IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/eurpop/v32y2016i4d10.1007_s10680-016-9399-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Religion and Fertility in Contemporary Northern Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick McGregor
  • Patricia McKee

    (University of Ulster)

Abstract

Northern Ireland has been and continues to be deeply divided on the basis of religion. This paper examines and compares contemporary fertility in the two communities given the sharp declines that have occurred in recent decades. The data are drawn from the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study and cover 108,000 women aged 16–44 in the period 1997–2007. A logit analysis of births in the period is undertaken based on individual demographic data and also the characteristics of the locality in which the woman is resident. The effect of religion is measured by its individual marginal effect averaged over the total sample, over time and by the age of the woman. The estimated average marginal effect is 4 % of the probability of a woman having a birth over the entire period. The effect peaks when the woman is between 29 and 30 years and is stable over time. When the fertility behaviour of each religious group is compared separately with those women that came from the same background but had lost their religion, it is found to differ substantially. Thus, community background is rejected as a possible explanation of the difference in fertility between declared Catholics and Protestants. Although the fertility rates of former Catholics and Protestants appear to be converging, the size of these groups is relatively small. There is no evidence to suggest that the small but distinct difference in the fertility rates of the two religious communities is likely to change in the immediate future.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick McGregor & Patricia McKee, 2016. "Religion and Fertility in Contemporary Northern Ireland," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(4), pages 599-622, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:eurpop:v:32:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s10680-016-9399-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10680-016-9399-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10680-016-9399-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10680-016-9399-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adrian Raftery & Steven Lewis & Akbar Aghajanian, 1995. "Demand or Ideation? Evidence from the Iranian Marital Fertility Decline," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(2), pages 159-182, May.
    2. Evelyn Lehrer, 1996. "Religion as a determinant of marital fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 9(2), pages 173-196, June.
    3. Ian G Shuttleworth & Christopher D Lloyd, 2009. "Are Northern Ireland's Communities Dividing? Evidence from Geographically Consistent Census of Population Data, 1971–2001," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(1), pages 213-229, January.
    4. Pedro Mira & Namkee Ahn, 2002. "A note on the changing relationship between fertility and female employment rates in developed countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 667-682.
    5. Kevin McQuillan, 2004. "When Does Religion Influence Fertility?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 30(1), pages 25-56, March.
    6. Johan Surkyn & Ron Lesthaeghe, 2004. "Value Orientations and the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) in Northern, Western and Southern Europe: An Update," Demographic Research Special Collections, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 3(3), pages 45-86.
    7. Adriaan Kalwij, 2010. "The impact of family policy expenditure on fertility in western Europe," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(2), pages 503-519, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dayuan Xie & Yonghong Zhou, 2022. "Religion effects on fertility preference: evidence from China," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 341-371, September.
    2. Dierk Herzer, 2019. "A Note on the Effect of Religiosity on Fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(3), pages 991-998, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.
    2. Carranza, Eliana, 2012. "Islamic inheritance law, son preference and fertility behavior of Muslim couples in Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5972, The World Bank.
    3. Angela Luci-Greulich & Olivier Thévenon, 2013. "The Impact of Family Policies on Fertility Trends in Developed Countries," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(4), pages 387-416, November.
    4. Bertoli, Simone & Marchetta, Francesca, 2015. "Bringing It All Back Home – Return Migration and Fertility Choices," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 27-40.
    5. Hippolyte d'Albis & Angela Luci Greulich & Grégory Ponthière, 2015. "Avoir un enfant plus tard: Enjeux sociodémographiques du report des naissances," Post-Print halshs-01245523, HAL.
    6. Hippolyte D'Albis & Angela Greulich & Grégory Ponthière, 2015. "AVOIR UN ENFANT PLUS TARD Enjeux sociodémographiques du report des naissances," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01298929, HAL.
    7. Adsera, Alicia, 2004. "Marital Fertility and Religion: Recent Changes in Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 1399, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Julia Hellstrand & Jessica Nisén & Mikko Myrskylä, 2022. "Less Partnering, Less Children, or Both? Analysis of the Drivers of First Birth Decline in Finland Since 2010," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(2), pages 191-221, May.
    9. Rares Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir & Gianluca Egidi & Rosanna Salvia & Luca Salvati & Adele Sateriano & Antonio Gimenez-Morera, 2021. "Recession, Local Fertility, and Urban Sustainability: Results of a Quasi-Experiment in Greece, 1991–2018," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-18, January.
    10. Berman, Eli & Iannaccone, Laurence R. & Ragusa, Giuseppe, 2018. "From Empty Pews To Empty Cradles: Fertility Decline Among European Catholics," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 149-187, June.
    11. Julia Hellstrand & Jessica Nisén & Mikko Myrskylä, 2021. "Less partnering, less children, or both? Analysis of the drivers of first-birth decline in Finland since 2010?," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2021-008, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    12. Karin Hoisl & Myriam Mariani, 2017. "It’s a Man’s Job: Income and the Gender Gap in Industrial Research," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 766-790, March.
    13. Thomas Baudin, 2012. "More on Religion and Fertility: The French Connection," Working Papers hal-00993310, HAL.
    14. Judit Sági & Csaba Lentner, 2018. "Certain Aspects of Family Policy Incentives for Childbearing—A Hungarian Study with an International Outlook," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-16, October.
    15. Sinclair, Sarah & Boymal, Jonathan & de Silva, Ashton J, 2012. "Is the fertility response to the Australian baby bonus heterogeneous across maternal age? Evidence from Victoria," MPRA Paper 42725, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Jennifer Kane, 2013. "A Closer Look at the Second Demographic Transition in the US: Evidence of Bidirectionality from a Cohort Perspective (1982–2006)," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(1), pages 47-80, February.
    17. Francesco Billari, 2004. "Becoming an Adult in Europe: A Macro(/Micro)-Demographic Perspective," Demographic Research Special Collections, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 3(2), pages 15-44.
    18. Mizuki Komura, 2013. "Fertility and endogenous gender bargaining power," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 943-961, July.
    19. Tomas Frejka & Charles F. Westoff, 2008. "Religion, Religiousness and Fertility in the US and in Europe," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 24(1), pages 5-31, March.
    20. Donata Bessey, 2018. "Religion and Fertility in East Asia: Evidence from the East Asian Social Survey," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 517-532, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:eurpop:v:32:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s10680-016-9399-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.