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She Wants, He Wants: Couple’s Childbearing Desires in Austria

    Maria Rita Testa

VID Working Papers, pp. 1-31, 2021/12/02

doi: 10.1553/0x003d08f2


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doi:10.1553/0x003d08f2

Abstract

This paper analyses couples’ childbearing desires by using data from the Austrian Generationand Gender Survey (GGS) conducted in 2008. Couple disagreement is examined, first,independently of whether only she or he wants a child, second, by looking at the predictors ofhis and her dissent separately. Special emphasis is given to the role of the intra-householdbargaining power of each member of the couple. Results show that disagreement is most likelyfor all unmarried couples that do not have any common child and if the male partner isunemployed. Moreover, conflict increases in all partnerships with at least one common child ifthe female partner has brought biological children from a previous relationship into the currentunion. Generally speaking, women attribute more importance to their own desires than to theirpartner’s ones, while men give as much emphasis to their partner’s fertility desires as to theirown ones when they report their personal child-timing intentions. Couple disagreement is oneof the most relevant predictors of subsequent fertility behaviour.

Keywords: Partner’s fertility desire, fertility decision-making, couple agreement on childbearing plans, bargaining power, contraceptive behaviour