Plans and Worries: The Economic Context of Fertility Intentions among Young Adults

Claudia Geist, University of Utah
Sarah R. Brauner-Otto, Mississippi State University
Kelin Li, University of Utah

Fertility intentions are an important component of understanding future fertility patterns. In this paper we examine three dimensions of fertility intentions to better understand the extent to which economic resources and constraints shape young adults’ family plans. To empirically examine these relationships we use data from the Transition to Adulthood Study (TA), a component of the Panel Study of Income Dyanamics (PSID) from 2005, 2007, and 2009. We find that economic context matters for whether or not respondents think it is likely that they will have any children, and for the planned timing of first parenthood. We find little evidence for that economic context matters beyond education for the ideal number of children. We further find that the ways in which economic context, especially labor market involvement and earnings matter for fertility intentions are deeply gendered.