Fertility Decisions in the Anthropocene: Facets of the Demographic Transition, Rationalization and Environmental Concern

Fertility decline is an increasingly global phenomenon with many and profound social, economic and political implications. Previous research has established myriad determinants of fertility rates and, especially, their decline. Absent from these theoretical and empirical contributions is the role environmental concern has on fertility decisions. Relevant literatures of fertility and environmental sociology are reviewed. An online survey was administered through the crowdsourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk. Respondents were asked questions that gauged their awareness and concern of current environmental issues, as well as questions regarding lifestyle choices and fertility intentions. Through logistic regression analysis of childless people who aged between 18 and 49, this study examines the effect various measures of environmental concern has on intention to have a child. Results indicate that a question about societal moral responsibility to prevent wildlife extinctions is associated with fertility intentions. More specifically, the findings suggest that those who expressed concerns regarding wildlife extinctions are less likely to intend to have children. This study has a relatively small sample size which may have influenced the results. These findings suggest that future research could further explore the association between wildlife extinctions and fertility decisions.

Author

• Ricciardi, Ryan M

Language

• en

Keyword

• environmental concern
• demography
• environmental sociology
• fertility

Date created

• 2020

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Sociology

Degree

• M.A.

Advisor

• Ishizawa, Hiromi

Committee Member(s)

• Jones, Antwan

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/z029p565q