Unrealized Fertility: Fertility Desires at the End of the Reproductive Career

• In Event: 149 - Regular Session. Fertility: Childbearing Decisions, Regrets, and Reassessments

Abstract

Classifying observed fertility as intended or unintended is a well-established practice. Comparison of actual fertility with fertility desires reveals a third phenomenon which has hardly been examined for societies outside the West, namely a failure to achieve fertility goals. One fundamental failure is falling short of the number of desired children. This research begins to redress this gap in the empirical literature through a multi-country examination of “unrealized fertility”, defined here as a reproductive career which falls short of the desired number of births (a quantum definition of “unrealized fertility”). The assessment is carried out at the end of the reproductive career (women aged 44-48). We analyze 278 surveys conducted in 82 countries from 1974 to the present (WFS, DHS, RHS, PAP), a pooled sample of 300,413 individual women. Two indicators of unrealized fertility are proposed. We examine levels, trends, and association with age at first birth.

Authors

• John B. Casterline, The Ohio State University

• Siqi Han, The Ohio State University