Religious Homogamy and Voluntary Childlessness in Canada

Abstract

Given the greater propensity of married women to choose a childless lifestyle in recent decades, it is important to understand what contributes to or deters this decision. This paper focuses on religious homogamy as a possible predictor. Data from the Canadian Fertility Survey (CFS) are used to examine the relationship between religious homogamy and voluntary childlessness in the context of several sociodemographic and economic controls. The results indicate that non-Catholic wives in homogamous marriages who attend church services frequently are less motivated to control fertility, regardless of their sociodemographic background. It may be argued that, unless more attention is devoted in the literature to various dimensions of religion, little consensus on the effect of religious factors on childlessness can be expected.