Value Orientations and Fertility Intentions of Finnish Men and Women
In thispaper we examine howpersona! values and attitudes are related to childbearingintentions among 18-40-year-old Finnish men and women. Wefocus on religiousand individualistic values and on attitudes towardschildrenand thefamily, as well asattitudes towards work and gender roles. The impact of value and attitude orientationsand situationalfactors onfertility decision-making are investigated separatelyat parities 0, 1 and 2 using logistic regression. Our study uses a subsample of 1,237men andwomen drawnfrom thePPA2survey ofthe attitudes ofFinns towardsfamilyand children,family policy measures, values in life as well as theirfertility intentions.Wefind that information on persona! values and attitudes does increase our knowledgeon determinants of childbearing intentions and decision-making, although notali our initial hypotheses concerning the association, or direction of the association,between certain attitudes and fertility intentions were confirmed in the data. Religiousvalues, as well as work-relatedattitudes and individualistic values appeared tohave little bearing on childbearing intentions, while various attitudes towards childrenwere related to intentions to have (more) children. In addition, a conservativefamilistic attitude was related to intentions as well as gender role attitudes. The impactof values and attitudes varied by parity, providing support to the nation thatchildbearing decisions are made sequentially".