Continuity and change in young womens family size preferences 1955-1995. Extended abstract.

American family life has undergone dramatic change in recent decades. Delayed marriage smaller families increases in mothers employment high rates of marital instability and a rise in single parent families are well known features of U.S. family change. Attitudes about family life have also changed. More people approve of sex outside of marriage working mothers and nonmarital childbearing. At the same time young adults still want to marry and become parents. More than half of young women think that it is ideal for families to have two children. Our paper examines trends in the number of children young women in the United States say they would ideally like to have for the period 1955-1995. We investigate both levels and variation in personal family size ideals and ask if change in womens demographic characteristics account for these trends. We use data from ten national surveys. Because early U.S. fertility surveys were restricted to samples of married women we conduct two analyses. The first examines trends in married womens personal ideal family size. The second examines trends for all women regardless of marital status. The latter analysis is restricted to data since 1982 but it is important to examine the trends for all women because changes in marriage formation and dissolution are likely to affect attitudes about childbearing. (excerpt)