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This study aimed to investigate the fertility knowledge and its related factors in married men and women in Zanjan, Iran. In this cross-sectional study, 1200 individuals (including 600 women aged 18–49 years and 600 men aged 18–59 years) referred to urban and rural health centres in Zanjan, were recruited through cluster sampling from June to September 2020. The Cardiff Fertility Knowledge Scale was used to assess fertility knowledge. Data were analysed by descriptive statistical methods such as mean and standard deviation and analytical statistics, including independent sample t-test, ANOVA test, Pearson Correlation and Linear Regression were used. The average correct scores of fertility knowledge were 49.7%, 53.3%, and 51.55% for men, women, and in total, respectively. The multiple linear regression model showed that fertility knowledge was significantly related to being female, being from a higher economic status, having desire to have children in the future, and having desire to increase fertility knowledge (all p < 0.05). Fertility knowledge among the Iranian reproductive-age men and women was modest. The findings suggested that interventions to increase fertility knowledge are essential, especially interventions targeting men and lower socioeconomic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined self-reported reasons to postpone childbearing during fertility decline in Finland in 2010s and their associations with sociodemographic factors, as well as social media use and work-related attitudes. Using representative survey data from Finnish Family Barometers, the sample comprised participants aged 20–44 who did not plan having (more) children soon. Based on exploratory factor analysis, reasons to postpone childbearing were grouped into uncertain life situation, lifestyle preferences, and completed fertility. Regression analysis results indicate that more stable life situation, infrequent social media use, and lower work-orientation were related to lower uncertainty, whereas being a woman, having no children, frequent social media use, and higher work-orientation were associated with increased lifestyle preferences. Uncertain life situation and lifestyle preferences influence childbearing decisions independently of sociodemographic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data from the European Social Survey (2018), this paper examines ideas about the ideal age to become a parent in 28 European countries. Using multi-level models, it assesses the impact of real timing of childbirth and childlessness acceptance at the country level while controlling for individual characteristics. The findings show that the variability of ideas about ideal age at the country level is relatively limited and correlates significantly with the real timing of childbearing. A higher ideal age is preferred by women, people with higher education, the childless, and parents of one child. Although at the individual level lower childlessness acceptance is associated with a preference for a lower ideal age for childbearing, at the country level this is not the case. In countries where postponement of childbearing is more advanced, differences in attitudes about the ideal age of childbearing, particularly the ideal age to become a father, by education and age are smaller. This paper contributes to the understanding of differences in the perception of age norms of childbearing in Europe and to the factors influencing the postponement of childbearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Iran has experienced a dramatic fertility decline in recent decades. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) reached the below-replacement level in 2000 and further declined to 1.8 in 2011 before rising to around 2.1 by 2016 and then falling to 1.8 by 2019. Tehran city has been a vanguard of low fertility as the TFR has been around 1.5 children per woman in recent years. As fertility falls to a low level, the second and higher birth intervals increase which could have significant impacts on the level of fertility. Various theories and hypotheses have explained low fertility. Recently, however, gender equity has emerged as a key link in explaining the phenomenon of low fertility (Cook 2003; McDonald 2000). Based on gender equity theory, many women, especially those with higher education and career prospects, may see their role as mothers and wives in conflict with other roles under the influence of new egalitarian ideas they have acquired in person-centered institutions. Therefore, they try to limit their fertility because fertility takes a lot of time and energy from them. Thus, low fertility rates will continue unless gender equity in family-centered institutions increases much faster than in the past. In the context of high gender equity in individual-centered institutions, higher gender equity in family-oriented social institutions will lead to increased fertility. Failure to change gender roles in family life, while women want to take advantage of more economic and educational opportunities, leads to reduced fertility (McDonald 2000). Three aspects of gender equity in the family, including the spouse's participation in household chores, women's attitudes toward gender roles, as well as the spouse's support and participation in the affairs of children, are valuable in explaining fertility decline (Bianchi, et al. 2000; Mills, et al. 2008). Recent studies in low-fertility settings have attributed long birth intervals and low fertility to gender role attitudes and role division within the family (Fukuda 2017; Miettinen et al 2011). This study aims to investigate the effect of the gender division of labor and attitudes on the second birth interval in Tehran city. Materials and Methods:This study used a sub-sample of data from the ‘Iran Fertility Transition Survey’ conducted in five provinces of Iran (including Tehran) in 2017. The sample comprised 363 married women aged 15-49 years old and had at least one child in Tehran city. The Kaplan-Meier test was used to determine the second birth interval. To investigate its relationship with attitude and gender division of labor, survival models including Cox proportional, exponential, Weibel, Gompertz, Log Normal Logl Logistic, and Gamma Generalized models were fitted. In order to consider the dependence on survival times, a common fragility model with gamma distribution was tested. Based on the Akaik criterion, the generalized gamma model was selected as the most appropriate model. Discussion of Results and Conclusions: The results showed that the median time of first birth to second birth among the sample was 84 months. Based on cumulative survival ratios within 120 months (10 years) of the time of first birth, 70% of women had a second child, meaning that 30% of them were likely to remain single-child. According to the results, one-third of women indicated that their husbands were involved in taking care of their children. Regarding the division of household affairs, 86% of women did the housework (cleaning, cooking, etc.) alone and only 14% did it with the participation of their husbands. In addition, about half of the women had egalitarian gender attitudes, and less than a third had traditional gender attitudes.According to Kaplan Meyer's estimates, the median interval between the first and second birth among women who do the housework alone and take care of the children alone is 6 and 2 months longer, respectively, than the women whose husbands participate in such matters. The analyses revealed also a significant relationship between gender attitudes and second birth interval. Women with an egalitarian attitude delayed their second birth by about 30 months more than other women. The results of multivariate analysis with the generalized gamma model also showed that having a modern gender attitude increases the second birth interval.Participation of men in domestic work had no significant effect on the second birth interval. Despite the transition of the society from traditional to modern in many respects, due to the dominance of patriarchal structures and low gender equity in the family, the division of household chores based on gender remains, and women are mainly responsible for housework. Even after controlling for employment situation, there was no significant relationship between the division of labor in the home and the interval between the first and second birth. This finding may have been influenced by the small sample size in the participatory category, given that the majority of women do housework alone, and thus, the statistical analysis did not show a significant difference between the independent variables and the second birth timing. However, after controlling for contextual variables and socio-economic characteristics, the results showed that gender division of labor in child affair had a significant effect on the second birth interval, and the lower participation of men in child affairs increased the second birth interval.The results also revealed that such variables as education, the ideal number of children at the time of marriage, and the interval between marriage to first birth had a significant effect on the second birth interval. Having a diploma degree and lower as compared to those with higher levels of education has reduced the second birth interval. The ideal number of children at the time of marriage also had a decreasing effect, as those with a higher ideal number of children at the time of marriage had a lower second birth interval. Furthermore, those with a longer interval between marriage and the first birth experienced a longer second birth interval. Finally, there was a significant difference between the second birth interval by marriage cohort. Those who married in the 1980s experienced a shorter birth interval as compared to the 2000s marriage cohort.According to McDonald (2000) and Goldshider (2000), the conflict between behavior and attitudes in the family and society can be the source of change in family decisions, the formation of low fertility intentions and behaviors, including delay in fertility and increasing the interval between births leading to smaller family norm and size. The findings of this article are in line with the theory of gender equity as having egalitarian gender attitudes and unequal division of care of children has led to a delay in the second birth. In other words, having egalitarian gender attitudes among women only leads to increased fertility when males also participate in decision making as well as household and children affairs. Giving or taking responsibility for housework by women is rooted in a gender ideology that is different or even conflicting with the gender ideology of women today. Therefore, such a difference in attitude and behavior can lead to a longer interval between births and low fertility behaviors and intentions in Tehran city. In order to implement policies to increase fertility, in addition to striving for a sustainable economy and providing an optimistic outlook for the future, family-friendly policies must embrace a broad framework of cultural values that support men's participation in domestic affairs and reduce gender inequality, thereby preventing further delay on the second birth interval leading to fertility increase.

Background: Discrete-time event history analysis (EHA) is the standard approach taken when modelling fertility histories collected in surveys, where the date of birth is often recorded imprecisely. This method is commonly used to investigate the factors associated with the time to a first or subsequent conception or birth. Although there is an emerging trend towards the smooth incorporation of continuous covariates in the broader literature, this is yet to be formally embraced in the context of birth events. Objective: We investigate the formal application of smooth methods implemented via generalized additive models (GAMs) to the analysis of fertility histories. We also determine whether and where GAMs offer a practical improvement over existing approaches. Methods: We fit parity-specific logistic GAMs to data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, learning about the effects of age, period, time since last birth, educational qualification, and country of birth. First, we select the most parsimonious GAMs that fit the data sufficiently well. Then we compare them with corresponding models that use the existing methods of categorical, polynomial, and piecewise linear spline representations in terms of fit, complexity, and substantive insights gained. Results: We find that smooth terms can offer considerable improvements in precision and efficiency, particularly for highly non-linear effects and interactions between continuous variables. Their flexibility enables the detection of important features that are missed or estimated imprecisely by comparator methods. Contribution: Our findings suggest that GAMs are a useful addition to the demographer's toolkit. They are highly relevant for motivating future methodological developments in EHA, both for birth events and more generally.

Background: Increased postponement of fertility, especially among higher-educated women, means it is important to know whether women recuperate births at older ages, but evidence for the UK is lacking. The extent to which the timing and quantum of mothers' fertility underlie the strong educational gradient in completed family size is also unclear. Objective: We investigate the relative contributions of childlessness, timing, and quantum to educational differences in completed fertility within cohorts born between 1940 and 1969. Methods: We analyse retrospective fertility histories from 44,351 women, born 1940-1969, interviewed in the British General Household Survey (1979-2009) and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009-2010). After describing educational differences in the timing of first birth and parity distributions, we quantify the relative contributions of childlessness, delayed entry into motherhood, and fertility rates conditional upon age at entry into motherhood, to educational differences in completed family size. Results: Within each cohort, the educational gradient in completed family size is explained, in demographic accounting terms, almost entirely by educational differences in the proportions remaining childless and the age distribution of mothers at entry into motherhood. Conditional upon age at entry into motherhood, subsequent fertility rates are similar across educational groups and across cohorts. Conclusions: Unlike for some other European countries, the postponement of motherhood to later ages in Britain has not resulted in a significant increase in childbearing among more-educated women who enter motherhood at later ages. The stability of aggregate measures of completed fertility in Britain is not the result of a straightforward process of postponement followed by recuperation.

The dramatic decline in fertility in European countries with a state-socialist past and the trend towards postponing childbearing are indicative of the acceleration of the process of European modernization in these countries. Research in this area is dominated by demography and other approaches attempting to “measure” social phenomena within an explanatory framework. Despite its diverse emphasis on materialist, idealist and institutionalist factors, the demographic approach can be criticized for neglecting the interdisciplinary challenge behind the phenomenon. Instead, these approaches operate on the basis of an “equation model of society” that essentially attempts gradually to enhance the illumination of the black box that “contains” the passage of young women to adulthood, leaving them with fewer children born at a later age. While acknowledging the contributions of this research, the article suggests considering the life-course perspective in its full potential as a starting point for an interdisciplinary triangulation of the issue. It argues that a certain life-cours eapproach could supplement the available accounts of causes and consequences with an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon as a “social fact”, studying it in terms of “cultures of postponement” of motherhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of lowest-low fertility, defined as total fertility below 1.3, is now emerging throughout Europe and is attributed by many to postponement of the initiation of childbearing. Here an investigation of the case of Ukraine, where total fertility--1.1 in 2001--is one of the world's lowest, shows that there is more than one pathway to lowest-low fertility. Although Ukraine has undergone immense political and economic transformations in the past decade, it has maintained a young age at first birth and nearly universal childbearing. Analyses of official national statistics and the Ukrainian Reproductive Health Survey show that fertility declined to very low levels without a transition to a later pattern of childbearing. Findings from focus-group interviews are used to suggest explanations of the early fertility pattern. These include the persistence of traditional norms for childbearing and the roles of men and women, concerns about medical complications and infertility at a later age, and the link between early fertility and early marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The study aims at analysing the recent trends in fertility in Italy and at discussing its possible future trends. Methods: We analyse the evolution of demographic indicators, such as the total fertility rate and the maternal age in Italy, in the last 30 years and we look for the most relevant determinants of birth postponement. We also discuss the most recent fertility forecasts for Italy and their implications. Results: In Italy, the total fertility rate has declined sharply in the last 30 years, reaching a level among the lowest in the world. However, in the last decade a reversal in this trend has been recorded. We here show that, net of the effect of immigration, this reversal is mainly due to a recovery of postponed births after age 30. Nevertheless, this recovery is not sufficient to raise the total fertility rates up to the replacement level. The reasons for this insufficient recovery are related both to the marked delay in transition to adulthood and to the difficult reconciliation of work and maternity for Italian women, both hampering the fertility rates. Conclusions: The fertility decline in Italy has finally stopped in the last years even if the maternal age is continuously increasing. However, without ad hoc family policies the fertility recovery will be weak and limited to those areas of the country with a better welfare system and economically more developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]