Fertility of Canadian Men: Levels, Trends, and Correlates
P C
1183-7284
Fertility of Canadian Men: Levels, Trends, and Correlates
Zenaida R. Ravanera 0
Rajulton Fernando 0
0 University of Western Ontario
Recommended Citation
-
Article 1
Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/pscpapers
by
Zenaida R. Ravanera
Fernando Rajulton
Discussion Paper no. 03-06
May 2003
On the web in PDF format: http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/sociology/popstudies/dp/dp03-06.pdf
Paper presented at the 2003Annual Meeting of Population Association of America
Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 1-3
Zenaida R. Ravanera and Fernando Rajulton
I. Introduction
In Canada, as in many Western countries, men’s fertility has not been extensively studied
as fertility or reproduction has been mainly taken as women’s concern (Goldscheider and
Kaufman, 1996). However, recent socio-demographic changes have put men’s fertility to
the fore. These changes include high divorce and cohabitation rates, increased
participation of women in the labour force, and the shift from family to individual wage
rates, each affecting gender division of labour that places more responsibility on men for
children rearing. This paper aims at a better understanding of the roles that men play in
reproduction and consists mainly of two parts. The first describes the levels and timing of
men’s fertility and the second explores factors affecting fertility. Before these two parts,
we discuss the data and methodology. The final section mentions further research on
men’s fertility that we intend to do.
II. Data and Methodology
The study uses the 1995 General Social Survey of the Family that collected retrospective
data on individuals and their families including marital and fertility histories from 10,750
men and women aged 15 and older residing in Canada, excluding residents of institutions
and the Territories. In most of our analysis, we focus on the sample of men born in 1921
to 1970 (aged 25 to 74 as of the survey date) consisting of 3,930 respondents. We make
use of both the main and children’s public use micro-data files. The former contains
information on the respondents and the latter has information on their children, in
particular, the age of respondent at the birth of each child, the information necessary for
estimating the levels and timing of fertility.
For estimating levels of fertility, we computed the age-specific fertility rates for each of
the 10-year birth cohorts as follows: From the children’s file, we obtained the number of
births by 5-year age groups (15-19, 20-24 ..., 60-64) for each cohort of men and women.
Since each respondent, regardless of marital status, was asked about his/her children, we
divided the number of births in each age group by the number of respondents in each
cohort (obtained from the main file) to get estimates of age-specific fertility rates for both
men and women. The discussion of results focuses mainly on fertility of men with
women’s fertility used mainly for comparison of completeness of reported births.
For summary measures of the timing of fertility, we made life tables of age at birth of
first child for each of the 10-year birth cohorts of men, which provided the median ages
at first birth and the cumulative proportion surviving the risk of first birth. Sample
weights were used for this procedure1.
1 Weights were not used for the estimation of the age-specific fertility rates as no weights were included in
the children’s file.
To explore the effects of certain factors on the timing of first birth, we did hazards
analysis (Cox regression procedure) of age at first birth using a set of explanatory
variables, all of which are categorical, except for the factor score used to indicate
familyoriented values. The theoretical framework, models and the variables are discussed
below.
III. Fertility Levels and Timing
Gender Difference in Fertility
Figures 1 and 2 present estimates of age-specific fertility rates. These estimates are most
likely under-estimated with under-estimation more serious for men than for women.
About 5% of children had missing information on the age of respondent at birth of child.
Moreover, like the survey data on fertility in Britain and the United States, the1995
General Social Survey (GSS) suffers from under-count particularly of non-marital births
and births in unions subsequently dissolved (Rendall et al, 1997). Juby and Le Bourdais
(1999) contend that the under-reporting in the 1995 GSS is greater than the 2% usually
cited in the literature and that this is more severe in the case of fathers who do not have
frequent contacts with non-(co)resident children. To get better estimates, we await the
release of the more recent survey on the family, the 2001 GSS, which we expect to have
more complete data on children.
In spite of this limitation, the results of our analysis are adequate for interpreting general
trends. Figure 1 shows the age-specific fertility rates of men and women born in 1931-40
and the total fertility rates for three 10-year birth c (...truncated)