ArticleDemography2020
Preferences, Partners, and Parenthood: Linking Early Fertility Desires, Marriage Timing, and Achieved Fertility.
Article in Demography, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 53 citations in OpenAlex.
- Family planning of infertile couples: a systematic review of intentions regarding parenthood and return to ART.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Scars of birth: caesarean delivery and fertility intentions among women of reproductive age in sub-Saharan Africa.Reproductive health · 2026Article
- Infertility and Unrealized Ideal Family Size.Population and development review · 2026Article
- Trends and Levels in Men's and Women's Fertility Goals in the United States.Population research and policy review · 2026Article
- Application of machine learning algorithms and SHAP explanations to predict fertility preference among reproductive women in Somalia.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Fertility knowledge, desire, and associated factors among Iranian couples: a cross-sectional study in Northwest Iran.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Childbearing intentions and influencing factors among single young adults in South Korea: a cross-sectional study.Child health nursing research · 2025Article
- Decoding fertility behaviour of married women in Zambia: A multipronged analysis of bio-demographic, socio-economic and intermediate factors.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Perceptions of the Future and Pregnancy Avoidance in the U.S.Population research and policy review · 2025Article
- Validation and dyadic invariance of the Infertility Concerns Questionnaire among Brazilian couples.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Partnership trajectories preceding medically assisted reproduction.Population studies · 2024Article
- Educational experiences and American young adults' childbearing goals: A research note.Journal of marriage and the family · 2024Article
- Child Allowances and Work-Family Reconciliation Policies: What Best Reduces Child Poverty and Gender Inequality While Enabling Desired Fertility?Population research and policy review · 2023Article
- Evolving Fertility Goals and Behaviors in Current U.S. Childbearing Cohorts.Population and development review · 2023Article
- The Formation and Realization of Fertility Goals Among a US Cohort in the Post-Recession Years.Population and development review · 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
- Desired Fertility and Educational Aspirations: Adolescent Goals in Rapidly Changing Social Contexts.Journal of marriage and the family · 2022Article
- Prediction models and associated factors on the fertility behaviors of the floating population in China.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Racial Pairings and Fertility: Do Interracial Couples Have Fewer Children?Journal of marriage and the family · 2021Article
- Late, But Not Too Late? Postponement of First Birth Among Highly Educated US Women.European journal of population = Revue europeenne de demographie · 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
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In the United States, underachieving fertility desires is more common among women with higher levels of education and those who delay first marriage beyond their mid-20s. However, the relationship between these patterns, and particularly the degree to which marriage postponement explains lower fertility among the highly educated, is not well understood. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort to analyze differences in parenthood and achieved parity for men and women, focusing on the role of marriage timing in achieving fertility goals over the life course. We expand on previous research by distinguishing between entry into parenthood and average parity among parents as pathways to underachieving, by considering variation in the impact of marriage timing by education and by stage of the life course, and by comparing results for men and women. We find that women with a bachelor's degree who desired three or more children are less likely to become mothers relative to women with the same desired family size who did not attend college. Conditional on becoming mothers, however, women with at least a bachelor's degree do not have lower completed family size. No comparable fatherhood difference by desired family size is present. Postponing marriage beyond age 30 is associated with lower proportions of parenthood but not with lower parity among parents. Age patterns are similar for women and men, pointing at social rather than biological factors driving the underachievement of fertility goals.
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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.