RELIGIOUS HOMOGAMY AND VOLUNTARY CHILDLESSNESS IN CANADA

Given the greater propensity of married women to choose a childless li festyle in recent decades, it is important to understand what contribu tes to or deters this decision. This paper focuses on religious homoga my as a possible predictor. Data from the Canadian Fertility Survey (C FS) are used to examine the relationship between religious homogamy an d voluntary childlessness in the context of several sociodemographic a nd economic controls. The results indicate that non-Catholic wives in homogamous marriages who attend church services frequently are less mo tivated to control fertility, regardless of their sociodemographic bac kground. It may be argued that, unless more attention is devoted in th e literature to various dimensions of religion, little consensus on th e effect of religious factors on childlessness can be expected.