Social Mobility and Fertility

This review examines 4 possible causal links between social mobility and fertility: 1) fertility affects social mobility; 2) social mobility affects fertility; 3) fertility and social mobility simultaneously affect each other; and 4) social mobility and fertility are unrelated. Due to the lack of systematic theory guiding the research, conceptualizations and measures of social mobility and fertility vary markedly from study to study, leading to inconsistent findings. The review focuses on theoretical perspectives underpinning the research, causal operators proposed to interpret observed associations, and analytical methods used. The selectivity perspective is based on the contention that a family must be small in order to rise on the social scale. This has found little support, however. In fact, studies suggest that children induce slightly higher levels of status achievement and family responsibilities may stimulate the energy and ambition of some so that they achieve more than they would have done without a family. Most studies have concerned the hypothesis that social mobility affects fertility. 4 theoretical perspectives have emerged: status enhancement; relative economic status; social isolation; and stress and disorientation. At any time in a couple's reproductive life cycle the decision or actual experience of either social mobility or fertility may influence the decision or actual experience of the other variable. Mobility-fertility research has defined an individual's or couple's position in terms of income, education, or occupation with occupation used most often as a single index of social class and indexes of social mobility developed by comparing persons' changes in occupational position. A common theme in much of the research literature is that the existence of an effect of social mobility on fertility depends on the societal conditions of a given population. Most studies through the mid-60s used a common measurement method to assess whether a mobility effect existed. This method compared the reproductive behavior of the upwardly and/or downwardly mobile with that of the nonmobile at origin and/or destination.