Who Can Have a Baby? Social Norms and the Right to Reproduce
研究提出社会认可生育理论，通过巴西女性的联合实验，揭示种族和社会经济地位如何交叉影响人们对谁适合生育的判断，以及评价者自身特征如何塑造歧视模式。
Childbearing norms and discourse influence social interactions and policy priorities, reflecting and reinforcing social stratification. We propose a theoretical framework that systematically explains stratification and discrimination in childbearing norms. The theory of socially sanctioned reproduction (TSSR) emphasizes how childbearing and reproductive norms are shaped by individual and intersectional attributes of both evaluators and those evaluated, underscoring multidimensionality and intersectionality in childbearing norms. We empirically examine this theory through paired conjoint survey experiments with a population-based sample of women ages 18 to 34 in Pernambuco, Brazil-a highly unequal, multiracial context. In our novel application, respondents assessed profiles of hypothetical married women with randomly varying attributes and reported whether they were well-suited for childbearing. Findings show how intersectional attributes and in-group/out-group dynamics, principally along race and SES lines, define childbearing norms. Black women receive less approval if in low- versus high-SES positions, whereas White women receive similar levels of approval regardless of SES. We find that these discriminatory patterns are shaped by the social attributes of evaluators themselves, suggesting othering and group attachment processes. Our theoretical and empirical frameworks can be extended to study norms in other highly contested areas of reproductive and family life.