Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Past research of fertility outcomes has examined various predictors of childlessness
and childbearing postponement such as higher educational levels and delayed marriage. Studies have also examined the relationship between fertility intentions and subsequent behavior. In addition to including employment status as a predictor of childbearing, the study presented here attempts to combine these past areas of research by investigating four groups of women who differ on their past fertility behavior and present intentions in an effort to predict future fertility outcomes. Findings of this study suggest that women in each of the four groups differ from each other substantially on demographic variables such as education, age, employment, race, and marital status. These variables differ on their impacts on fertility outcomes for each of the groups. The current study indicates the importance of including those who have already had at least one child and of incorporating employment variables in studies of fertility intentions and outcomes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In 2003, the majority of Americans (52 percent) considered two children to be the “ideal” family size (Gallup 2003). The percentage stating two children are ideal increased steadily following an all time low (16 percent) in 1962 near the height of the baby boom, and then peaked at 59 percent in 1986 (ibid.). However, during the 1990s, as the percentage stating that two children were ideal decreased, the percentage who gave three children as ideal increased. This paper examines the potential causes of the increase in an effort to better understand characteristics driving fertility variation in a post-demographic transition setting. One possible explanation of this unexpected trend is that children have become the ultimate form of conspicuous consumption. If there has been an increase in the number of three-child families among the wealthy, and if the tastes of the rich influence those of the general population, then the fertility behavior of those with higher incomes may drive overall ideals. To test this hypothesis, I will compare the characteristics of families that actually have three children with those who desire three children. Analyzing ideal family size thus provides opportunities to better understand both fertility as well as taste-making.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The 1980s were the high water mark of concern and public programming directed at (curbing) teen pregnancy rates, which have declined in the years since (Child Trends, 2002). This might lead one to conclude that participation in sex education programs was an effective deterrent to teenage premarital fertility. This paper simultaneously tests this idea with a competing hypothesis, that social capital has a greater effect on adolescent fertility than sex ed programs. The rationale is based on Coleman’s (1988) argument that social capital facilitates both the internalization and enforcement of societal norms for behavior, in this case adolescent childbearing. An important feature of social capital is what Coleman termed “closure” – where the people one knows also know each other. I find that certain forms of social capital – that between an adolescent and his/her parents and his/her school officials – have significant effects in lessening the odds of a teenage birth by the tenth grade, while neither parental relations with the school and its officials, nor sex ed participation, has any effect. While this runs counter to the closure hypothesis, these results strengthen social capital as an important concept for the process of teenage premarital fertility.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper analyzes and discusses fertility trends in the years following the fall of the Khmers Rouges’ regime in Cambodia, a regime characterized by a mortality crisis of an unmatched intensity in the second half of the 20th century. Reviews of demographic responses to exogenous shocks in historical populations (e.g., Lee 1997) suggest that post-crisis fertility rebounds are not uncommon but driven by marital fertility surges that result from the increase in the number of susceptible women following the conception dearth during a crisis. There was clearly a post-Khmer-Rouge baby boom in Cambodia but some of its features do not seem to fit the standard explanation above. The data analyzed in this paper were hence collected specifically to allow for more detailed analyses of the components of the Cambodian baby boom.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: this paper examines the effect of son preference on the hazards of having a second and a third birth. With data from South Korea’s 2000 National Fertility Rate and Family Health Survey by the KIHSA (the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs), the hazards of having a second birth among 5,670 married women who have a first birth, and the hazard of having a third birth among 4,325 married women who had two births were examined. These two hazards were analyzed by estimating Cox proportional hazard model. The major covariate in the first analysis is whether or not the first-born was a daughter. In the second analysis the main covariate is whether both of the first two children were girls. In both models five covariates known to have independent effects on the transition to a second (or third) birth are controlled for, namely, her age at the birth of the first (or second) child, whether she lives in urban area, and three dummy variables reflecting her level of education. The results show the important influence of son preference and the family pressure on it on the hazard of having a second baby. Comparing South Korea’s results with those of China, China hazards models were more perfect than those of South Korea, and the association between son preference and fertility of China was stronger than that of South Korea.