This article examines the characteristics of women and men who got a child despite declaring no such wish up to three years before the pregnancy. We compare these unintended or sooner-than-intended parents with those who got a child as intended and those who, in line with their intentions, did...

Fertility intentions are the most proximate determinants of actual fertility (e.g., Barber 2001; Bongaarts 1992) and inform us about directional trends (Hin et al. 2011; Testa 2014). They are transmitted across generations from parents to children (Fernandez and Fogli 2006). However, the literature on...