ArticleDemography2020
The Enduring Case for Fertility Desires.
Article in Demography, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Infant Mortality Expectation and Fertility Behavior in Rural Malawi.Demography · 2026Article
- Scars of birth: caesarean delivery and fertility intentions among women of reproductive age in sub-Saharan Africa.Reproductive health · 2026Article
- Changes in Fertility Trends and Women's Fertility Desires in the Wake of the Homicide Surge in Mexico.Population research and policy review · 2026Article
- Determinants of fertility desire among reproductive aged married and cohabiting women in Ethiopia a multilevel analysis of PMAET 2021 data.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Fertility intention and its correlates with reproductive-aged married women in Ethiopia: an adapted theory of planned behavior (TPB).Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Perceptions of the Future and Pregnancy Avoidance in the U.S.Population research and policy review · 2025Article
- Income loss and fertility intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.Revista brasileira de estudos de populacao · 2025Article
- Fertility Desires and Contraceptive Transition.Population and development review · 2024Article
- How genuine are sub-replacement ideal family sizes in urban China?Population studies · 2024Article
- State-Level Immigrant Policies and Ideal Family Size in the United States.Population and development review · 2024Article
- Educational experiences and American young adults' childbearing goals: A research note.Journal of marriage and the family · 2024Article
- Reproductive autonomy and the experience of later-than-desired pregnancy: results from a cross-sectional survey of reproductive-aged women in Uganda.Reproductive health · 2024Article
- Traditional supports and contemporary disrupters of high fertility desires in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review.Reproductive health · 2023Article
- Stability and Relevance of Marriage Desires: Importance of Age Norms and Partnering Opportunities.Journal of marriage and the family · 2023Article
- Measuring Fertility Intentions During Times of Crisis: An Example Using Survey Data Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic.Studies in family planning · 2023Article
- Research Note: Intergenerational Transmission Is Not Sufficient for Positive Long-Term Population Growth.Demography · 2022Article
- "It changed the atmosphere surrounding the baby I did have": Making sense of reproduction during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of marriage and the family · 2022Article
- Life After Loss: A Prospective Analysis of Mortality Exposure and Unintended Fertility.Demography · 2022Article
- Article
- Fertility intentions and outcomes in Indonesia: Evolutionary perspectives on sexual conflict.Evolutionary human sciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Persistently high levels of unintended fertility, combined with evidence that over- and underachieved fertility are typical and not exceptional, have prompted researchers to question the utility of fertility desires writ large. In this study, we elaborate this paradox: widespread unintendedness and meaningful, highly predictive fertility desires can and do coexist. Using data from Malawi, we demonstrate the predictive validity of numeric fertility timing desires over both four-month and one-year periods. We find that fertility timing desires are highly predictive of pregnancy and that they follow a gradient wherein the likelihood of pregnancy decreases in correspondence with desired time to next birth. This finding holds despite the simultaneous observation of high levels of unintended pregnancy in our sample. Discordance between desires and behaviors reflects constraints to achieving one's fertility and the fluidity of desires but not their irrelevance. Fertility desires remain an essential-if sometimes blunt-tool in the demographers' toolkit.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.