Three Dimensions of the Relationship Between Gender Role Attitudes and Fertility Intentions

The relationship between gender role attitudes and fertility intentions is highly debated among social scientists. We emphasize the need for a multi-dimensional theoretical and empirical approach extending the two-step behavioral gender revolution approach towards a three-step attitudinal gender revolution approach distinguishing between gender roles in the public sphere, mothers’ role in the family, and fathers’ role in the family. Making use of the Generations and Gender Survey of eight European countries, we demonstrate the usefulness of such an approach. Gender equal attitudes related to the public sphere are more wide spread than those concerning mother’s role in the family and father’s role in the family. Our results show that gender attitudes concerning the public sphere have no effect on men’s fertility intentions, while they lower both childless women’s and mothers’ childbearing intentions. Attitudes towards mothers’ role in the family play out differently for women and men, as well. Egalitarian views of mothers’ role restrain fertility intentions of childless women, but not of mothers; while among men, it is rather egalitarian oriented fathers than childless men who tend to abstain from wanting another child. Last, we find no statistically precise differences between men’s attitudes towards father’s role in the family and fertility intentions, while among women there is a positive relationship between intermediate attitudes and fertility intentions of mothers. We conclude that without a clear conceptualization and empirical distinction of the different elements involved in the gender equality/fertility nexus, scientific exercises will continue to send conflicting messages.