This is a collection of 12 essays, organized under four topics: “Contemporary Perspectives on Fertility” (four chapters), “Fertility Intentions” (two chapters), “Demography of Multipartner Fertility” (four chapters), and “Issues of Measurement” (two chapters). One of the chapters in the final section is on measuring the prevalence of multipartner fertility, making for five chapters on this topic. All but three of the essays contain original empirical data analysis. One exception is Vignoli et al.’s piece that presents a theoretical framework in which uncertainty is the central construct; the authors argue that it is individuals’ “narratives of the future” that drive fertility decisions, and more specifically the extent to which uncertainty (about material conditions, about social relations, and so forth) dominates an individual's “narrative of the future.” The second piece containing no original empirical analysis is Balbo and Barban's review of research on social contagion effects on fertility. Empirical tests of social contagion effects have accumulated rapidly during the past two decades, and Balbo and Barban's critical synthesis of this literature is a useful resource. The third piece with no original data analysis is Schoen's aforementioned piece on the prevalence of multipartner fertility; this is a brief exercise in formal demography. The setting for all but one of the essays—Chatterjee and Desai on fertility in India (with a focus on unintended fertility)—is low-fertility Western societies. Two of the essays on the United States examine differentials by race/ethnicity: Qian and Shen on interracial fertility and Guzzo et al. on racial/ethnic differentials in unintended fertility. The attention given to multipartner fertility is a hallmark of this volume. As Thomson et al. document in their analysis of survey data from 15 countries, multipartner fertility is rare in most Western societies, with the exception of the United States where it constitutes 22% of total fertility. Two of the chapters on multipartner fertility confine their attention to the United States: Schwartz et al. on the number of years women care for a child under age 6 (as one would expect, multipartner fertility increases the time spent with young children); and Monte and Fields on challenges in conducting research on multipartner fertility (and male fertility) using the panel SIPPsurvey. The technical sophistication is high throughout this volume, and with the exception of the few theoretical chapters (identified above), theory is concisely presented. —J.C.

这是 12 篇文章的合集，分为四个主题：“当代生育观点”（四章）、“生育意图”（两章）、“多伴侣生育人口学”（四章）和“测量问题” （两章）。最后一节中的一章是关于衡量多伴侣生育率的，因此有五章是关于这个主题的。除了三篇文章外，所有文章都包含原始的经验数据分析。一个例外是 Vignoli 等人的文章，它提出了一个理论框架，其中不确定性是核心结构；作者认为，推动生育决定的是个人的“对未来的叙述”，更具体地说是不确定性（关于物质条件、社会关系等）在多大程度上支配了个人” s“未来的叙述”。第二篇不包含原始实证分析的文章是 Balbo 和 Barban 对社会传染对生育率影响的研究的回顾。在过去的二十年里，社会传染效应的实证检验迅速积累，巴尔博和巴班对这些文献的批判性综合是一个有用的资源。第三篇没有原始数据分析的文章是 Schoen 前面提到的关于多伴侣生育率的文章；这是正式人口学的简短练习。除了其中一篇文章——Chatterjee 和 Desai 关于印度的生育率（重点关注意外生育）之外，其他所有文章的背景都是低生育率的西方社会。两篇关于美国的文章研究了种族/族裔的差异：Qian 和 Shen 关于跨种族生育以及 Guzzo 等人。关于意外生育的种族/民族差异。对多伴侣生育的关注是这本书的一个标志。正如汤姆森等人。根据他们对来自 15 个国家的调查数据的分析，除了美国占总生育率的 22% 外，大多数西方社会都很少有伴侣生育。关于多伴侣生育的两章将他们的注意力限制在美国：Schwartz 等人。关于女性照顾 6 岁以下儿童的年数（正如人们所料，多伴侣生育会增加与幼儿相处的时间）；以及 Monte 和 Fields 关于使用小组 SIPPsurvey 进行多伴侣生育（和男性生育）研究的挑战。这本书的技术复杂度很高，除了少数理论章节（如上文所述）外，理论都被简明扼要地呈现出来。—JC