IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dem/wpaper/wp-2009-001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who is relevant? Exploring fertility relevant social networks

Author

Listed:
  • Sylvia Keim

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Andreas Klärner

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Laura Bernardi

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

Abstract

Based on the analysis of qualitative interviews in western Germany we argue that social relationships have a strong impact on individuals´ and couples´ fertility intentions and behavior. We identify relevant others and mechanisms of influences. The core family is an important factor of influences but we are also able to show that social relationships beyond the core family of parents and siblings need to be considered when taking social influence on the family formation of individuals into account.

Suggested Citation

  • Sylvia Keim & Andreas Klärner & Laura Bernardi, 2009. "Who is relevant? Exploring fertility relevant social networks," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-001, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2009-001
    DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2009-001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2009-001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2009-001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Murphy & Duolao Wang, 2001. "Family-Level Continuities in Childbearing in Low-Fertility Societies," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 75-96, March.
    2. Michaela Kreyenfeld, 2004. "Fertility Decisions in the FRG and GDR: An Analysis with Data from the German Fertility and Family Survey," Demographic Research Special Collections, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 3(11), pages 275-318.
    3. Peter V. Marsden & Noah E. Friedkin, 1993. "Network Studies of Social Influence," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 22(1), pages 127-151, August.
    4. Kohler, Hans-Peter, 2001. "Fertility and Social Interaction: An Economic Perspective," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199244591.
    5. Jere Behrman & Hans-Peter Kohler & Susan Watkins, 2002. "Social networks and changes in contraceptive use over time: Evidence from a longitudinal study in rural Kenya," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 39(4), pages 713-738, November.
    6. Valente, Thomas W. & Watkins, Susan C. & Jato, Miriam N. & Van Der Straten, Ariane & Tsitsol, Louis-Philippe M., 1997. "Social network associations with contraceptive use among Cameroonian women in voluntary associations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 677-687, September.
    7. William Axinn & Marin Clarkberg & Arland Thornton, 1994. "Family influences on family size preferences," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 31(1), pages 65-79, February.
    8. Kincaid, D. Lawrence, 2000. "Social networks, ideation, and contraceptive behavior in Bangladesh: a longitudinal analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 215-231, January.
    9. Michaela R. Kreyenfeld, 2004. "Fertility decisions in the FRG and GDR," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2004-008, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Noemi Peter & Petter Lundborg & Dinand Webbink, 2015. "The Effect of Sibling's Gender on Earnings, Education and Family Formation," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 15-073/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Peter, Noemi & Lundborg, Petter & Mikkelsen, Sara & Webbink, Dinand, 2018. "The effect of a sibling’s gender on earnings and family formation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 61-78.
    3. Maria Rita Testa & Valeria Bordone & Beata Osiewalska & Vegard Skirbekk, 2016. "Are daughters’ childbearing intentions related to their mothers’ socio-economic status?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 35(21), pages 581-616.
    4. Nourossadat Kariman & Maliheh Amerian & Padideh Jannati & Fatemeh Salmani & Mazlumeh Hamzekhani, 2016. "A Path Analysis of Factors Influencing the First Childbearing Decision-Making in Women in Shahroud in 2014," Global Journal of Health Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(10), pages 1-24, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gayen, Kaberi & Raeside, Robert, 2010. "Social networks and contraception practice of women in rural Bangladesh," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(9), pages 1584-1592, November.
    2. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.
    3. Ying Li & Quanbao Jiang, 2017. "The Intergenerational Effect and Second Childbirth: Survey Findings from the Shaanxi Province of China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(2), pages 669-691, September.
    4. Frank Heiland & Alexia Prskawetz & Warren C. Sanderson, 2005. "Do the More-Educated Prefer Smaller Families?," VID Working Papers 0503, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    5. Mertens, Frédéric & Saint-Charles, Johanne & Mergler, Donna, 2012. "Social communication network analysis of the role of participatory research in the adoption of new fish consumption behaviors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(4), pages 643-650.
    6. Abhishek Kumar & Valeria Bordone & Raya Muttarak, 2016. "Like Mother(-in-Law) Like Daughter? Influence of the Older Generation’s Fertility Behaviours on Women’s Desired Family Size in Bihar, India," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 629-660, December.
    7. Lesley Newson & Peter J. Richerson, 2009. "Why Do People Become Modern? A Darwinian Explanation," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 35(1), pages 117-158, March.
    8. Melinda Mills & Nicoletta Balbo, 2011. "The influence of the family network on the realisation of fertility intentions," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 179-206.
    9. Heidi Colleran & Ruth Mace, 2015. "Social network and community level influences on contraceptive use: evidence from rural Poland," Post-Print hal-04313952, HAL.
    10. Robert G. White & Laura Bernardi, 2008. "Close kin influences on fertility behavior," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2008-024, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    11. Christoph Bühler & Ewa Fratczak, 2005. "Learning from others and receiving support: the impact of personal networks on fertility intentions in Poland," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2005-017, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    12. Sylvia Keim & Andreas Klärner & Laura Bernardi, 2009. "Fertility-relevant social networks: composition, structure, and meaning of personal relationships for fertility intentions," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-006, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    13. Gayen, Kaberi & Raeside, Robert, 2007. "Social networks, normative influence and health delivery in rural Bangladesh," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(5), pages 900-914, September.
    14. Anna Baranowska-Rataj & Anna Matysiak, 2016. "The Causal Effects of the Number of Children on Female Employment - Do European Institutional and Gender Conditions Matter?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 343-367, September.
    15. Edmonds, Joyce K. & Hruschka, Daniel & Bernard, H. Russell & Sibley, Lynn, 2012. "Women’s social networks and birth attendant decisions: Application of the Network-Episode Model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 452-459.
    16. Studer, Matthias & Struffolino, Emanuela & Fasang, Anette Eva, 2018. "Estimating the Relationship between Time-varying Covariates and Trajectories: The Sequence Analysis Multistate Model Procedure," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 48(1), pages 103-135.
    17. Susan Watkins & Ina Warriner, 2003. "How do we know we need to control for selectivity?," Demographic Research Special Collections, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 1(4), pages 109-142.
    18. Sara Cools & Rannveig Kaldager Hart, 2015. "The effect of childhood family size on fertility in adulthood. New evidence form IV estimation," Discussion Papers 802, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    19. Nicoletta Balbo & Nicola Barban, 2012. "Does fertility behavior spread among friends?," Working Papers 050, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    20. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Maeder, Miriam, 2013. "The effect of education on fertility: Evidence from a compulsory schooling reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 35-48.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Germany; fertility; influence; social network;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2009-001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Wilhelm (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.