Value Orientations and Fertility Intentions of Finnish Men and Women

Authors

• Anneli Miettinen
• Pirjo Paajanen

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23979/fypr.44992

Keywords:

fertility intentions, parity, values, attitudes

Abstract

In thispaper we examine howpersona! values and attitudes are related to childbearing
intentions among 18-40-year-old Finnish men and women. Wefocus on religious
and individualistic values and on attitudes towardschildrenand thefamily, as well as
attitudes towards work and gender roles. The impact of value and attitude orientations
and situationalfactors onfertility decision-making are investigated separately
at parities 0, 1 and 2 using logistic regression. Our study uses a subsample of 1,237
men andwomen drawnfrom thePPA2survey ofthe attitudes ofFinns towardsfamily
and children,family policy measures, values in life as well as theirfertility intentions.
Wefind that information on persona! values and attitudes does increase our knowledge
on determinants of childbearing intentions and decision-making, although not
ali our initial hypotheses concerning the association, or direction of the association,
between certain attitudes and fertility intentions were confirmed in the data. Religious
values, as well as work-relatedattitudes and individualistic values appeared to
have little bearing on childbearing intentions, while various attitudes towards children
were related to intentions to have (more) children. In addition, a conservative
familistic attitude was related to intentions as well as gender role attitudes. The impact
of values and attitudes varied by parity, providing support to the nation that
childbearing decisions are made sequentially".