Can Pets Replace Children? The Interaction Effect of Pet Attachment and Subjective Socioeconomic Status on Fertility Intention

Zhen Guo, Xiaoxing Ren, Jinzhe Zhao, Liying Jiao and Yan Xu
Additional contact information
Zhen Guo: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Xiaoxing Ren: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Jinzhe Zhao: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Liying Jiao: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Yan Xu: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 16, 1-12

Abstract: A growing number of young people tend to regard their pets as their surrogate children, yet research examining the relationship between pet attachment and fertility intention remains scarce. Moreover, individuals’ fertility intention is affected by economic resources. Therefore, we conducted two studies to examine the interaction effect of pet attachment and subjective socioeconomic status (SES) on childbearing-aged individuals’ fertility intention. In Study 1, we utilized questionnaires to measure Chinese pet owners’ pet attachment, subjective SES, and fertility intention. In Study 2, participants’ pet attachment was experimentally manipulated by reading articles about the benefits of petkeeping. The results of the two studies consistently demonstrated that the effect of pet attachment on fertility intention was moderated by subjective SES. Specifically, pet attachment was negatively associated with fertility intention when individuals had a high level of subjective SES, whereas this effect disappeared when individuals had low subjective SES. These findings suggest an explanation for why individuals with high subjective SES delay or even opt out of childbearing. The limitations and implications of the current study are discussed.

Keywords: pet attachment; subjective socioeconomic status; fertility intention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8610/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8610/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:16:p:8610-:d:614710

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().