Background: Even though same-sex couples face clear obstacles to parenthood, little is known about the extent to which preferences and obstacles can explain the lower levels of parenthood among individuals in same-sex couples. Objective: The objective is to document routes into parenthood and to quantify the gap between observed and desired number of children among women in different-sex and same-sex couples in Spain. Methods: We use the representative 2018 Spanish fertility survey, which includes 14,556 women, of whom 139 are in a same-sex couple. We use coarsened exact matching techniques to match women across couple types who are identical on a set of observable characteristics. Results: Less than half of women in a same-sex couple had children by the age of 40, as compared to around 80% of women in a different-sex couple. We do not observe changes in rates of parenthood across cohorts of women in same-sex couples, but do observe changes in the pathways followed. Even though women in same-sex couples have lower levels of desired fertility, the gap between desired and realized fertility is larger for women in same-sex couples than for women in different-sex couples. Conclusions: Overall, results show that obstacles to parenthood are prevalent among women in both different-sex and same-sex couples, but appear particularly high and persistent for the latter. Contribution: We are the first to quantify differences in the extent to which parenthood desires are met between women in same-sex and different-sex couples in Spain, using representative data.

中文翻译：

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西班牙同性伴侣中女性为人父母的途径和障碍（作者：Diederik Boertien、Clara Cortina、Mariona Lozano）

背景：尽管同性伴侣在为人父母方面面临着明显的障碍，但人们对于偏好和障碍在多大程度上可以解释同性伴侣中较低的为人父母水平却知之甚少。目标：目标是记录西班牙异性和同性伴侣中女性的生育途径，并量化观察到的孩子数量与期望的孩子数量之间的差距。方法：我们使用具有代表性的 2018 年西班牙生育率调查，其中包括 14,556 名女性，其中 139 名是同性伴侣。我们使用粗化的精确匹配技术来匹配在一组可观察到的特征上相同的不同类型的女性。结果：同性伴侣中只有不到一半的女性在 40 岁时生下孩子，而异性伴侣中这一比例约为 80%。我们没有观察同性伴侣中女性群体的生育率变化，但确实观察了所遵循的途径的变化。尽管同性伴侣中的女性的期望生育率较低，但同性伴侣中的女性的期望生育率与实际生育率之间的差距比异性伴侣中的女性更大。结论：总体而言，结果表明，异性和同性伴侣中的女性都普遍存在为人父母的障碍，但后者的障碍似乎特别高且持续存在。贡献：我们是第一个使用代表性数据量化西班牙同性和异性伴侣中女性为人父母愿望得到满足程度的差异的人。