Religion and fertility: a replication

Abstract

Jones and Westoff (1979) reported a study of fertility trends among white women in intact first marriages. They found that the fertility of white Catholic and non-Catholic wives was converging. The differential had all but disappeared, as had the differential by frequency of communion among Catholic wives. We replicated their study using data from the 1976 National Survey of Family Growth. We found that the fertility of the two religious groups was indeed converging, but the Catholic-non-Catholic differential was larger than that found by Jones and Westoff --how much larger depends on what measure is used. Moreover, we found that the differential by frequency of communion among Catholic wives was not converging. Possible explanations of the apparent differences in the findings are discussed.