Cultural Inheritance and Fertility Outcomes: An Analysis from Evolutionary and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Li Zhang,Michael S Alvard,Dudley L Poston,Christopher Cherry

doi:10.1155/2013/340719

Abstract

Taking evolutionary and interdisciplinary perspectives, this study views the reproductive result as an evolutionary outcome that may be affected by parental characteristics through cultural inheritance. We hypothesize that inheriting more cultural traits from parents leads to a greater resemblance between fertility outcomes of the offspring and their parents. In societies that experience a demographic transition, a greater resemblance can be indicated by a higher level of fertility of the offspring and a sooner transition from union formation to childbearing. We operationalize inheriting cultural traits from parents as reporting a religious affiliation the same as those of their parents. Through analyzing data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) Cycle 6, our results show that inheriting the same religious traits from parents does have an effect on one’s fertility. In particular, women who reported the same religious affiliations as those of their parents reported a greater number of children. They tend to have births inside, rather than outside, of marriage. Inside marriage, they are also more likely to give births sooner, rather than later. These findings support our hypotheses and help to build a theoretical framework that explains the changes in fertility outcomes from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Highlights

E demographer Watkins (1990) [1] has developed the diffusion theory which considers culture and cultural norms to understand the causes of fertility decline in European countries from 1870 to 1960
We have studied the link between inheriting unbiased cultural traits and fertility
With data on the US women, we show strong associations between unbiased cultural traits and one’s fertility outcome

Summary

Introduction

E demographer Watkins (1990) [1] has developed the diffusion theory which considers culture and cultural norms to understand the causes of fertility decline in European countries from 1870 to 1960. She suggested that geographic diffusion of the innovation of fertility limitation within marriage was the key to fertility reduction in Europe. Us far, no theoretical statements have been made to explain the mechanism why cultural norms inherited from nonparental sources or from outside of the family system have accelerated fertility reduction. We move to a discussion of the theoretical background of the research

Theories and Hypotheses

Results

Findings

Discussion and Conclusions