Worldwide, these questions arise sooner or later for most individuals and couples. They may not be asked right after marriage, since in many cultures young people are expected to have a child immediately. In other instances, they may come up even before a woman and a man marry. At first, they may not be consciously verbalized. But by the time one or two children have arrived, most people will have asked themselves questions like these.

Only recently has deliberate consideration of these matters become fairly common. Not so long ago, people may have wished to have a certain number of children, or wished for a particular mix of boys and girls. But in many countries, their main hope was si mply to have as many children as they could, to ensure that at least some would live to become healthy, productive adults.

Today, many individuals enter their childbearing years already thinking about their reproductive goals: not just how many children they would like to have overall, but when babies should come in relation to work, education and each other. How is it that for many women and men, childbearing is becoming increasingly a consciously planned part of their lives?

As societies have modernized and developed, values have changed and people's lives have become more complex. Even though building a family—having babies and raising children—continues to be a central value underlying all societies, other values increasingly compete. The desires of parents to provide their children with a good education and a better standard of living are among the reasons why fewer children are now wanted. Moreover, women who need to work in order to survive may worry about havi ng sufficient time to raise children and earn the money needed to feed, clothe and educate them according to the standards for which they now aim.

Charting Reproductive Goals

There are good reasons for wanting to measure how well (or how badly) women and men are doing at achieving their reproductive goals. Unwanted births may limit a woman's ability to attend school or earn a living, t hey can place a strain on a family's financial resources, and they may indicate failure to attain the control that men and women want over this basic area of their lives. Moreover, evidence that people in a particular country or region are having problems limiting their family size may signal a need to improve the delivery of contraceptive services. While unwanted births can become a burden both to families and to society, they are amenable to reduction.

Trying to measure family-size goals is a complex task, however, because the larger social and economic factors that influence them are sometimes difficult to analyze. In addition, change does not happen at a uniform pace throughout the world (or even with in countries). Moreover, men and women may have differing views of both their short-term and their long-term reproductive goals. Therefore, gauging how individuals' aims shift—and how well they are able to meet them—becomes very difficult.

Most scientific efforts to determine people's reproductive goals have involved a measurement at one point in time (usually as part of a survey), but attitudes and values are dynamic, not static. There is evidence that men and women adjust their childbeari ng goals often because of life experiences or changes in attitudes and living conditions, and as a result of childbearing itself.

Furthermore, surveys typically include just a few questions on childbearing goals. Interviewers often lack enough time to delve into the complex social and psychological issues that affect decisions about whether and when to have children. And large-scale surveys on reproductive health issues have usually queried only women. Thus, most of the available information about reproductive goals and decision-making does not represent the views of men—even though they often play an important role in both the formation and the achievement of family-size goals.

Although the reproductive goals that individuals report may fluctuate from one point in their lives to another, the aggregate data for an entire population appear relatively stable, and are believed to provide useful insights into the values, goals and be havior of women and men. Thus, national-level survey data offer a reasonably reliable picture of women's reproductive aims and their relative success in meeting them.

Here we present data gathered from women in 41 countries around the world, mostly as part of the Demographic and Health Surveys. The findings help to place into context women's reproductive intentions and experiences and offer some insight into the circum stances that promote—or prevent—the achievement of their reproductive goals.

Immediate Goals

In many countries where women's desired family size is low or moderate, large proportions of married respondents say they want no more children (see Table 1). At least 60% of women in all but three of the Latin American and Caribbean countries that were s urveyed reported wanting no additional births, as did more than half of women in nearly all of the Asian nations.

Table 1
Childbearing Aspirations

Country and survey year	Married women aged 15­49		Desired family size			% of last births unplanned
	% wanting no more children	% wanting to delay next birth >=2 years	Women 15­49	<7 years schooling	>=7 years schooling	Women 15­49	<7 years schooling	>= 7 years schooling
Sub-Saharan Africa
Botswana, 1988	33	38	4.7	5.4	4.2	55	51	59
Burundi, 1987	24	58	5.4	5.4	4.0	24	24	45
Cameroon, 1991	14	45	6.7	7.7	4.9	22	17	39
Ghana,1988	23	54	5.4	6.0	4.6	33	31	35
Kenya, 1993	52	33	3.8	4.3	3.3	56	55	56
Liberia, 1986	17	51	6.0	6.4	4.5	29	25	49
Mali, 1987	17	51	6.7	6.8	4.7	14	12	37
Namibia, 1992	34	38	5.1	5.8	4.2	36	28	47
Niger, 1992	9	53	7.9	8.0	4.7	14	13	36
Nigeria, 1990	15	49	5.9	6.4	4.8	12	12	18
Senegal, 1986	19	35	6.7	7.0	4.5	u	u	u
Tanzania, 1991/1992	23	46	6.1	6.9	5.2	25	23	28
Togo, 1988	25	56	5.3	5.5	3.8	39	38	45
Uganda, 1988/1989	19	39	6.5	6.7	5.4	31	30	40
Zambia, 1992	24	46	5.8	6.4	5.1	37	34	40
Zimbabwe, 1988	33	43	5.0	5.8	4.1	u	u	u
North Africa & Middle East
Egypt, 1992	67	19	3.5	3.7	2.8	42	45	30
Morocco, 1992	52	28	3.9	3.9	2.7	37	38	33
Sudan, 1989/1990	25	40	6.0	6.1	4.8	23	20	38
Tunisia, 1988	57	28	3.7	3.8	2.8	38	38	32
Yemen, 1991/1992	37	10	5.6	5.6	4.2	u	u	u
Asia
Bangladesh, 1993/1994	57	26	2.7	2.9	2.4	33	u	u
India, 1992/1993	57	23	2.9	3.0*	2.2Ý	23	23*	24Ý
Indonesia, 1994	54	32	3.4	3.4	2.9	24	24	22
Pakistan, 1990/1991	40	21	5.2	5.4	4.0	24	22	35
Philippines, 1993	63	25	3.2	3.7	3.1	47	50	44
Sri Lanka, 1987	65	23	3.3	3.6	3.0	39	42	37
Thailand, 1987	66	23	2.8	2.9	2.4	33	34	30
Turkey, 1993	70	17	2.5	2.5	2.1	32	34	36
Latin America & Caribbean
Bolivia, 1989	72	14	2.7	2.8	2.6	65	69	56
Brazil, 1986	66	19	2.8	3.0	2.6	55	58	48
Colombia, 1990	64	20	2.6	2.8	2.4	38	40	35
Dominican Rep., 1991	65	19	3.2	3.4	2.9	41	46	36
Ecuador, 1987	63	24	3.1	3.5	2.7	37	40	32
El Salvador, 1985	64	26	3.7	4.1	2.7	48	49	44
Guatemala, 1987	47	40	4.2	4.4	2.9	29	28	42
Mexico, 1987	62	18	3.2	3.6	2.5	51	70	60
Paraguay, 1990	44	32	4.1	4.5	3.4	24	25	21
Peru, 1991/1992	72	16	2.6	2.8	2.4	59	68	50
Trinidad/Tobago, 1987	56	27	3.0	3.3	2.8	39	46	36
North America
United States, 1988	64	23	2.6	2.7ý	2.6§	39	51ý	36§
*Includes women with incomplete middle school or less education. ÝIncludes women with complete middle school or higher education. ýIncludes women with fewer than 12 years of schooling. §Includes women with 12 or more years of schooling. Note: u=unavailable.

Likewise, in most countries in these regions, an additional 15­25% of women say they would like to delay their next birth by at least two years. Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, where people desire large families and most women want more children, women c learly place a high value on birthspacing: About 40­55% of women in most countries in this region would like to wait two or more years before having another child.

Thus, around the world, only a small proportion of women want to become pregnant or to have a child soon. Fewer than one in five women in most countries actively want to become pregnant. In a handful of high-fertility societies—such as Cameroon, Nige ria and Pakistan—as many as two in five women want to have a child in the next year or two.

Reproductive Ideals

In many countries, the average woman says she wants a small family: When asked how many children they would have if they could choose, women in Latin America and the Caribbean generally give a desired family size of t wo or three children. Within this region, average preferences climb as high as four children in Guatemala and Paraguay only; in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru, the ideal number is less than three—the preference of women in the United States as we ll (Table 1).

Asian women's family-size preferences are also often low. In the countries for which information is available, women generally envision a family of three or fewer children; Pakistan is the main exception, with women wanting an average of five children.

Across Sub-Saharan Africa, family-size ideals remain high. Women in many countries in this region typically say that five or six children would be ideal, and those in Cameroon, Mali, Niger and Senegal desire an average of seven or eight.

While the above measures provide some perspective, they are only approximations. They do not reflect the limitations of women's real-life situations; instead, they may illustrate a personal ideal that respondents are striving for or represent a societal n orm that women feel is an acceptable answer to the question. (For example, in Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen, more than one woman in four respond simply that their number of children is "up to God" or that they want to have as many chil dren as they can.¹) These measures also do not represent the views of the women's partners, and so can present at best only a partial portrait of couples' reproductive intentions.

Real-Life Limitations

The tension between ideals and reality becomes clear if we stop to examine women's answers to questions about whether they wanted their most recent birth. Life circumstances at the time of a pregnancy or a birth may outweigh abstract and possibly fluid co ncepts such as desired family size.

One measure of this tension compares the number of births a typical woman is expected to have over her lifetime given the present rate of childbearing (total fertility rate or TFR, see box at left) with the number of births she would have if women had only those births they wanted (wanted TFR).² Chart A, which shows data for a few countries from each region of the world, demonstrates th at in these 11 countries, the average woman wants fewer children than she is actually having#151;sometimes as many as two fewer children.

Women often bear more children than they would prefer.

Notes: Desired family size is for all women aged 15­49, except in Egypt, Bangladesh and Indonesia, where it is for ever-married women. Survey dates are different than those shown in Table 1 for Ghana (1993) and Senegal (1992).

In addition, a significant gap exists between women's ideal family size and their intentions at the time of a pregnancy. In Cameroon, Senegal, Morocco and Indonesia, the wanted TFR is as much as one birth less than the mean desired family size.

Another measure of ambivalence about family size examines the percentage of women whose most recent birth was an unplanned pregnancy (Table 1). In Latin America and the Caribbean, for instance, 55­65% of wome n of reproductive age in Bolivia, Brazil and Peru say their last birth was unplanned. The proportion is much lower in some countries in this region; the lowest level is 24% in Paraguay. In contrast, rarely do more than one-third of Asian women report that their most recent birth was unplanned. Typically, the proportion is very low in Sub-Saharan Africa (as low as 12­14% in Mali, Niger and Nigeria), although it is very high in a few countries where rapid changes are occurring (55­56% in Botswana and Kenya).

As a result of unplanned births, women in many countries bear more children than they would prefer.³ For example, in Kenya, where the actual TFR is approximately six lifetime births per woman, women report a me an desired family size of just 3.8 births per woman (Chart A). Sizable gaps between the TFR and desired family size can also be seen in Ghana, Bangladesh and Peru.

Of course, unplanned births are not the only mismatches between women's hopes and their realities: In some countries, women bear fewer children than they would like; Cameroon, Morocco and Indonesia are examples of this. Sometimes the need to work for a li ving leads women to postpone, then forgo childbearing. They may also have problems finding a partner, or may lose a partner before they have had as many children as they wanted.

Furthermore, everywhere around the world but especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are many women who, for health reasons, cannot have as many children as they would like, and some who are sterile and unable to have any children. Worldwide, however, wom en and couples trying to avoid an unplanned pregnancy and to have small families are much more typical than are those having fewer children than desired.

How Much Success?

Despite some problems, couples have made great progress in reaching smaller family-size goals over the past 30 years. The mean number of children women bear has declined substantially, from around six children in the early 1960s to about three in 1995.⁴

Even so, the growth in the preference for a small family—and for having children at the right time, given the mother's situation in life—has exceeded worldwide fertility declines. In surveys conducted over the past 20 years, women have reported wanting fewer and fewer children.⁵

Chart B illustrates this situation in those countries for which there is comparison information from three points in time. In each, women's desired family size fell from the 1970s to the 1980s, usually by about one child; in most (all but Egypt and Morocc o), this measure continued to decline into the 1990s.

Chart B
Family-Size Goals

The number of children women wish to have has consistently declined.

*1986­1989 unavailable. Notes: The mean desired family size was calculated excluding nonnumeric responses. For the most recent time period, means are for currently married women aged 15­49 in most countries; however, averages differ littl e between currently married and ever-married women. Data for 1975­1985 are from World Fertility Surveys; data for the two later periods are taken from Demographic and Health Surveys.

The Role of Education

Many factors influence women's childbearing goals, matters that are socioeconomic, cultural and personal. Some (such as values, religious beliefs and women's position in society) are complex and usually not measured in large-scale surveys of women, while others (such as income or employment) are difficult to compare across nations. However, one factor that influences childbearing goals—women's education—has been consistently included in national fertility surveys, is generally comparable across societies and, equally important, is a good indicator of women's socio-economic status.

Better-educated women generally want fewer children than their less-educated counterparts. A variety of explanations are offered for this difference: They have higher educational aims for their children, for example, and recognize that their ability to ed ucate all of their children well may be diminished with a large family.

In addition, such women are more likely than the less-educated to work for pay in jobs that are not in the home. As a result, they may have less time to devote to child-rearing, and may have to forgo sizable earnings if they have a large family. They them selves may also have highly educated partners, who reinforce the woman's desire to have a few children who are well provided for.

We can see from Table 1 that women with seven or more years of schooling typically desire a smaller family than do women with less education. This differential is nearly always largest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where improvements in education are most recent : In this region, better-educated women generally prefer one or two fewer children than their less-educated counterparts.

The educational differential is especially large in Cameroon, Mali, Niger and Senegal. In contrast, this gap is often narrow in many countries in Asia and Latin America, where the desire for a small family pervades all social classes. Nevertheless, even i n these regions, the difference between better-educated and less-educated women is large in a few countries—for example, El Salvador, Guatemala and Pakistan. The large educational differences in desired number of children persist even when the influe nces of variations in the age of the woman and her actual family size are taken into account.⁶

Better-educated women are generally thought to know more about contraception and about sources of methods than women with less schooling and, therefore, are more readily able to obtain contraceptive services and supplies. They are also believed to be bett er able to use methods effectively and to have the resources to obtain an abortion if necessary.

Given these assumptions, we would expect that better-educated women generally come closer to achieving their reproductive goals than do less-educated women. In many instances, however, better-educated women appear more likely than less-educated women to h ave an unplanned birth. This is the case in all countries of Sub-Saharan Africa for which such data are available (see Table 1), as well as in a handful of countries elsewhere—Guatemala, Pakistan and Sudan.

But this picture may be deceptive. Less-educated women in most of these countries want larger families. Because better-educated women want fewer children, the goal they are aiming at is easier to overshoot, and they are more likely to have unwanted births . Better-educated women may also have stronger opinions about the timing of their births, and may be more likely than less-educated women to consider (and to report) a birth as mistimed.

In the areas outside Sub-Saharan Africa, better-educated women appear to be somewhat more successful than less-educated women at avoiding an unwanted or mistimed birth. Nonetheless, in most of the countries in Nor th Africa and the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America, as well as in the United States, at least 30% of women with seven or more years of education said their most recent birth was unplanned. Clearly, regardless of education, all women experience difficu lty in having only the number of children they want when they want them.

Why the Gap?

Given the general decline in fertility and rise in effective contraceptive use throughout the world, it may seem surprising that many women still have more children than they intend or bear them earlier than they wish. Many factors contribute to the gap b etween intentions and results.

* A small target. Because the number of children that women want has steadily declined, the distance between family-size goals and a woman's biological potential has grown. Assuming that a woman has approximately 35 fertile years, she could bear as many as 15 children if she were to have a baby every two and one-half years. Thus, as desired family size has shrunk, women need to prevent pregnancy during more and more of their reproductive years if they are to avoid unplanned births or abortions.

* Changing situations. Both as a result of modernization and societal change and as a consequence of childbearing experience, individuals often revise their reproductive goals downward as time passes. Furthermore, they may be forced to make adjustm ents in the face of unforeseen developments such as sudden changes in personal circumstances (loss of a spouse or experiencing a major illness), alterations in living conditions (loss of income or housing) or large societal shifts (an economic downturn or political unrest).

* Men's intentions. Among the few nationally representative surveys of men that have asked questions about reproductive goals, some have shown men to want more children, on average, than women do. In Cameroon, Niger and Tanzania, the proportions of people wanting more children than they currently have are about 10 percentage points higher among men than among women.⁷ Such differences can contribute to unplanned pregnancy, if men fail to cooperate with or support their partner's contraceptive practice, and if men and women do not discuss fertility desires and resolve their differences.

* Complexity of decision-making. When the issue is childbearing, decision-making can be very complex, difficult and personal. In many countries, the majority of women and men have only recently begun to gain confidence in their ability to control t he number and timing of children they want, or to believe that their babies will survive. Thus, their planning may be undermined by doubt that they can attain their goals. Such doubts may be exacerbated by the views of more traditionally minded friends an d relatives.

* Limited access to contraceptives. Although women and men may decide to use contraceptives to avoid an unplanned pregnancy, they do not always have the opportunity to choose the most appropriate contraceptive. Local providers sometimes do not offe r a full range of methods, forcing clients to choose from among a few alternatives that may not be as suitable to them as other, unavailable options. Individuals may not even be aware of some contraceptive options unless providers inform them. Furthermore , some people may have trouble obtaining their method because a steady source of resupply is not at hand.

* Contraceptive failure. Even highly effective contraceptive methods occasionally fail, and the chances of failure greatly increase if a woman (or a couple) does not use a method consistently or correctly. Incorrect or inconsistent use may result f rom ambivalence or from conflict between partners concerning reproductive goals, or from discouragement because of side effects or other problems associated with a method.

* Inability to terminate a pregnancy safely. Finally, in many countries, women lack access to safe abortion services, because of either legal restrictions or financial or other constraints. Even so, large numbers of women are strongly motivated to avoid having an unwanted birth and choose instead to obtain clandestine—and often unsafe—abortions. However, many do not, and instead have an unwanted or mistimed birth.

Conclusions

Women have increasingly moved closer to achieving a small family. Yet many still fail to have just the number of children they want when they want them, so there is room for a great deal of improvement. Should present patterns of socioeconomic change cont inue, the associated increases in education and modernization will probably lead more women and men to want increasingly smaller families. As a result, they will need to make even greater efforts if they are to succeed in timing their births and controlli ng their fertility.

Clearly, women will need the continued support of governments and service providers as they try to achieve their reproductive goals. Easier access to family planning services, dependable supplies, a choice of appropriate and suitable methods, and access t o safe, high-quality abortion services are all developments that would increase women's chances of successfully planning their births.

Currently, a large proportion of women and men in developing countries (as well as substantial numbers in developed countries) depend on their governments to subsidize the provision of general health care and family planning services. The governments of d eveloping countries contribute about three-fourths of the cost of publicly supported family planning services; funds from developed countries—mostly from international development assistance programs—support the remaining one-quarter of these ex penses.

However, access to family planning for those in the developing world is expected to be seriously reduced as a result of recent large reductions in funding by the United States. (The U.S. government is one of the most important sources of foreign support f or family planning services and supplies.) With international development assistance drying up and the existence of key nongovernmental organizations devoted to family planning being threatened, future foreign support for these services is unlikely to com e close to matching previous levels, let alone rise to meet the anticipated increase in demand.

Inadequate access to services and poor quality of services are not the only barriers that women face, however. Another that is equally important is women's inability to negotiate and influence contraceptive choice and matters dealing with sex and with chi ldbearing decisions. Women's success in achieving their desired timing and number of births is related to the amount of control that they can exert relative to the power of others, especially their partner.

Consequently, the increased attention of policymakers and community leaders is important to improving women's education and raising women's legal and social status. It is also crucial to persuade political leaders and government health ministries to commi t to the promotion of family planning and the removal of legal and cultural obstacles that limit men and women's access to these services.

Helping couples around the world to have only as many children as they want and can care for is clearly a worthwhile objective in and of itself. In addition, it represents an important investment in the future of individuals, families and nations worldwid e.

References

1. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), Hopes and Realities: Closing the Gap Between Women's Aspirations and Their Reproductive Experiences, New York, 1995, Appendix Table 5, col. 2, p. 48.

2. C.F. Westoff, Reproductive Preferences: A Comparative View, Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Comparative Study No. 3, Macro International, Columbia, Md., USA, 1991; and selected DHS country reports.

3. AGI, 1995, op. cit. (see reference 1), Chart 10, p. 22, and Appendix Table 5, cols. 1 and 5, p. 48.

4. Ibid., Appendix Table 5, cols. 4 and 5, p. 48.

5. A. Bankole and C.F. Westoff, Childbearing Attitudes and Intentions, DHS Comparative Study No. 17, Macro International, Calverton, Md., USA, 1995.

6. United Nations, Women's Education and Fertility Behavior: Recent Evidence from the Demographic and Health Surveys, New York, 1995, Table 26, p. 62.

7. A.C. Ezeh, M. Seroussi and H. Raggers, Men's Fertility, Contracep-tive Use, and Reproductive Preferences, DHS Comparative Study No. 18, Macro International, Calverton, Md., USA, 1996.

The Data Sources

The major source of the data presented in this report is the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), an international research effort conducted by Macro International that began in 1984. The surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbe an sampled all women aged 15­49, except in Brazil and Guatemala (all women aged 15­44). In North Africa and the Middle East and in Asia, the surveys generally sampled only ever-married women aged 15­49, except in Morocco and the Philippines (all women aged 15­49). The measures presented here either are based on special analyses of the DHS files carried out by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) or come from already published individual country reports or comparative reports prepared by DHS investigators. Because the first surveys were conducted as early as 1985 and the most recent as late as 1994, the information for all 40 countries is not equally current. This fact should be kept in mind when comparisons among countries are made. The U.S. data come from special analyses by AGI of the 1988 National Survey of Family Growth, which was carried out by the National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. sample was based on all women aged 15­44.

Susheela Singh conducted the research for this report, which was written by Michael Klitsch. It was prepared with the support of the Pew Charitable Trusts/Global Stewardship Initiative. External reviewers were Charles F. Westoff, Shireen Jejeebhoy, Pa ulina Makinwa Adebusoye and Zeba Sathar.

• A person's reproductive goals involve the number of children he or she would like to have and the timing of these births, relative to each other or to specific events or activities in that person's life.

• A mistimed birth is a birth that was not desired until a later time—for example, a second child being born two years after the first when the parents had hoped to wait four years between births.

• An unwanted birth is one that a woman or a man did not want at all, such as a fourth baby born to a couple who had decided to have no more than three children.

• An unplanned birth is a birth that an individual feels either should not have occurred at all or should have happened at a different time. Births are described as unplanned if they are mistimed or un wanted.

Demographic Measures

• Desired family size is derived from a question asking respondents how many children they would have over their entire life if they could go back to when they had no children and then choose. The measure is the average over the entire population of respondents (usually including those who answered "It is up to God," and assuming, for the purpose of this report, that they want six children).

• The total fertility rate (TFR) is a synthetic measure that represents how many births a typical woman would have over her lifetime given the rate of childbearing observed in her country in the three year s (occasionally five) preceding the survey. Thus, the TFR does not represent the actual experience over time of any one group of women, but instead illustrates how many births would occur if present childbearing conditions persisted throughout a woman's r eproductive years.

• The wanted TFR is constructed in the same way as the TFR, except that for each woman, only births up to and including her desired family size are included; the result is a measure depicting the number of births that a woman would have over her reproductive years if she had only wanted births.

© 1996 The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 11/96