Fertility preferences and intentions (cont.)
Ideal and desired family size (cont.)
Figure 5: Mean ideal number of children among women and total fertility rate, 2000 or around, OECD countries
Source: OECD (2014), OECD Family database, OECD Publishing, ParisSTATCompiler
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7. Figure 5 provides proportion of women by the exact number of children which women consider as “ideal”. While TFR in these countries is below the replacement level, childlessness is the ideal family size for only a small minority of adults ( % on average in the European countries), but this proportion is more than twice as high in Austria and Luxembourg.
8. Women who wish to have one child consists of only about 10% on average, but European countries, Mexico, Slovakia and Austria observed higher proportions.
9. The large majority of women desire to have 2 children: over 50% of 15 to 39 years old respondents consider 2 children as the ideal family size. The proportion is lower in Finland, Belgium, Ireland, Mexico, France and Sweden. This is because 40% of the respondents reported that they want to have families with children or more.