Fertility Goals: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Impact for Science and Policy

Thursday, February 27, 2025
12-1:30 pm, Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5)

Register for Zoom link.

Beyond Yes and No: Uncertainty, Ambivalence, and Indifference in Reproductive Decision-Making
Monika Mynarska, Institute of Psychology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw

If people are asked about their fertility desires or intentions, their responses can rarely be narrowed down to a simple yes or no. Existing research consistently shows that many—if not most—individuals fall somewhere in between these extremes. The real challenge, however, is how to conceptualize and measure this middle ground effectively. Is uncertainty a midpoint between the extremes? Or is it a distinct category with its own meaning? Or perhaps it captures different phenomena, such as ambivalence and indifference? In this short talk, I will share insights from studies using data from Poland, the UK, and Denmark, illustrating how uncertainty, ambivalence, and indifference can manifest in reproductive decision-making.

Advancing Understanding of Pregnancy Preferences Using a Novel Prospective Measure
Corinne Rocca, Ob/Gyn and Reproductive Sciences, University of California-San Francisco

Most approaches to capturing people’s pregnancy desires and preferences in reproductive health and demographic research are conceptually and psychometrically limited, resulting in potentially misleading results. The development of the prospective Desire to Avoid Pregnancy (DAP) scale represents one approach to addressing some of the limitations. In this short presentation, I will describe the theoretic grounding, novel features, and psychometric properties of the DAP scale. I will discuss how the scale is being applied in two longitudinal studies in the United States, the Surveys of Women and the ADAPT Study, to advance understanding of the distribution, stability, and predictive ability of preferences, as well as the consequences of attaining or not attaining one’s reproductive preferences on maternal and child health and well-being. Finally, I will review the limitations and challenges of the scale’s use for demographic and clinical research more broadly.

Rethinking the Role of Fertility Intentions in Family Planning Measurement
Elizabeth Sully, Guttmacher Institute

The alignment between fertility intentions and behaviors has been the core foundation for decades in defining unmet need for contraception, but it has come under growing criticism for ascribing rather than asking people directly about their desires and preferences for using contraception.  Recent innovations in family planning measurement have proposed new indicators that do not account for fertility intentions in defining contraceptive need. This presentation will discuss these new directions for family planning measurement, and the benefits and challenges that come from disconnecting our measures of family planning need from fertility intentions.

Speaker bios:

Monika Mynarska is a psychologist and social demographer. She is an associate professor at the Institute of Psychology at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw and a research fellow at the Families and Generations Lab at the Warsaw School of Economics, where she coordinates the Polish Generations and Gender Programme (GGP). Since 2022, she has chaired the GGP Questionnaire Task Force. Her research interests lie at the intersection of psychology, family sociology, and social demography. She focuses on reproductive decision-making, particularly on the psychological determinants of the (weak to none) desire to have children. Employing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, she seeks to understand the factors contributing to individuals' fears, doubts, and uncertainties regarding parenthood. Recently, she has been exploring the concept of ambivalent motivations in relation to childbearing. Dr. Mynarska completed her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany.

Corinne Rocca is professor in residence in UCSF’s Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. An epidemiologist by training, her research focuses on investigating how social and attitudinal factors contribute to pregnancy decision-making and reproductive well-being within the context of people’s lives. Her team developed the Desire to Avoid Pregnancy (DAP) scale to advance how researchers conceptualize and measure pregnancy preferences prospectively and to promote person-centered approaches to care and public health programming. She is a former NICHD Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) scholar. Dr. Rocca has a PhD in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.

Elizabeth Sully is a principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, where she leads a research portfolio focused on the measurement of abortion and contraceptive need, the impact of restrictive policies on reproductive health services and outcomes, and modeling the impacts and cost of sexual and reproductive health care. She is co-chair of the FP2030 Performance Monitoring and Evidence Working Group, and co-chairs the IUSSP scientific panel on Rethinking Family Planning Measurement with a Rights and Justice Lens. Dr. Sully has a PhD in public affairs and demography from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the Office of Population Research.

Monday, March 24, 2025
12-1:30 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4)

Register for Zoom link.

Do Fertility Goals Provide a Good Approximation of Fertility Patterns?
Eva Beaujouan and Shalini Singh, Department of Demography, University of Vienna

Fertility goals are often considered rather weak predictors of aggregate fertility trends. Since fertility projections frequently rely on birth probabilities by age and parity, it is important to assess how well fertility goals approximate age-specific first and second birth patterns. This study examines the extent to which different measures of fertility goals align with actual birth probabilities and how this alignment varies across countries. Using data from the Human Fertility Database and the Generations and Gender Surveys in several countries in Europe and Latin America, we assess how fertility intentions and pregnancy attempts relate to birth probabilities by age and parity. Our findings show that the age distribution of women with strong short-term fertility intentions closely resembles the shape of age-specific birth probabilities for first and second children, though the size of the gap varies significantly across countries. When intentions are replaced by the more specific measure of "trying to conceive," the gap narrows, but inconsistencies emerge across age groups. Longitudinal data from PAIRFAM (13 waves) further refine our understanding of these discrepancies. Fertility goals provide valuable insights, but because they are dynamic and evolve over the life course, refining survey questions is essential to improving demographic projections and policy planning.Éva Beaujouan and Shalini Singh, Department of Demography, University of Vienna

Intended Parity and Subsequent Fertility in the U.S.: Longitudinal Evidence in the Post-Great Recession Years
Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Are fertility goals useful in predicting subsequent fertility? As fertility is increasingly postponed, driving down period fertility rates, understanding whether people’s fertility goals are realized could provide insight into likely future fertility trends. In this talk, I will discuss findings from my U.S.-based research on the correspondence between women’s intended parity during the prime childbearing years and actual at the end of the childbearing years, drawing from the Theory of Conjunctural Action and the Narratives of the Future framework to consider both objective and subjective socioeconomic conditions. I use longitudinal data corresponding with the Great Recession and its recovery period from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. The results confirm the role of standard socioeconomic measures and also highlight the importance of subjective measures. In general, more advantaged women were more likely to intend to have (more) children at both waves and to actually have children between waves. Furthermore, women who already had children by the Great Recession were more likely than their childless peers to have a(nother) child in the post-Recession period. The results suggest that post-Great Recession childbearing fundamentally altered both childbearing behaviors overall and the link between childbearing and socioeconomic status.

Fertility goals and fertility trends in sub-Saharan Africa: How well do they align?
Francis Obare Onyango, Population Council

The relatively high levels of fertility in sub-Saharan Africa compared with other regions of the world have partly been attributed to low use of modern contraception, but the patterns could also reflect the prevailing childbearing preferences which may influence the prevailing contraceptive practices. Based on the most recent nationally representative household survey (Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) or Malaria Indicator Surveys (MIS)) conducted after the year 2020, for instance, the total fertility rate in the region ranged from 2.5 children per woman in Lesotho to 6.2 children per woman in Niger. The mean ideal number of children among women aged 15-49 years (of 2.5 children) in Lesotho was aligned with the total fertility rate in the country. Despite the alignment observed in Lesotho, fertility goals and fertility rates are not unform across countries or sub-groups. This analysis explores the extent to which fertility goals and fertility rates align across different countries and sub-groups with a view to deriving some implications for fertility decline in the region. We specifically examine patterns at the national level across different countries in sub-Saharan Africa with the most recent DHS conducted since 2000. We then narrow down to comparing patterns across selected population sub-groups (e.g., by level of education) using examples of two countries with different fertility regimes: Kenya where fertility declined by 1.3 children per woman over a period of 25 years, and Mozambique where fertility declined by 0.3 children per woman over the same period.

Speaker Bios:

Eva Beaujouan is an associate professor at the Wittgenstein Centre in the Department of Demography of the University of Vienna. She joined the center in 2012 to work on trends in fertility, fertility intentions, and partnership, integrating education (level, participation) into her studies. In addition she studies fertility and family change, especially in countries where parenthood is delayed. She is the PI of the ERC Consolidator Grant BIC.LATE "Biological, Individual and Contextual Factors of Fertility Recovery." As part of this project, she and her team are investigating reproductive dynamics and the conditions under which people in their late 30s and 40s have children. Dr. Beaujouan has a PhD in demography from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Cridup) - Institut National d’Études Démographiques (Ined) in France.

Shalini Singh is a PhD candidate at the Wittgenstein Centre in the Department of Demography of the University of Vienna and a member of the BIC.LATE (Biological, Individual and Contextual Factors of Fertility Recovery) team. Her research focuses on reproductive decision-making in the context of delayed parenthood, with a particular emphasis on the social dimensions of reproduction, including late fertility intentions, conceiving attempts, and reproductive outcomes. Shalini received her Master of Philosophy in Population Studies and her Master of Science in Population Studies from the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India.

Karen Benjamin Guzzo is professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and serves as director of the Carolina Population Center. She is a family sociologist and demographer whose work considers patterns and variation in family formation, primarily working with survey data. Dr. Guzzo is an expert on trends and differentials in U.S. fertility preferences and fertility behaviors, such as delayed childbearing and childlessness, fertility intentions, nonmarital fertility, and childbearing across partnerships. She serves as a deputy editor for Demography and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Family Theory and Review, and Family Transitions. She also serves as a board member for the Population Association of America and chair-elect of the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Sociology of Population section. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and did postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania.

Francis Obare Onyango is a senior research associate with the Population Council in Kenya. He has two decades of experience conducting research on a wide range of sexual, reproductive, and public health topics, ranging from introduction of new reproductive, maternal and newborn health technologies and access to reproductive health services among vulnerable groups to the reproductive health needs of adolescents living with HIV. His research spans a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, eSwatini (Swaziland), and Ethiopia. He has made significant contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge by serving on editorial boards of BMC Women’s Health and Studies in Family Planning journals. Dr. Obare Onyango holds a PhD in demography from the University of Pennsylvania.

Thursday, April 10, 2025
9 am – 5 pm local time

River Birch A&B, Westin DC Downtown
999 9th Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20001

The event is open to all, but space is limited. Registration is required in advance; you will receive an email confirmation.

Speakers include:

• Kathryn Kost, Guttmacher Institute
• Raquel Zanatta Coutinho, Department of Demography, Federal University of Minas Gerais
• Nkechi Owoo, Department of Economics, University of Ghana
• Sara Yeatman, Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences, University of Colorado-Denver
• Alison Gemmill, Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins University
• Jia Yu, Center for Social Research, Peking University
• Jenny Trinitapoli, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
• Amanda Stevenson, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado-Boulder
• Daniele Vignoli, Department of Demography, University of Florence
• Jennifer Barber, Department of Sociology, Indiana University
• Alaka Basu, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University
• Mahesh Karra, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University

The workshop will include lunch and a closing reception.

A full program is available here.