Fertility Intentions and Obstacles to their Realization in France and Italy

To understand fertility behaviours in countries where effective methods of birth control are widely available, they must be analysed in terms of intentions and realization. In particular, what are the factors – economic, social or cultural – that lead couples to have more or fewer children than initially planned? Using comparable longitudinal data from the Generations and Gender Surveys (GGS), Arnaud RÉGNIER-LOILIER and Daniele VIGNOLI compare fertility intentions and realization in France and in Italy, two countries where couples start out with similar wishes (at least two children in the majority of cases), but where the fi nal outcomes are very different. They show that after controlling for age and number of children, socioeconomic factors play a key role in the decision to postpone or forego childbearing plans, although they operate in different ways in the two countries.