The Effect of Reproductive Intentions on Subsequent Fertility among Low-Parity Korean Women, 1971-76

Once effective methods of fertility limitation become widely available within a population, the impact of reproductive intentions on subsequent fertility becomes a matter of both theoretical and practical importance. Prospective studies conducted in the United States and Taiwan have demonstrated that individual women's reproductive intentions were strongly predictive of whether or not they had an additional birth. I The present paper reports the results of similar analyses conducted for the Republic of Korea. The basic paradigm used in these studies is very simple. A sample of married women is interviewed at time-1 to collect demographic, socioeconomic, and attitudinal measures. The women's subsequent fertility behavior is monitored at time-2 either through reinterview or by checking registers of vital statistics. The predictive validity of time-1 indicators for subsequent fertility behaviors is then assessed using a variety of statistical techniques. Westoff and Ryder and Hermalin and associates have examined aggregate and individual inconsistency between reproductive intentions and fertility behavior.2 They have also included fertility intentions as an endogenous variable in path analytic models linking time-1 indicators to time-2 fertility behaviors. The outcome of such a predictive study depends