A study in the Netherlands identified groups of people differing in the trajectories of their expectations that they will become parents across their reproductive age. Forty-four percent of men and 40% of women tended to have stable expectations that they will have children in the future, lasting until their mid-to-late 30s. Individuals with stable parenthood expectations tended to score higher on agreeableness and extraversion. The paper was published in the Journal of Personality.
During the past half-century, fertility rates have been decreasing worldwide. People, on average, have fewer children, and increasing numbers experience childlessness. Major factors contributing to this include longer time spent in education and the resulting postponement of marriage, new fertility regulation technologies that made having children a choice, and wider acceptance of individual rights to make life choices.
Consequently, fertility rates across the developed world have been below replacement level for the past several decades, producing a population decline in many countries. This has drawn significant research interest toward fertility intentions—people’s plans and expectations about having children.
Research shows that, in young adulthood, most individuals plan to have children, and often more than one. However, as time passes, many fail to enact these expectations, staying childless well into middle age or having fewer children than initially planned.
Study author İlayda Özoruç and her colleagues wanted to explore how fertility expectations develop and change in men and women living in the Netherlands across the reproductive age period. They also wanted to explore how the trajectories of change in these expectations are associated with individual personality traits.
The authors note that voluntary childlessness (i.e., being childfree) has become increasingly socially acceptable in the Netherlands. Consequently, they expected greater variation between individuals in how they imagine their future regarding having children.
The researchers analyzed data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) panel. The LISS is an ongoing panel study that started in 2007. It includes 5,000 households in the Netherlands comprising nearly 7,500 individuals.
The data used in this study came from 5,231 participants who were non-parents at the start of the study and participated between 2008 and 2022. The average participant provided responses in 3 to 4 data collection waves during the studied period. Sixty-eight percent participated in more than one data collection wave. Fifty-two percent of participants were women. During this period, roughly 15% of participants became parents for the first time.
The authors used data on participants’ fertility expectations (“Do you think you will have children in the future?”), Big Five personality traits (obtained using the International Personality Item Pool), and parenthood status (tracking the transition to the first child).
The researchers categorized participants based on how their parenthood expectations developed during the study period. The largest category for both men and women was the normative category (44% of men and 40% of women). In this category, people started with expectations that they would have children in the future. As time passed, the majority became parents (84% of men and 92% of women in this group). For those who did not become parents, expectations of having children started dropping sharply in their mid-30s, so that by age 42, almost none expected to have children in the future.
The smallest category, including 8% of men and 7% of women, was the childfree category. People in this group mostly started out not expecting children or being unsure, and became increasingly certain they would not have children as time passed. Only a small percentage of people from this category eventually became parents (6% of men and 12% of women).
The remaining categories showed more complex trajectories, such as general uncertainty about future children (“uncertain trajectory”), switching expectations between yes, no, and unsure (“switching trajectory”), or starting uncertain but gaining expectation later (“postponement trajectory”). Women also showed a unique “abandoning trajectory” (15%), where expectations to have children existed at age 18 but dropped to “unsure” or “no” starting around age 25.
When personality traits were considered, results showed that both men and women from the normative group (stable expectation to become parents) scored higher on agreeableness and extraversion compared to the uncertain and childfree groups.
For men specifically, those in the normative group also tended to have lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness and openness compared to the uncertain and childfree groups.
However, for women, personality differences were fewer. Unlike men, women’s levels of neuroticism, openness, and conscientiousness did not differ significantly between the expectation trajectories.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the development of fertility expectations throughout the reproductive age. However, it should be noted that all participants were from the Netherlands. Results regarding individuals from other countries and cultures might differ.
The paper, “Big Five Personality Traits and Trajectories of Fertility Expectations Across the Reproductive Age Period,” was authored by İlayda Özoruç, Jeroen Vermunt, Katya Ivanova, and Manon van Scheppingen.
