Skip Navigation


European Sociological Review Advance Access originally published online on July 20, 2007
European Sociological Review 2007 23(5):615-629; doi:10.1093/esr/jcm028
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
23/5/615    most recent
jcm028v2
jcm028v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Nauck, B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Value of Children and the Framing of Fertility: Results from a Cross-cultural Comparative Survey in 10 Societies

Bernhard Nauck

Bernhard Nauck, Department of Sociology, Chemnitz University of Technology, Thüringer Weg 9, D-09107 Chemnitz, Germany. Tel: +49 371 5313 2402. Email: bernhard.nauck{at}phil.tu-chemnitz.de

To overcome incomplete explanations of cross-cultural differences in fertility behaviour, three complementary approaches are systematically related to each other: the ‘demand’-based economic theory of fertility (ETF), a revised version of the ‘supply’-based ‘value-of-children’-approach (VOC) as a special theory of the general social theory of social production functions, and the framing theory of variable rationality. A comprehensive model is specified, which accounts both for the variable efficiency of having children for the optimization of physical well-being and of social esteem of (potential) parents, and for the variable rationality of fertility decisions. The model is tested with a data set, which comprises information on VOC and fertility of women within social settings of 10 societies (Peoples Republic of China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Ghana, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, the Czech Republic, and Germany), using multivariate models with births of different parity as dependents. As empirical research both on ETF and VOC only exists for intra-societal comparisons, the simultaneous test in a cross-cultural context goes beyond the current state of fertility research. It provides evidence about the cross-cultural validity of the model, systematic effects of VOC on fertility, and changing rationality of fertility decisions in the demographic transition.

Manuscript received: June 1, 2006.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.