Does Happiness Drive Fertility? Evidence from eleven countries
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| Autors: | , , , |
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| Format: | artículo original |
| Estat: | Versión publicada |
| Data de publicació: | 2026 |
| Descripció: | Introduction: We studied the effect of happiness on intended fertility using eleven countries. Happier people tended to have more intended fertility, and gender, age, and work status explained observed differences. Methodology: An exploratory quantitative approach was employed using data from 16,474 participants from the 2018 Global Family and Faith Survey across 11 countries. The relationship between happiness and intended fertility was examined through descriptive statistics and frequency histograms to assess variable distributions and identify overdispersion in the count data. Subsequently, a negative binomial regression model —a generalized Poisson model incorporating Gamma-distributed random effects— was estimated to evaluate the effect of happiness and sociodemographic variables on the intended number of additional children. Results: Different initial parities allowed observing the differences in the distribution and determinants of the number of children respondents wanted to have, conditional to happiness. At parity zero having a stable partner and belonging to the Latin American region became significant. Conclusions: Having a stable partner exerted a positive influence, while respondents in Latin America are willing to have less children than those of other world regions. Work status is not significant or parity one respondents. For parity two, only age and gender mattered, not happiness. Happiness, gender, age, and having a stable partner are again relevant variables at parity three. Implications: These findings shed light on the debate on current intended fertility determinants at low and lowest low scenarios of fertility around the world. |
| Pais: | Portal de Revistas UCR |
| Institution: | Universidad de Costa Rica |
| Repositorio: | Portal de Revistas UCR |
| Idioma: | Inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:portal.revistas.ucr.ac.cr:article/2838 |
| Accés en línia: | https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/rpsm/article/view/2838 |
| Paraula clau: | intended fertility happiness Latin America Felicidad fecundidad deseada América Latina intenções de fecundidade felicidade |