Generalized trust and fertility : A micro-level analysis of social trust and its relationship to fertility

Abstract: Are individuals that trust strangers more likely to have children, and can they be expected to have more children than their lower trusting counterparts? This article assesses two perspectives that hold this as a likely outcome. One perspective has trusting individuals as more likely to hand over the care of their children to strangers, thereby reconciling work and family dilemmas for women. In the Five-Factor Model of Personality, trusting individuals increase their odds of parenthood through several paths, including better relationship quality and outward behavior. The two perspectives also suggest different macro-level conditions for the associations. The former maintains that trust is more important for fertility in high trusting countries and where women have a high share of highly educated. The latter holds that trust is more important in low trusting countries. It also suggests that men benefit more from being trusting. This article tests these two perspectives quantitatively using a sample of eight countries that participated in the Generations and Genders Survey. The method being logistic regression with a longitudinal design. The second perspective found most support from the analysis. A positive significant association between trust and the likelihood of parenthood was more clearly found among male respondents. This result suggests that researchers on fertility and personality can be recommended to include generalized trust in their statistical models.