Attitude Profiles and Fertility Intentions. Impact of Gender and Family Norms on Childbearing Plans.

Jeong-A Lee, Sciences Po (Paris)
Laurent Toulemon, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Ester L. Rizzi, Université Catholique de Louvain

South Korea continues to have the lowest fertility rates in the world, rendering crucial fertility studies to understand this unprecedented phenomenon. Previous literature shows that the ways in which gender norms influence fertility intentions are debated but their impact is acknowledged. However, few studies simultaneously explore the impact of gender norms but also attitudes towards family support – namely how willing women are to support financially their children and parents – on childbearing plans. Using the latest wave (2022) of the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families – sampling married women regarding fertility intentions – this study aims to assess how gender norms and family support norms are associated with married women’s childbearing plans. Estimations show that familialist women are the most likely to plan a child compared to individualists. However, there is no statistically significant difference in childbearing intentions between egalitarian and non-egalitarian familialists. These results align partially with previous studies but most of them overlook the interaction between attitudinal profiles, especially contrasting profiles. Further research must be conducted to decipher the interplay between familialist and egalitarian gender norm on fertility plans and disentangle its dynamics by parity.

Keywords: Fertility, Gender Dynamics

See extended abstract.