The alignment and crystallization of family size preferences

"A Monte Carlo simulation model of reproductive histories is used to derive inferences about preferred family sizes from those achieved at various durations of marriage. The method consists [of] inverting the relationships between these two distributions, which form respectively an input to and an output of the model. It emerges that in cohorts married in England and Wales at ages 20-24 in 1951, 1955 and 1961, there is an increasing preference for family sizes of two children." The results indicate that "estimated family size preferences appear to be remarkably stable within marriage cohorts, at least after 10 years duration of marriage. The methodological problems arising in the estimation of these preferences at short durations of marriage, with differential birth spacing, are discussed." (summary in FRE)