The illusion of stable fertility preferences

Abstract

Fertility preferences have long played a key role in models of fertility differentials and change. We examine the stability of preferences over time using rich panel data on Kenyan women’s fertility desires, expectations, actual fertility, and recall of desires in three waves over a nine-year period, when respondents were in their 20s. We find that although desired fertility is quite unstable, most women perceive their desires to be stable. Under hypothetical future scenarios, few expect their desired fertility to increase over time but, in fact, such increases in fertility desires are common. Moreover, when asked to recall past desires, most respondents report previously wanting exactly as many children as they desire today. These patterns of bias are consistent with the emerging view that fertility desires are contextual, emotionally laden, and structured by identity.

Keywords:

• stability of preferences
• fertility preferences
• recall
• panel data
• Kenya

Notes

1 Please direct all correspondence to Joan Hamory, University of Oklahoma, Room 158 CCD1, 308 Cate Center Drive, Norman, OK, 73072, USA; or by Email: [email protected]

2 The data used in this paper were collected in collaboration with International Child Support and Innovations for Poverty Action, with support from NIH grants R01-TW05612 and R01-HD044475, NSF grants SES-0418110 and SES-0962614, the World Bank, the Social Science Research Council, and the Berkeley Population Center. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of any of our funders.

3 The data collection for the Kenya Life Panel Survey was approved by the University of California, Berkeley Committee for Protection of Human Subjects, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology.

4 The data for this paper and the code to reproduce the analysis will be accessible online in Dataverse after publication.

5 The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

6 We thank seminar participants at the University of California, Berkeley, and participants at the 2018 Pacific Development Conference (PacDev) and the 2018 Oxford Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) conference for helpful comments.