Is It the Ring or the Relationship: Gendered Links between Relationship Context and Fertility Intentions

Joanna Lesniak , Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw & SGH Warsaw School of Economics
Monika Mynarska, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw & SGH Warsaw School of Economics

As family forms diversify, relationship quality—rather than formal status—becomes increasingly important for family formation and childbearing plans. In Poland, however, marriage has long been the socially endorsed foundation for starting a family and is only slowly losing ground to cohabitation. Using recent survey data (N = 1,930) on childless men and women aged 18–40, we examine whether relationship satisfaction is now becoming a more decisive factor for childbearing intentions in Poland. We also investigate whether the associations between relationship type (marriage, cohabitation, living apart together), subjective relationship satisfaction, and the intention to become a parent differ by gender. The results indicate that, for women, marriage remains the relationship type most conducive to planning motherhood. For men, by contrast, co-residence with a partner—regardless of the relationship’s legal status—proved to be the key factor in this respect. Relationship satisfaction played only a very limited role for fertility plans for both genders. The analyses also revealed that only among men a higher level of relationship formalization was associated with greater satisfaction. These findings underscore the need for further research, including more refined measures of relationship quality and closer attention to gendered mechanisms connecting union context to fertility intentions.

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 Presented in Session 5. Flash Session Parenthood, Childbearing, and Family Formation