Parenting Ideals and Transition to Parenthood

Kerstin Ruckdeschel , Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)

Over recent decades, the practice of parenthood has become an increasingly demanding task with regard to individual engagement and financial costs in raising children, often referred to as intensive parenting (Hays 1996). Parents are expected to foster their children’s physical, emotional and social development by investing time and money and are held responsible for the mental and physical wellbeing and success of their children. It is often claimed that these high demands on parents can delay the realization of fertility desires, lead to a limitation of family size or even prevent them. The aim of the presentation is to investigate if high individual and social demands towards parents have a negative influence on the transition to a first or further child. If the demands seem too high to cope with, the transition may be delayed or even prevented. To answer these research questions, we use data of the Family-Leitbild-Panelsurvey 2012 and 2016 which includes questions on parenting norms. The panel structure of the data allows for longitudinal analyses and for investigating the effect of parenting ideals on a subsequent birth. It turns out that parenting ideals are widespread and shared by many groups, especially the idea that parents have to get well informed and follow experts advice and that they have to provide a substantial financial base. However, different than our hypotheses, this seems to have no impact on the transition to parenthood.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe