title: Church attendance and childbearing: evidence from a Dutch panel study, 1987-2005.
abstract: While researchers have often found that Europeans who report faith-based beliefs or practices have larger families than those who do not, there is a lack of evidence on the reasons for these links. This study investigated whether having a first child affects parents' level of church attendance and whether the frequency of church attendance at different times in life predicts a person's (almost) completed fertility. Drawing on five waves of a large-scale Dutch panel survey, the study used data that cover a substantial part of the respondents' reproductive period (1987-2005). In contrast to findings from the USA, the results suggest a one-way influence: having a first child does not predict a change in church attendance, but church attendance is a strong predictor of future childbearing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Vienna, and the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital. caroline.berghammer@univie.ac.at
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Berghammer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D010290:Parents; D036801:Parturition / Q000523:psychology*; D012067:Religion; D055815:Young Adult