Researchers of a new study found that the personality of a person can affect his or her fertility, with neurotic men and conscientious women having fewer children.
There has been a large decline in fertility rates, especially in Europe and the United States. Researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis conducted a study to analyze what could be the factors leading to this decline.
Through the study, researchers found that personality has an important role to play in whether or not and how many children a person will have. IIASA's Vegard Skirbekk, who led the study, found that men with neurotic (moody and emotional) personalities have fewer children compared to men who are extroverted and open. Similarly, ambitious women with conscientious personalities have fewer children than other women.
The findings were made after studying data from Norway's birth records and an integrated personality survey.
While the findings for women were constant across generations, the finding among neurotic men was applicable only for men born after 1957. According to Skirbekk, the reason behind the decline in fertility among neurotic men could be because of the changing norms related to having children. Couples of today prefer waiting longer before starting a family.
"For men, often you don't know exactly how many children they have because information is not matched in the registries, but for Norway we have very exact information" Skirbekk said in a press release.
Though the research was confined to studying data from Norway alone, the findings are applicable to a wider geography.
"Norway is a leader country in terms of family dynamics," said Skirbekk, "Many trends that have been observed first in Norway-increasing cohabitation, divorce rates, and later marriage, for example-have then been observed later in many other parts of the world. Of course it remains to be seen if this phenomenon will also spread."
According to a CDC report, the current fertility rate in the U.S. stands at 63.2 births per 1000 women aged 15-44 years.
