The Flexibility of Fertility Preferences in a Context of Uncertainty

Abstract

FROM RYDER'S (1973) "cloudy future" to In this article, we seek to demonstrate that underpinning the number people give when asked about their ideal family size, and critical to interpreting it, is either a rigidness or a flexibility that is contextually situated and dynamic over the life course. To illustrate the difference between fixed and flexible orientations to fertility, we draw upon the metaphor of a movable feast. While some religious holidays like Christmas and All Souls Day occur annually on fixed days, others like Passover, Easter, and Pentecost change from year to year depending upon the lunar cycle or other ecclesiastical dates. From the perspective of the Gregorian calendar, movable feasts seem irregular, unpredictable, and sometimes merely seasonal. But movable feasts are no less regular than fixed feasts, nor are they of secondary importance; they differ in being governed by a distinct, flexible logic. Like many major religious feasts, some people's fertility preferences are indeed fixed, but it is the movable ones we endeavor to theorize here.