical approach does not involve such a process. In our scheme, a person could decide that none of a set of restricted options is acceptable.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is a revised version of “How real are reproductive goals? Uncertainty and construction of fertility preferences”, CPC Working Paper 73, Centre of Population Change, University of Southampton 2015. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at several seminars and conferences, including the conference “From Intentions to Behaviour: Reproductive Decision-Making in a Macro-Micro Perspective”, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, December 2010; the University of Southampton, March 2011; the UK Office for National Statistics, November 2011;the Population Association of America Annual Meeting, San Francisco, April 2012; and the European Population Conference, Stockholm, June 2012.We thank participants at these meetings for their thoughtful reflections and comments.
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Bhrolcháin, M.N., Beaujouan, É. (2019). Do People Have Reproductive Goals? Constructive Preferences and the Discovery of Desired Family Size. In: Schoen, R. (eds) Analytical Family Demography. The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis, vol 47. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93227-9_3
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