Consensus about the differing characteristics of men and women exists across groups differing in sex, age, marital status, and education. Masculine characteristics are positively valued more often than feminine characteristics. Positively-valued masculine traits form a cluster entailing competence; positively-valued feminine traits reflect warmth-expressiveness. Sex-role definitions are incorporated into the self-concepts of both men and women; moreover, these sex-role differences are considered desirable by college students and healthy by mental health professionals. Individual differences in sex related self-concepts are related to sex-role relevant behaviors such as achieved and ideal family size. Sex-role perceptions also vary as a function of maternal employment.

Sex‐Role Stereotypes: A Current Appraisal

If couples decide to have fewer children in order to achieve higher "quality" offspring, are they correct in assuming that the quality of children bears an important and inverse relation to family size? If they are correct, how does number of children operate to affect individual quality? This research (using U.S. whites primarily) takes educational attainment (among adults) and college plans (among youngsters) as the principal indicators of quality, but also directs some attention to measures of intelligence. The analysis supports the "dilution model" (on average, the more children the lower the quality of each child) and indicates that only children do not suffer from lack of siblings, and that other last-borns are not handicapped by a "teaching deficit." Number of siblings (relative to other background variables) is found to have an important detrimental impact on child quality--an impact compounded by the fact that, when couples are at a stage in life to make family-size decisions, most background factors (however important to the quality of their children) are no longer readily manipulable. A special path analysis of college plans among boys uses a modification of Sewell's Wisconsin Model as its base. The results show that number of siblings is a negative influence on intervening variables affecting college plans. In general, the research documents the unfavorable consequences for individual siblings of high fertility, even in a country that is (at least for whites) as socially, economically, and politically advantaged as the United States.

Family size and the quality of children

Changing Attitudes toward Family Issues in the United States.

The association between the sex of children and their parents' risk of marital disruption is examined using the June 1980 Current Population Survey. The finding is that sons reduce the risk of marital disruption by 9% more than do daughters. This difference holds across marriage cohorts, racial groups, and categories of mother's education. A compelling explanation for these findings, supported by data from the National Survey of Children, stresses a father's greater role in raising sons than daughters and his consequently greater involvement in the family. Children provide a new basis for marital cohesion, one that rests on attachments and obligations to children. For fathers, the obligations and attachments are greater if they have sons.

Sons daughters and the risk of marital disruption.

Objective: To evaluate cholinergic activity in diseases with Lewy bodies (LB; LB variant of AD [LBV], diffuse LB disease [DLBD], and Parkinson’s disease [PD]) to determine if 1) AD changes are requisite to cholinergic dysfunction, 2) cholinergic activity declines to the same extent in neocortical and archicortical areas, and 3) cholinergic loss is influenced by APOE genotype. Background: Like AD, diseases with LB are associated with decreased choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity. Increased APOE e4 allele frequency has been reported in LBV. Whether APOE genotype affects cholinergic function in LBV remains unclear. Methods: An autopsy series of 182 AD (National Institute on Aging and Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease criteria), 49 LBV, 11 PD, 6 DLBD, and 16 normal control (NC) subjects. APOE genotype and ChAT activity (nmol/h/100 mg) in the midfrontal and hippocampal cortices were determined. Results: Mean midfrontal ChAT activity was markedly reduced in diseases with LB (LBV: 53.3 ± 39.0; PD: 54.8 ± 35.7; DLBD: 41.3 ± 24.8) compared to NC (255.4 ± 134.6; p p with (LBV) and without (DLBD and PD) AD pathology. Although mean ChAT activity for LBV was less than half that for AD in the midfrontal cortex, it was similar to that for AD in the hippocampus (LBV: 243.5 ± 189.7; AD: 322.8 ± 265.6; p > 0.05). However, hippocampal ChAT activity for both AD and LBV was lower than that for NC (666.5 ± 360.3; p Conclusions: Marked losses in midfrontal ChAT activity occur in diseases with LB, independent of coexistent AD changes. A greater midfrontal, as opposed to hippocampal, cholinergic deficit may differentiate LBV from AD. The lack of a relationship between e4 allele dosage and midfrontal ChAT activity suggests that other factors may play a role in its decline in LBV.

Cholinergic dysfunction in diseases with Lewy bodies.

Being an only child is popularly regarded as a handicap. During the 1970s analyses appeared showing an intellectual advantage for only children relative to those from most other family size/birth order statuses. As for whether only children are spoiled and maladjusted research by Claudy Farrell and Dayton finds strikingly positive personality and adjustment values for single children as well as clear intellectual superiority. The authors own analysis using adults of all sibsizes in the General Social Survey indicates that only children are educationally and occupationally achieving count themselves happy and satisfied with important aspects of life are not politically and socially alienated do not have disruptive family lives and are unlikely to require public assistance. Only children also prefer to have and do have smaller size families than do respondents from any other sibsize. The performance of only children belies the prejudice. (Authors) (Summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1972763.pdf

The only child in America: prejudice versus performance.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/171/3971/540.full.pdf

Abortion and Public Opinion: The 1960-1970 Decade.

A share of the recent decline in birth expectations of young American wives may be due to the historically unique stimulus of intense public attention to population growth and family size. Data on whites from numerous national surveys provide at least four types of evidence favoring this thesis: a sudden massing of responses in the two-child category (the ZPG formula); a tolerance for the large family; an aversion to childlessness and the one-child family; and an inconsistency between respondents’ evaluations of the family cycle and childspacing, on the one hand, and their personal acceptance of the two-child norm, on the other. The lack of congruence in American reproductive attitudes at present suggests that some conservatism might be wise in accepting current birth expectations as valid indicators of the long-run intentions of youthful cohorts.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2060697.pdf

Can we believe recent data on birth expectations in the United States

Los datos sobre tamano idealdela familia recopilados de 13 investigaciones durante los pasados 25 anos, senalan. Para las mujeres una variabilidad de 1 hijo entre el promedio minimo y maximo, con un incremento en el tamanoidealde la familia durante los anos recientes. Entre los hombres la situacion es similar aunque la variabilidad es menor. Un periodo de gran cambio social no provoco un incremento drastico en los deseos de reproduccion del norteamericano blanco. EI rango “2 a 4 hijos” ha enmarcado los ideales de aproximadamente el 80–90% de los norteamericanos blancos desde mediados de la decada del 30. Sinembargo, los encuestados variaron sus metas de reproduccion dentro de este rango de 2 a 4 hiios. El analisis muestra un cambio desde 2–3 hijos hacia 3–4 hijos por familia entre las mujeres. Las familias de 3 hijos han comenzado aser la moda para las mujeres de la decada del 50 Y “2 hijos,” son elegidos por menos de la quinta parte de las mujeres entrevistadas en recientes investigaciones. Para aproximadamente el 40% de las mujeres que contestaron la entrevista, “excesiva fertilidad” (fertilidad superior al ideal) comienza solamente con el quinto hijo. El cambio hacia 3–4 hijos por familia, es particularmente agudo entre las mujerese ne dad reproductiva —menos de 30 anos y de 30–44 aos—mientras que los mujeres viejas—-45 anos y mas—-eligen un tamano de familia cercano al tope del rango a travez del periodo de tiempo. En anos recientes, las mujeres jovenes prefieren familias grandes mas que los hombres jovenes. Aunque la diferencia de opinion entre las mujeres jovenes y viejas ha disminuido, en diferentes estudios el tamano ideal de familia exibe un consistente patron de incremento con la edad. Tales resultados pueden quiza ser explicados en un aspecto por las distintas caracteristicas socio-economicas de la gente joven comparada con la gente vieja de cada epoca, y por otro lado, por el cambio en los ideales sobre tamano de la familia que los individuos tienen en el transcurso de su vida.

/pdf/ideal-family-size-among-white-americans-a-quarter-of-a-137uzsybkc.pdf

Ideal family size among white Americans: A quarter of a century’s evidence

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/164/3879/522.full.pdf

Judith Blake

Papers

The only child in America: prejudice versus performance.

Abortion and Public Opinion: The 1960-1970 Decade.

Can we believe recent data on birth expectations in the United States

Ideal family size among white Americans: A quarter of a century’s evidence

Population policy for Americans: is the government being misled?