Getting the Timing Right: The Age of the Youngest Child as a Gatekeeper to Realising Fertility Intentions

Forming an understanding of the extent to which individuals realise their short-term fertility intentions is essential in terms of grasping the dynamics behind persistently low fertility in Europe. This study examines the realisation of fertility intentions within a three-year period across four Central European countries (Czechia, Poland, Austria and Germany) employing data from the two waves of the Generations and Gender Survey (2005–2015). The study focuses on men and women aged 18–39 and includes both childless individuals and parents aimed at capturing differences in terms of the realisation of fertility intentions at distinct stages of the family life course. Its main contribution lies in examining whether and how the age of the youngest child is associated with the realisation of the fertility intentions of parents. The results reveal that the odds of parents realising their fertility intentions decline substantially as the youngest child grows older, thus suggesting the existence of a relatively narrow time window following a birth for the realisation of intentions to have another child, a factor that has important implications for the design of (tempo-related) family policies. In addition, the study shows that while economic conditions influence the realisation of short-term fertility intentions to have a child for childless individuals, they lose their significance for parents. By uncovering the central role of the child’s age in terms of the realisation of fertility intentions, this study contributes to the demographic research on timing and parity-specific fertility behaviour and has important implications for the formation of family policies aimed at supporting higher-order (especially second) births.