Factors contributing to unfulfilment of and changes in fertility intentions in Czechia

Objectives. Achieved fertility is lower than intended fertility in Europe. The factors contributing to this mismatch are thus an important research topic. The objective of this study is to identify the factors that contribute to the unfulfilment of short-term fertility intentions and to changes in the intended number of children to improve our understanding of the mismatch between achieved and intended fertility in Czechia.

Material and methods. Binary logistic regression is applied to data on people aged 18-45 from two waves of the Generations and Gender Survey from 2005 and 2008 to explore what factors contribute to the unfulfilment of short-term fertility intentions, and to the Life Course 2010 data on people aged 25-60 from 2010 to identify what factors contribute to changes in the intended number of children. Descriptive statistics show the most cited reasons for the downward or upward changes in fertility intentions.

Results. The results show the importance of gender, partner, age, cohort, and the two-child norm for the chance that short-term fertility intentions will be left unfulfilled and the chance that people will change the number of children they plan to have. The results confirm that short-term fertility intentions are predictors of fertility behaviour, and labour market instability and siblings are factors that influence the number of children a person intends to have. Economic conditions, health, and the absence of a partner are the main reasons given to explain downward changes in the number of children people plan to have, while a change of values / new experiences and the influence of one‘s partner explain upward changes.

Conclusions. This study contributes to existing knowledge by testing factors associated with both, the fulfilment of short-term fertility intentions and changes in lifetime fertility intentions. They are rarely analysed together, although they both contribute to the postponement of childbearing and the mismatch between intended and achieved fertility.