The major objective of the proposed research project is to increase our understanding of childbearing motivation and its role in human reproduction. Specifically, the project aims to explore systematically how childbearing motivation is translated into behavior, and, ultimately, into fertility events such as birth. It also aims to explore how life events and changes effect individuals' strength of childbearing motivation. The proposed project represents the continuation of research already begun in which the husbands and wives of 201 married couples with no children and 200 with one child were initially interviewed in person and then reinterviewed by telephone one and two years later. At the end of these two years only 3% had been lost to follow-up. The proposed research has two stages. First, analysis of the longitudinal data already collected will be completed, using a theoretical framework developed by the principal investigator and a reliable, valid measure of childbearing motivation. Second, two additional telephone interviews will be conducted, extending the follow up period to 5 years. These additional data will allow the use of more powerful statistical techniques, namely survival analysis when childbearing motivations, desires, and intentions are used to predict outcomes of interest such as proceptive behavior, conceptions, and births, and hierarchical linear model analysis when the focus is on how background characteristics and life events produce changes in childbearing motivation over time.
| Miller, Warren B; Severy, Lawrence J; Pasta, David J (2004) A framework for modelling fertility motivation in couples. Popul Stud (Camb) 58:193-205 |
| Miller, Warren B; Feldman, Shirley S; Pasta, David J (2002) The effect of the nurturant bonding system on child security of attachment and dependency. Soc Biol 49:125-59 |
| Miller, W B; Pasta, D J; MacMurray, J et al. (1999) Dopamine receptor genes are associated with age at first sexual intercourse. J Biosoc Sci 31:43-54 |
| Miller, W B; Pasta, D J (1995) How does childbearing affect fertility motivations and desires? Soc Biol 42:185-98 |
| Miller, W B (1995) Childbearing motivation and its measurement. J Biosoc Sci 27:473-87 |
| Miller, W B (1994) Childbearing motivations, desires, and intentions: a theoretical framework. Genet Soc Gen Psychol Monogr 120:223-58 |
| Miller, W B (1992) Personality traits and developmental experiences as antecedents of childbearing motivation. Demography 29:265-85 |
