Canadian fertility rates have fallen sharply in recent decades, to levels far below what women say they want, and may be linked to a decline in religious participation, new research has found.

The study by demographer Lyman Stone, involving a survey of 2,700 Canadian women, examined to what extent, and through what means, religion influences fertility.

Overall, they found that “Canadian women who attend religious services at least monthly desire to have more children, spend more of their life married, and ultimately have more children than nominally religious or nonreligious Canadian women”.

The study suggests that religiously observant women may have more children “because their desires for larger families lead them to make different life choices”.