Childbearing Motivations of Fertility Desires and Intentions in Norway

Elisa Brini , University of Oslo
Trude Lappegard , University of Oslo
Lars Dommermuth , Statistics Norway
Monika Mynarska , Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw
Alyce Raybould, University College London

The aim of this paper is to explore the motivations behind people’s fertility intentions in Norway. Since 2010, Norwegian fertility levels have dropped from being among the highest to below average in Europe with a TFR of 1.48 in 2020. The drop in fertility is puzzling as Norway provides generous family policies for families with young children and has a stable labour market and general economy, which should encourage childbearing. We use the Traits-Desires-Intentions-Behavior (TDIB) theoretical framework, proposed in the early 1990s by Warren Miller for analysing childbearing behaviour (Miller 1994). The goal is to increase our understanding of the reasons behind changing reproductive decision-making and behaviour in the Norwegian context. Motivations for children are defined in the TDIB framework as dispositions to react favourably or unfavourably to various aspects of childbearing. Using data from the Norwegian Generations and Gender Survey 2020 (GGS), we ask how different positive and negative childbearing motives influence people’s fertility desires and intentions. As the drop in first birth fertility is more severe than fertility drops for higher parities, we are especially interested in whether childbearing motives influence the fertility intentions of parents and childless people in different ways. Further, we aim to explore whether the impact of different childbearing motives vary between different demographic groups.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe