Comparative study of partners’ fertility desires and intentions: a HILDA Survey based analysis
Habtemariam Tesfaghiorghis
Department of Family and Community Services
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As Australia has experienced sustained fertility decline over the last four decades, there has been public concern and debates about the implications of falling fertility and what to do to stabilise or reverse the fertility trend (Tesfaghiorghis 2004b).

The issues of fertility, family support, and balancing family and work responsibilities have become important in the policy agenda, as demonstrated by the May 2004 and 2005 Federal Budgets. These Budgets increased assistance to families to help them with the costs of raising children and balance work and family responsibilities.

Concerns about fertility are focused on period (cross-sectional) fertility, which is the fertility experience of different cohorts of women who gave birth in a particular year or a given period. Period/current fertility is measured by age-specific-fertility rates and/or the total fertility rate. Previous research (Tesfaghiorghis 2004b), using the number of children ever born to a woman rather than her current fertility, showed that though the completed fertility of Australian birth cohorts has fallen for successive birth cohorts, it has remained above replacement fertility (2.06 children per woman).
This paper will contribute to the fertility debate by examining whether couples that completed their fertility had achieved replacement fertility or not and whether or not there is congruence in future fertility desires and expectations between members of a couple.

This comparative study of partners’ future fertility desires and intentions is based on primary analysis of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey Waves 1-2 datasets. The author’s previous research on women's fertility examined the associations between education, work and fertility, and trends in completed cohort fertility using HILDA survey data (Tesfaghiorghis 2004a&b). This paper complements the previous research by bringing partners’ future fertility desires and intentions into the picture.

The purposes of this paper are to:
- Analyse women and partners’ achieved fertility,
- Undertake a comparative study of partners’ future fertility desires expectations and intentions by examining differences according to such variables as partners’ age and number of children ever born,
- Analyse whether women and partners fertility desires, expectations and intentions are congruent,
- Estimate completed fertility rate and childlessness for women and partners with incomplete fertility, and
- Analyse data on women and partners who intended to have children (or more children) by when they intended to have a child or the next child.

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