Family and Childbearing in Canada: A Demographic Analysis

Elaine Porter is an associate professor of sociology and chair of the
Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Laurentian University.

This book contains the only comprehensive set of analyses of the 1984
National Fertility Study available to date. Since the data tapes are
available for purchase, the extensive analyses of the 5315 cases
gathered through telephone interviews are useful as a guide to the menu
of variables used. The interview schedule is reproduced in its entirety
in the appendix. The authors, who, along with G.E. Ebanks, were
initiators of this SSHRCC-funded project, locate the need for their
study in the findings of previous studies that traditional
sociodemographic variables had becomes less effective predictors of
fertility reduction.

Attitudinal data on valuation of children and indicators of the extent
of role sharing in the marital relationship remain the least exploited
variables in the database in terms of their potential for specifying
which subgroups of fecund women tend to be more inclined toward lowered
fertility.

While the book may be useful for demographers in the above ways, it is
likely to be valuable to nondemographers if they have at least
rudimentary familiarity with the principles of survey research. The
authors repeatedly stress the limitations in their ability to
generalize, especially in noting “censoring” effects on the validity
of projections. They give careful attention to the complexity of
interrelationships among the social background factors (especially as
they relate to age) without losing the reader in overwhelming detail.
Period and cohort effects are identified and teased out, and their
potential biases are somewhat mitigated by the performance of separate
analyses for each age cohort (defined arbitrarily in 5-year segments).

Throughout the book, the authors keep in mind the big questions related
to replacement fertility, and interpret their findings in the light of
this issue. The range of their findings and their competent handling of
the data analyses lend weight to their conclusion that Canada is a solid
member of the low-fertility club among industrialized countries. Short
of the advantages for untangling causal relationships that short-term
longitudinal studies offer, this cross-sectional data set will continue
to be a rich source of information for further analyses of the
attitudinal differences that underlie fertility-related behavior,
especially among younger cohorts.