The death of a parent can be a critical event in the life course, even for adult children. Such loss and grief may impact fertility intentions in two ways. Besides enhancing the value of children as an “expansion of the self” when procreation is used as a coping mechanism for mortality, it may also impact resources like financial or social support. This study investigates whether the loss of one’s own parent influences short-term fertility intentions.

The analysis utilizes data from 14 waves of the German panel study (pairfam). Distributed linear fixed effects regression models are used in the analysis to estimate the intra-individual changes in short-term fertility intentions at several points in time around the death of one’s own mother or father, with separate models for each gender. The results suggest that men – especially if they are childless – tend to increase their short-term fertility intentions after losing their mother. Conversely, after the death of a father, the short-term fertility intentions of men who were already fathers themselves decrease. For women, no significant changes in fertility intentions are observed following the death of a parent. This underscores the importance of considering both gender and parenthood status when examining the consequences of parental loss for fertility-related decisions.