Although many people are successful in producing the number of children they desire, many others fail. Understanding the reasons for the discrepancy between family size desires and outcomes over the past half-century will yield several benefits. The results will clarify couples' decision-making vis-a-vis child-bearing and improve demographic predictions of fertility. In addition, they can be used in designing programs to help those least likely to have the number of children desired. This proposal contends that demographic theory and research, combined with contemporary social psychological perspectives, provide the means for achieving these research goals. Drawing on the work of Fishbein, the PI develops a model of fertility attitude-behavior consistency. According to this model, intentions are the strongest direct determinant of fertility behavior. However, attitude-behavior consistency varies with social psychological characteristics of individuals. These include experience, significant/other conflict, resources, and psychological traits. In addition, factors besides intentions, such as habits, "behavioral scripts," and attitudes about children sometimes directly affect behavior. Building on the PI's previous work with the 1941 Indianapolis Fertility Survey, hypotheses will be tested using the 1987/1988 National Survey of Families and Households and the 1957-1967 Princeton Fertility Studies. Parity progression, logistic regression, and proportional hazards models are to be used in analyzing the data.
