Fertility Intentions and Ideals After Sibling Loss: Evidence from a High Adult-mortality Context

• In Event: 2255 - Social Contextual Influences on Fertility Preferences

Abstract

Since the advent of demographic transition theory, a substantial body of research has investigated the relationship between child mortality and fertility. Yet we continue to know little about how fertility varies with other types of familial mortality. In this study, we investigate the relationship between sibling mortality and women’s fertility intentions and ideals, focusing on the high-mortality context of the Andean region of Peru. Using population-representative data from the Demographic Health Surveys (N=41,802), we examine the effects of sibling loss and two sources of heterogeneity: the sex composition of the deceased and, among women who have lost a sister specifically, the effects of losing a sister to maternal mortality versus to another cause of death. Results indicate that prospective fertility intentions and ideal fertility both increase with sibling loss. However, the odds that women desire any children at all are higher when women have lost more sisters than brothers. Among those who have lost a sister, however, the experience of this loss is associated with lower odds of desiring future children when the death was caused by maternal mortality rather than by another cause. Taken together, these findings expand demographic understandings of the relationship between familial mortality and individual-level fertility, suggesting that not only child (offspring) mortality, but also adult sibling mortality, is closely related to whether and how many children women desire.

Authors

• Kathleen Broussard, University of Texas

• Abigail Weitzman, University of Texas