Different-sex American couples’ stress, uncertainty, and fertility desires during the COVID-19 pandemic

TL;DR

This study explores how stress and uncertainty during the pandemic affect American couples' fertility desires and decision-making.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel application of the NofF framework to fertility desires, emphasizing stress and uncertainty across multiple life domains.

Findings

Higher stress levels across domains are linked to greater uncertainty and disagreement about fertility desires in couples.

Women's fertility desires are more strongly related to their partner's stress than men's desires are.

Stress and uncertainty in economic, health, and relational domains significantly influence fertility decision-making during the pandemic.

Abstract

The Narratives of the Future (NofF) framework has drawn attention to the role of subjective well-being and uncertainty as key determinants of individual fertility intentions. We apply the NofF framework to the Traits–Desires–Intentions–Behavior (TDIB) model, arguing that perceptions of current and future well-being are aspects of traits and thus that desires—not intentions—would be most strongly related to perceptions. Further, although most research on subjective well-being and uncertainty has focused on economic aspects, a life course perspective suggests that other domains, such as health or relationship concerns, are also relevant. Finally, few studies consider the dyadic nature of fertility decision-making. We address these gaps by using the U.S.-based National Couples’ Health and Time Study (NCHAT), collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, to investigate how subjective concerns across economic, health, and relational domains relate to American couples’ agreement on wanting a(another) child and how men’s and women’s own fertility desires are related to their own stress and their partner’s relative stress across different domains. We find that couples’ higher levels of stress—across domains—is related to greater couple-level uncertainty and disagreement about fertility desires. Women’s own fertility desires are associated with their partner’s relative stress across domains, with less evidence that men’s fertility desires are related to their partner’s relative stress. Our findings point to the importance of considering stress and uncertainty across multiple domains, at least during the COVID-19 pandemic, as important for the formation of fertility desires as well as the need to incorporate both partners’ experiences as key factors in fertility decision-making.

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