Trabajar los roles
GRUPO ROLES NEGATIVOS
In the late 1930s E. Lowell Kelly began a longitudinal study of marital compatibility
with a sample of 300 engaged couples (Westoff, Mishler & Kelly 1957). Twenty
years later the panel was recontacted, and a subset of 145 couples was extracted to
analyse how well their fertility was predicted from their fertility preferences before
marriage. The 145 couples were the residue after the elimination of those who had
never married, had married more than once, had reported problems of sterility, had
adopted any children, had been lost to follow-up or had refused to provide
information at the re-interview. The mean number of births for the 145 couples was
2.6. The mean desired numbers of children reported by males and females during
their engagement were 2.6 and 2.8 respectively. However, although there was close
correspondence in the aggregate, there was a very low correlation between initial
Freedman, Coombs and Bumpass (1965) reported a high stability of family size
expectations in the aggregate over a two-year period in three separate interviews
with women in the Detroit Metropolitan Area between 1961 and 1963. However, at
the individual level there was complete stability of expectations for only a minority -
albeit a large one - of the sample. Those who became pregnant in the study period
tended to change their expectations, and on balance to change them upwards. The
authors emphasize that they dealt with a specific place, a specific time and a specific
stage of the life-cycle, so this result should not be generalized.
In the Princeton Fertility Study women were first interviewed in 1957, and re
interviewed in 1960 and again between 1963 and 1967. The original sample
consisted of 1,165 second-parity, native-born, once-married white women living in
the seven largest metropolitan areas of the United States; the third interview was
successfully completed for 814 of these women. The average number of children
desired at the first interview and the average estimated completed family size some
eight years later were identical for the total sample (3.3), and varied little across
religion and education subgroups. Although average completed family size was
equal to the average size desired, only 41 per cent of the women had exactly the
number of children they originally said they wanted, and 14 per cent had two more
or two fewer than this number. The close correspondence of desired fertility and
completed fertility at the aggregate level was the result of non-random compensating
errors. At the individual level, the correlation between the wife's desired family size
and her achieved fertility was 0.56, accounting for 31 per cent of the variance
(Bumpass & Westoff 1969).
In another longitudinal study 468 white Catholics originally interviewed in the 1965
National Fertility Study of the United States were re-interviewed in 1969 to assess
Bumpass 1973). Consistent with earlier studies they also reported a remarkable
correspondence of aggregate-level expectations and fertility over the subsequent
three and a half years. However, much of the variance in fertility at the individual
level in the interim was unexplained by independent variables included in the
analysis, including factors related to the planning of fertility behaviour.
On the basis of data on whites from numerous surveys in the United States, Blake
(1974) concluded that reproductive preferences are fleeting expressions of desired
fertility, not valid indicators of the long-run intentions of youthful cohorts. She also
argued that complex factors were associated with ideal or desired family size, and
that some of these had been artificially suppressed among American women by the
antinatalist propaganda movement for zero population growth. Recent responses not
only had a heavy stereotypical component but also could be poor indicators of long
term behaviour.
The 1970 National Fertility Study of the United States asked all respondents who
were of the opinion that they could have children whether they intended to have any
more (Westoff & Ryder 1977). In 1975 a follow-up was undertaken in which 2,361
white, once-married women who were in intact first marriages of less than 20 years
duration, and who had married at less than 25 years of age, were successfully
reinterviewed. At the aggregate level, 40 per cent had intended having more children
in 1970 and 34 per cent had actually had more in the five-year period, a 15 per cent
deficit. The aggregate correspondence between intentions and behaviour was much
lower when the timing of reproduction was examined. Those who intended having
more children in 1970 were asked 'Do you intend to have your next child within two
years from now?' At the aggregate level 64 per cent answered the question
affirmatively, but only 37 per cent actually had a birth or were pregnant at the end of
the two years. Inconsistency at the individual level was highest for women who
intentions in the five-year period. The figure for the alternate inconsistent sequence,
births occurring to women who had intended not to have any more children, was 12
per cent.
In the United States Long and Wetrogan (1981) examined the utility of reproductive
preference measures in population projections since 1955. They suggested that, in
the aggregate, women's preferences were accurate predictors of the completed
cumulative fertility of cohorts; the average number of children wanted by young
women is quite close to the average number they bear during their lifetimes.
Sabagh (1984) examined the relationship between the reproductive preferences of
married Mexican American women in Los Angeles in 1973 and their subsequent
fertility during 1973-82. Of the 1,129 initial respondents, 783 were located and
successfully re-interviewed. About 44 per cent of these women had intended having
more children, but only 29 per cent had had more in the follow-up period, an
aggregate inconsistency level of 33 per cent. At the individual level, of those who
did not want additional children, 11.1 per cent had more compared to 47.0 per cent
of those who wanted additional children.
In France, 2,135 women interviewed initially in 1974 regarding their reproductive
preferences were recontacted in 1976 and in 1979 (Monnier 1987). By the use of
postal questionnaires, 1,749 of the original sample were traced and replied in 1976,
and 1,906 did so in 1979. A total of 1,439 women replied to all stages of this
longitudinal study and thus provided data for assessing the consistency between
preferences and behaviour. More than one-quarter of women who intended having
another child at the first interview did not have it, and one-fifth of those who wanted
A follow-up study conducted in the Netherlands between 1982 and 1985 documented
the usefulness of the longitudinal approach in assessing the reliability of birth
expectations data (Van de Giessen 1988). At an aggregate level, forecasts for the
short-run were fairly accurate: 21 per cent of all women (married as well as
unmarried and aged 18-37 in 1982) had intended to have a child, and by 1985, 20 per
cent had actually had one. Of the women who initially expected to have a child,
almost two-thirds actually had one, while of those who expected to have no more
children in 1982, 92 per cent indeed did not have a child. Among those women who
intended to have more children the highest proportion successful was recorded for
those who had one child in 1982. For older women and for non-married women
(including cohabiters) expectations of having a child were in many cases unreliable.
The highest level of inconsistency among those who intended to cease childbearing
was found for women who had been married less than five years; almost one-third of
them had a child between 1982 and 1985.
1.5.2Studies in developing countries
Proportions giving identical responses concerning desired family size in both the
initial WFS interview and a re-interview 2-13 weeks later were 60 per cent in Fiji
and 44 per cent in Peru (O'Muircheartaigh & Marckwardt 1981). MacDonald,
Simpson and Whitfield (1978) reported from Indonesian data that only 54 per cent of
WFS respondents gave identical responses to a desired family size question in both
the initial interview and the re-interview 14-18 weeks later, although 81 per cent
differed by one child, and 90 per cent differed by two children or fewer.
In the Costa Rican WFS, identical response in both the initial interview and the re
interview (one-and-a-half years apart) to the question on desire for additional
children was 74 per cent (Stycos 1984). Of women who said they wanted no more
interview. Proportions giving identical responses concerning desire for additional
children were 77 per cent in Fiji (Bureau of Statistics 1976). Of Fijian women who
said they wanted no more children at the first interview, 81 per cent gave the same
answer at the second interview, while 8 per cent shifted to 'undecided' and 11 per
cent to 'want more'.
Using a probability sample of 2,325 married women aged 18-39 in Taiwan who were
interviewed in 1967 and re-interviewed in 1970, Freedman, Hermalin and Chang
(1975) found that among women who said they wanted no more children in 1967, 14
per cent had a live birth within the next three years compared to 75 per cent among
those who wanted more children. While demographic and social characteristics were
correlated with fertility in the expected directions, statements about wanting more
children proved to be highly predictive of subsequent fertility for both modem and
less advanced segments of the population.
Hermalin et al. (1979) extended the Taiwan longitudinal study to cover the period
from 1970 to 1974, respondents' fertility experience being obtained from Taiwan's
population register, which has a known high level of accuracy. The total number of
women followed through to December 1974 was 2,055. The Taiwanese data between
1967 and 1974 again indicated that whether a woman had a birth was strongly
related to whether she wanted more children: 86 per cent had a live birth among
those who wanted more children in 1967, compared to 22 per cent among those who
wanted no more. Multivariate analysis revealed that marriage duration was the single
most important determinant of whether an additional birth occurred, with desire for
more children showing a somewhat lower effect.
The fertility intentions and behaviour of 3,237 couples selected from six townships
in Taiwan were studied by Nair and Chow (1980) to assess the degree of conformity
behaviour was studied for the period 1975-77. All couples studied had a live birth in
1974 and were supplied, free of charge, with selected contraceptives throughout
1975-77. Desire for additional children was the single most important predictor of
additional fertility, followed by wife’s age. Among women who did not desire
additional children in 1974, 31 per cent had at least one more birth during the
follow-up period, compared to 83 per cent of those who wanted additional children.
A sample of 478 rural Korean women with two or three living children interviewed
in 1971 was re-interviewed in 1976, and respondents' stated fertility intentions and
subsequent behaviour were examined (Foreit & Suh 1980). Compared with women
in the United States (Westoff & Ryder 1977) and Taiwan (Freedman, Coombs &
Bumpass 1965; Hermalin et al. 1979), the Korean women were more successful in
achieving desired additional births but less successful in avoiding unwanted births.
Success in achieving desired additional births in Korea was probably due to the
Korean sample being limited to young, low parity women. More than two-thirds of
the Korean women wanted another child, compared with less than half of the women
in both the United States and Taiwan.
The same respondents were interviewed in both the 1982 Sri Lanka Contraceptive
Prevalence Survey and the 1985 Sri Lanka Contraceptive Survey, and were used by
De Silva (1991) to examine the reliability of respondents' preferences for additional
children. Of women who wanted to cease childbearing in 1982, 65 per cent were
successful in avoiding an unwanted birth in the follow-up period; among those who
said they wanted another child, 64 per cent reported a birth during that period. When
the subsequent fertility of women who said they wanted no more children was
examined, women who believed that their husbands wanted additional children