(RNS) — The questions that researcher Pavita Singh asked her interview subjects were those any young woman might be pondering: Do you want kids or children? When? With whom?
But the women in Singh’s study — 30 Sikh Americans between 18 to 24 years of age — answered these questions in ways that showed how their plans around having children balance the future of their faith tradition with the rhythms of modern American life.
In academic terms, Singh hoped to shed light on how culture shapes women’s “reproductive identity.” But Singh’s research also drew a portrait of a generation at the threshold: young women in their late teens and early 20s holding their faith in one hand and their futures in the other.
Eighteen of the young women — 60% — hoped to have children with a spouse, with a third of that group preferring that spouse to be a Sikh, reflecting their desire to keep the faith alive. That desire for cultural and religious continuity emerged as one of the defining threads of the study, which is titled, “She Defined Her Own Happiness: Uncovering the Envisioned Reproductive Futures of Sikh Young Women in the United States.”
Pavita Singh presents her initial research at the Provost’s Grant Research Expo at Teachers College in New York, May 6, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Pavita Singh)
But when Singh asked her participants what “pr …