Gender roles and fertility intentions in Poland, Hungary, Belgium and Norway

Katarzyna Kocot-Górecka, Warsaw School of Economics
Irena E. Kotowska, Warsaw School of Economics

The aim of the paper is to investigate how women's attitudes towards gender roles affect the child-bearing intentions in four countries: Poland, Hungary, Belgium and Norway referring to interdependencies between fertility and the attitudes and the conflict between attitudes and practices of sharing household duties discussed in the literature (Neyer, Lappergard & Vignoli 2011 Goldscheider, Bernhardt & Lappegård 2014). The analysis made use of the data from the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey conducted in Hungary (2004/2005), Belgium (2008-2010), Poland (2010/2011) and Norway (2007/2008). Firstly, in the descriptive approach views on gender roles (declarative attitudes) and executed sharing household and childcare duties between parents (practiced attitudes) were compared and levels of conflict between them were measured. Secondly, the attitude variables and the conflict variable were used to estimate logit models of intentions to have a second child and a third child among couples living together. The descriptive analysis pointed to different degrees of acceptance for gender equality and the division of household duties in four country and lower conflict between declarative and practiced attitudes was found in Norwegian and Belgium families in comparison with Poland and Hungary. Estimation results showed the importance of attitudes and the degree of inconsistencies between declarations and practice on the intentions to have more children in four countries and confirmed meaning of the cultural context, which however played a different role in each country. References: Goldscheider, F., E. Bernhardt and T. Lappegård (2014).The Second Half of the Gender Revolution in Sweden: Will it Strengthen the Family? Equal Working Paper, SUDA, Stockholm University Neyer G., Lappergard T., Vignoli D., (2011), Gender equality and fertility: Which equality matters, “European Journal of Population”, nr 29, 3, 245-272.