THE DIFFERENTIAL-EFFECTS OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES STATUSES ON MARITAL FERTILITY

As an extension of prior subjectively-oriented studies that predicted couples' fertility decisions or outcomes by the expected costs and ben efits of childbearing to husbands and wives, this article examines the differentiated effects of husbands' and wives' objective statuses on marital fertility, using the cumulative 1972-1990 GSS data. An interes ting finding is that wives' education has a significant, negative effe ct on fertility while the effect of husbands' education is positive an d statistically insignificant. This suggests that the generalization o f the negative effect of education on fertility may be misleading if o ne fails to make a distinction between marital partners. Meanwhile, th is study finds no significant differences in the effects of husbands' and wives' occupational and work statuses on fertility. By and large, the husbands' status variables add little information to the models ex plaining fertility. It is also found that the effects of husbands' and wives' statuses are contingent upon their relative education.