Gender equality and preference theories in fertility intensions’ explanation: the case of Poland

Ewa Fratczak, Warsaw School of Economics
Aneta Ptak-Chmielewska, Warsaw School of Economics

In demographic research the effects of social capital, lifestyle preferences and gender equality in the family and the society have received only limited attention. These factors are likely to have special importance for fertility-related decision making and behavior in societies facing economic uncertainty along with transformation of values and norms, such as Poland. Hence, in our study we focus on fertility intentions in the context of three theories, namely (i) preference theory, (ii) gender equity theory and (iii) social capital theory. However all theories require re-interpretation in case of countries in transition like Poland. In our empirical analyses, we rely on data extracted from the first wave of the Polish panel survey called “Late fertility diagnosis” conducted in 2007 on a sample of 1200 women (aged 19, 23, 27 and 31 years) in two big cities in Poland. Both descriptive and logistic regression methods are used as analytical tools. We focus on re-interpretation of theoretical context in the light of results of our analysis.