Emancipative Values and Reproductive Behavior in the Context of Demographic Modernization (Based on World Values Survey (2017—2020) Data)

Abstract

The article deals with analysis of relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and demographic modernization in the field of reproductive behavior and fertility using the data of the latest wave of World Values Survey (2017-2020). The study is aimed to compare the commitment of respondents from different countries to emancipative values (according to the index “Welzel emancipative values”), to assess the impact this complex “value factor” has on the number of respondents’ children, on their attitudes to childbirth, on the age of motherhood. Also focus of this study includes analysis of factors that affect index value, in particular individual socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. Within this study an attempt is made for the first time to model the relationship between the commitment to emancipative values and number of children controlling for the impact of both the individual socio-demographic characteristics of the respondent and the stage of demographic transition in his / her country. Other components of the research with results that potentially can contribute to the existing literature are related to studying: relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and the attitude to the evaluative judgment on the mandatory birth of children; impact of the emancipative values’ spread on motherhood age; impact of respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics on their commitment to emancipative values (based on the Ukrainian data). Censored Poisson regression is used to model the relationship between the emancipative values index and the number of respondent’s children. Regression model (linear regression estimated by OLS) is estimated to determine the dependence of value orientations’ (according to Welzel values) on the age of respondents from Ukraine, controlling for the influence of such variables as sex, education level and type of settlement. Evaluation of the impact average value of Welzel index has on attitudes towards childbirth, as well as its effect on the mean age of mother at the first child birth is carried out at the national level based on WVS data using correlation-regression analysis. There is a statistically significant inverse relationship between index of emancipative values and number of children. The effect of this value factor is bigger in magnitude compared to the effects of such factors as age, gender, type of settlement, education level of the respondent (all abovementioned effects are statistically significant). There is a strong statistically significant relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and the increase in the proportion of those who do not perceive the childbirth as a social duty. Also obtained results reveal that the spread of emancipative values has statistically significant positive effect on the mother’s age at the first birth (i.e. with the higher level of emancipative values the mother’s age at the first birth is increasing). Conducted analysis showed the statistically significant age effect in the differentiation of the Welzel index among Ukrainian respondents, as well as the effect of their settlement place and educational level on propensity to emancipative values.