Religion, Ideal Family Size, and Abortion: Extending Renzi's Hypothesis

1980 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 397 ◽  
Author(s):  
William V. D'Antonio ◽  
Steven Stack
Keyword(s):  
Family Size ◽  
Ideal Family Size ◽  
Ideal Family

scholarly journals PERIOD AND COHORT DYNAMICS IN FERTILITY NORMS AT THE ONSET OF THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION IN KENYA 1978–1998

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. WHITE ◽  
C. HALL ◽  
B. WOLFF
Keyword(s):  
Family Size ◽  
Fertility Decline ◽  
Fertility Transition ◽  
Period Effect ◽  
High Fertility ◽  
Demographic Model ◽  
Ideal Family Size ◽  
Age Cohorts ◽  
Ideal Family ◽  
Rapid Fall

Summary.A characteristic of African pre-transitional fertility regimes is large ideal family size. This has been used to support claims of cultural entrenchment of high fertility. Yet in Kenya fertility rates have fallen. In this paper this fall is explored in relation to trends in fertility norms and attitudes using four sequential cross-sectional surveys spanning the fertility transition in Kenya (1978, 1984, 1989 and 1998). The most rapid fall in the reported ideal family size occurred between 1984 and 1989, whilst the most rapid fall in the total fertility rate occurred 5 to 10 years later, between 1989 and 1998. Thus these data, spanning the fertility transition in Kenya, support the traditional demographic model that demand for fertility limitation drives fertility decline. These data also suggest that the decline in fertility norms over time was partly a period effect, as the reported ideal family size was seen to fall simultaneously in all age cohorts, and partly a cohort effect, as older age cohorts reporting higher ideal family sizes were replaced by younger cohorts reporting lower ideal family sizes. These data also suggest that a new fertility norm of four children may have developed by 1989 and continued until 1998. This is consistent with, and perhaps could have been used to predict, the stall in the Kenyan fertility decline after 1998.

Family planning in Lae urban area of Papua New Guinea 1981

1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
William K. A. Agyei
Keyword(s):  
Family Planning ◽  
Urban Area ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Family Size ◽  
Contraceptive Use ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Ideal Family Size ◽  
Ideal Family ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Ideal

SummaryA summary of 298 male and 358 female respondents in the Lae urban area of Papua New Guinea in 1981 revealed a relatively high level of contraceptive awareness, but the level of contraceptive use is low. However, the overall current usages of non-traditional methods for the wives of the male and for the female respondents are 34–2% and 37% respectively. The male and the female respondents have the same views on the ideal family size—approximately three children.

Ideal family size in the Irish Republic

1980 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Wilson-Davis
Keyword(s):  
Family Size ◽  
Ideal Family Size ◽  
Ideal Family ◽  
Irish Data ◽  
Irish Republic ◽  
Western European

SummarySummary From a survey conducted in the Irish Republic, data on ideal family size are given. Irish wives have high family size preferences, the overall mean ideal family size being 4.3 children. The Irish data are compared with American and western European; they show that the ideals of wives in Ireland are significantly higher than in these other countries. The concept of ideal family size appears to possess validity in its own right, and is not solely a rationalization of actual fertility experience.

The limits of acceptable family size: evidence from Melbourne, Australia

1973 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Ware
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Family Size ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Ideal Family Size ◽  
Ideal Family ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Family ◽  
Zero Population Growth ◽  
Lower Limits

SummaryThe data in this paper are drawn from interviews with a probability sample of 2652 once-married women under the age of 60 currently living with their husbands in 1971 in metropolitan Melbourne. Although drawing from other material from the 2½ hr interviews the discussion concentrates upon the family size ideals of these wives. In addition to the customary measures of ideal family size, new measures of the upper and lower limits of acceptable family size are described, together with the reactions of the whole sample to a wide range of specified family sizes and the reasons for accepting or rejecting them. It is shown that the eventual achievement of zero population growth will almost certainly depend upon the two-child family becoming the norm for the great majority of couples, since childless or one-child marriages are desired by only 2% of couples. Currently, however, 20% of wives consider two-child families to be undesirably small. The marked religious, country of origin and educational differentials in acceptance of the two-child family are also discussed.

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