Conceptualising fertility decision-making and behaviours
As you probably noticed when answering the questions in the Introduction, what is ideal, desired or acceptable number of children in a society, what you desire, what you intend, and what you plan may not be the same, they may even be  contradictory. Some may not have a fixed target family size. There may be many factors, such as time, health and costs, in your life which needs to be taken into account to answer the questions. Moreover, your answers may evolve with age and circumstances. Not only number of children but also timing of childbearing make an important impact on an individual’s life. In addition, people may have gender preferences for children. Fertility decision-making is complex.
Fertility preferences and decision-making
Answers to questions about reproductive preferences and intentions are based on the belief that the reported preferences reflect future actual behaviours. However, fertility decision-making is complex and preferences encompass different concepts. The relative strengths of the concepts in predictive power and their corresponding questions in the surveys have been debated over the years. There have been critical discussions on what these represent, how to measure these concepts and to what extent these predict future fertility.