Japan's fertility: effects of contraception and induced abortion after World War II

This report studies the effects of contraception and abortion on crude birth rate (CBR) and total fertility rate (TFR) in Japan from 1947-1980. The CBR declined from 34.3 in 1947 to 17.3 in 1957, and the TFR from 4.5 to 2.0 in the same period. Both stabilized (CBR in the range of 17.0 to 19.0 and TFR at 2.0 to 2.1) between 1957 and 1973. This dramatic decline in fertility was initiated under the serious socioeconomic difficulties of post-World War II Japan. At the onset of the postwar fertility decline, fertility within marriage was controlled most strongly by induced abortion, and to a lesser extent, lactation and contraception. During the period of stable low fertility (1960-1980) the effect of abortion decreased and the effect of contraception increased. KAP surveys show that in the late 1970's more than 75% of contraceptive users in Japan employed the condom, while condom use in other Asian countries is generally very low. A shift from traditional to modern methods of contraception is unlikely to alter the already low level of fertility in Japan but would have considerable social, medical, and economic impact.     

Birth delays skew developing world's fertility figures

This article explains that birth delays skew developing world's fertility figures. When successive groups of women who have delayed childbearing start having children, the rapid fertility decline stalls. Such change in the timing of childbearing skews the total fertility rate (TFR). Analysis of the tempo component of TFR trends in Taiwan suggests that tempo effects reduced its TFR by about 10% in the late 1970s and early 1990s and by about 19% in the late 1980s. In Colombia, on the basis of increasing mean maternal age at childbirth between the 1970s and the late 1980s, tempo distortions of the TFR during the most of the 1980s seem likely. Moreover, many developing countries are now experiencing rapid fertility declines that are in part attributable to tempo changes. These changes have accelerated past fertility transitions, but they also make these countries vulnerable to future stalls in fertility when the delays in childbearing end. Since fertility reductions caused by tempo effects lead to real declines in birth rates and hence in population growth, countries that wish to reduce birth rates can take actions that encourage women to delay marriage and the onset of childbearing.     

Skill premium effects on fertility and female labor force supply

In the last twenty years the United States has seen a positive relationship between female labor supply and total fertility rates, which differs from the pattern observed over the preceding years. We construct a general equilibrium overlapping generations model capable of generating this changing relationship between fertility and female labor supply. We argue that skilled biased technological change in recent decades has increased the skill premium and has therefore decreased the relative cost of (unskilled) child care services. The positive effect of the increase in female mean wages on fertility rates, and the inducement for labor force participation provided by the reduction in the relative cost of child care services, generated the positive relationship between fertility rates and female labor force participation in the last two decades.All correspondence to Amaia Iza. This paper has benefited particularly from comments by Juan Carlos Conesa, Pedro Mira and Sara de la Rica. We also acknowledge countless conversations with María Paz Espinosa and useful comments from Jaime Alonso, Jose María Da-Rocha, Tim Kehoe, José Victor Rios-Rull, when the paper was presented at the IV Workshop of Dynamic Macroeconomics held in Vigo (Spain, July 1999) and in Universidade de Vigo (October, 2000). We also thank an anonymous referee whose comments enabled us to improve the paper considerably. Financial support from Universidad del País Vasco 9UPV 00035.321-13511/2001, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia PB097-0620, MCYT BEC2000/1394 and Instituto de la mujer (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales) MTAS 33/00 is gratefully acknowledged. Any remaining errors are the authors responsibility. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Did the association between fertility and female employment within OECD countries really change its sign?

Recent literature finds that in OECD countries the cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labor force participation rate, which until the beginning of the 1980s had a negative value, has since acquired a positive value. This result is (explicitly or implicitly) often interpreted as evidence for a changing sign in the time-series association between fertility and female employment within OECD countries. This paper shows that the time-series association between fertility and female employment does not demonstrate a change in sign. Instead, the reversal in the sign of the cross-country correlation is most likely due to a combination of two elements: First, the presence of unmeasured country-specific factors and, second, country-heterogeneity in the magnitude of the negative time-series association between fertility and female employment. However, the paper does find evidence for a reduction in the negative time-series association between fertility and female employment after about 1985.I benefited from stimulating discussions with Arnstein Aassve, Pau Baizan, Francesco Billari, Henriette Engelhardt, Hans-Peter Kohler and Alexia Prskawetz and a seminar in Rostock. Further, I am grateful to two anonymous referees for very useful suggestions that improved essentially the content of the paper. In addition, I thank Susan Masur, Susann Backer, and Elizabeth Zach for language editing. The views expressed in this paper are the authors own views and do not necessarily represent those of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Trends and Compositional Changes in Fertility: California Circa 1970–1990

Since 1970 California has been the prime destination of the high numbers of both legal and illegal U.S. entrants. Fertility consequences have been dramatic. Births to U.S.-born women, after the decline in the 1970s and mild rebound in the 1980s, neared the 1970 level of 325,000. Yet total births rose from 360,000 to 600,000 in 1992. White non-Hispanic women bore nearly 70% of births in 1970 but 38% in 1992; Hispanic women, 20% in 1970 and 44% in 1992; others (primarily Asian ancestry), 3% and 10% respectively; and blacks, 9% and 7.5%. In the same period the proportion of births to U.S. natives fell from 89% to 56%; that to Mexican nationals rose from 7% to 27% (a six-fold increase absolutely); and that to women of all other birthplaces rose from 3% to 18%. Filipino women (the second largest category of foreign-born women) have borne 2% of all births since 1980. The increase in Mexican-born mothers was especially sharp after 1985, while the estimated Hispanic TFR rose 30% to 3.5 children per woman. In 1992 California's TFR was 2.42—18% above the U.S. average. In 1970 nearly 95% of teen mothers were U.S.-born, and 20% were Hispanic. In 1992, 61% of teen mothers were U.S. nationals; 60% were Hispanic, over half of them Mexican-born. The large increase in births in the 1980s, especially those to cultures supporting early childbearing, presages a sharp increase in births beginning in 2000. Meanwhile, the 5 years' median schooling of Mexican migrants has resulted in a parallel decline in parental education. Given the positive correlation of parental education and school achievement and attainment, California can expect a decline in the latter and hence lower labor productivity, incomes, and tax revenues by the young adults of the twenty-first century.     

How Far Has Fertility in China Really Declined?

According to births in the last year as reported in China's 2000 census, the total fertility rate (TFR) in the year 2000 in China was 1.22 children per woman. This estimate is widely considered to be too low, primarily because some women who had out‐of‐quota births according to China's one‐child family policy did not report those births to the census enumerator. Analysis of fertility trends derived by applying the own‐children method of fertility estimation to China's 1990 and 2000 censuses indicates that the true level of the TFR in 2000 was probably between 1.5 and 1.6 children per woman. A decomposition analysis of change in the TFR between 1990 and 2000, based on our best estimate of 1.59 for the TFR in 2000, indicates that about two‐fifths of the decline in the conventional TFR between 1990 and 2000 is accounted for by later marriage and less marriage, and three‐fifths by declining fertility within marriage. The analysis also applies the birth history reconstruction method of fertility estimation to the two censuses, yielding an alternative set of fertility estimates that are compared with the set derived by the own‐children method. The analysis also includes estimates of trends in fertility by urban/rural residence, education, ethnicity, and migration status. Over time, fertility has declined sharply within all categories of these characteristics, indicating that the one‐child policy has had large across‐the‐board effects.     

The effect of child care and part time opportunities on participation and fertility decisions in Italy

Economic models of household behavior typically yield the prediction that increases in schooling levels and wage rates of married women lead to increases in their labor supply and reductions in fertility. In Italy, low labor market participation rates of married women are observed together with low birth rates. Our explanation involves the Italian institutional structure, particularly as reflected in rigidities and imperfections in the labor market and characteristics of the publicly-funded child care system. These rigidities tend to simultaneously increase the costs of having children and to discourage the labor market participation of married women. We analyze a model of labor supply and fertility, using panel data. The empirical results show that the availability of child care and part time work increase both the probability of working and having a child. Received: 14 February 2000/Accepted: 20 February 2001     

Probabilistic Projections of the Total Fertility Rate for All Countries

We describe a Bayesian projection model to produce country-specific projections of the total fertility rate (TFR) for all countries. The model decomposes the evolution of TFR into three phases: pre-transition high fertility, the fertility transition, and post-transition low fertility. The model for the fertility decline builds on the United Nations Population Division’s current deterministic projection methodology, which assumes that fertility will eventually fall below replacement level. It models the decline in TFR as the sum of two logistic functions that depend on the current TFR level, and a random term. A Bayesian hierarchical model is used to project future TFR based on both the country’s TFR history and the pattern of all countries. It is estimated from United Nations estimates of past TFR in all countries using a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The post-transition low fertility phase is modeled using an autoregressive model, in which long-term TFR projections converge toward and oscillate around replacement level. The method is evaluated using out-of-sample projections for the period since 1980 and the period since 1995, and is found to be well calibrated.     

The Changing Institutional Context of Low Fertility

Using data for 1960–97 for 22 low fertility countries, we document a dramatic change in the association of fertility levels to women's levels of labor force participation. Until the 1980s, this association had been strongly negative. However, during the 1980s itbecame positive, and since 1990 strongly positive. We also document an emerging positive association of the country-level total fertility ratio (TFR) and nonmarital ratio (e.g., the proportion of births to unmarried women). We argue that these transformed associations reflect societal level responses that, in some contexts, have eased the incompatibility between mother and worker roles, and loosened the link betweenmarriage and childbearing. These arguments imply that societal responses to mother/worker incompatibility exert substantial influence on fertility levels in low fertility countries.     

Changing fertility rates in developed countries. The impact of labor market institutions

During the last two decades fertility rates have decreased and have become positively correlated with female participation rates across OECD countries. I use a panel of 23 OECD nations to study how different labor market arrangements shaped these trends. High unemployment and unstable contracts, common in Southern Europe, depress fertility, particularly of younger women. To increase lifetime income though early skill-acquisition and minimize unemployment risk, young women postpone (or abandon) childbearing. Further, both a large share of public employment, by providing employment stability, and generous maternity benefits linked to previous employment, such as those in Scandinavia, boost fertility of the 25–29 and 30–34 year old women.Financial help from a CRB grant from the University of Illinois is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank Carles Boix, Barry Chiswick, Carmel Chiswick, Evelyn Lehrer, three anonymous referees and seminar participants at ESPE 2000 (Bonn), Illinois Economic Meetings 2000 (Chicago), Simposi dAnalisi Economica 2000 (Barcelona), 2001 Winter meetings of the Econometric Society in New Orleans, ESPE 2001 (Athens), Braga (Portugal), University of Chicago, De Paul University, PAA 2002 (Atlanta) for helpful comments; Gosta Esping-Andersen for providing some data and Cristina Mora for excellent research assistance. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

China's Below‐Replacement Fertility: Recent Trends and Future Prospects

Between 1970 and 1990, China experiencoed a rapid and sharp fertility decline—from total fertility rates of approximately six births to two. The degree to which Chinese fertility has continued to fall after 1990 is controversial. We use survey data from the 1997 National Population and Reproductive Health Survey and from the 2001 Reproductive Health and Family Planning Survey to document recent trends in Chinese fertility. Our estimates provide further evidence that China's fertility is well below‐replacement level at the turn of the twenty‐first century—with TFR levels of approximately 1.5 children per woman. Trends in parity‐specific cohort fertility by age also suggest below replacement completed fertility for cohorts still in the childbearing years. In the article's second section, we identify key components of low period fertility in order to frame our discussion of two questions: 1) in what ways is Chinese low fertility different from/similar to that in other low‐fertility countries? And 2) what are the likely future trends in Chinese fertility?     

The transmission of women’s fertility, human capital, and work orientation across immigrant generations

Using the 1995–2011 March Current Population Survey and 1970–2000 Census data, we find that the fertility, education, and labor supply of second-generation women (US-born women with at least one foreign-born parent) are significantly positively affected by the immigrant generation’s levels of these variables, with the effect of the fertility and labor supply of women from the mother’s source country generally larger than that of women from the father’s source country and the effect of the education of men from the father’s source country larger than that of women from the mother’s source country. We present some evidence that suggests our findings for fertility and labor supply are due at least in part to intergenerational transmission of gender roles. Transmission rates for immigrant fertility and labor supply between generations are higher than for education, but there is considerable intergenerational assimilation toward native levels for all three of these outcomes.     

2000年以来中国城乡生育水平的比较分析

我国城乡生育水平、发展趋势及差异程度的对比研究对于人口发展问题意义重大。首先通过运算,得出了城乡总和生育率指标数值,呈现出2000年以来十年间城乡生育状况,然后对这些数据进行了细致的比较与分析。研究结果表明：尽管十年中生育水平呈现波动状态,但农村总和生育率一直都低于1．8,城镇则低于1．3,差异近几年有逐步缩小的趋势;城乡生育水平差异主要来自二孩生育率的差异,二孩生育率近十年来有微弱上升趋势;一孩生育率受民俗等因素影响较大,城镇波动大于农村;平均生育年龄推迟现象在城镇、农村一直都在缓慢持续。     

Labor market assimilation and the self-employment decision of immigrant entrepreneurs

This paper uses data from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Censuses to study labor market assimilation of self-employed immigrants. Separate earnings functions for the self-employed and wage/salary workers are estimated. To control for endogenous sorting into the sectors, models of the self-employment decision are estimated. Self-employed immigrants are found to do substantially better in the labor market than wage/salary immigrants. Earnings of self-employed immigrants are predicted to converge with natives' wage/salary earnings at about age 30 and natives' self-employed earnings at about age 40. Including the self-employed in the sample reduces the immigrant-native earnings gap by, on average, 14%. Received: 10 November 1999/Accepted: 3 August 2000     

An Explanatory Model for Projecting Regional Fertility Differences in the Netherlands

Current differences in the level of the total fertility rate (TFR) between Dutch municipalities are smaller than they were in the 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, there are still considerable differences. Small municipalities have higher TFRs than large cities. This article aims to answer the question whether these differences will decline further until differences between large and small cities disappear. For that purpose we develop a regression model of regional differences in the TFR including demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural variables. Using the estimation results we decompose differences in fertility between large and small cities into the contribution of differences in levels of the determinants versus differences in the relationships between the determinants and fertility. The results show that differences in cultural variables have a larger effect on differences in the TFR than the demographic and socioeconomic variables. As cultural differences do not tend to change quickly, they will not lead to quick changes in regional differences in the TFR. Demographic differences are not expected to lead to strong changes either, as the two demographic variables (household structure and ethnic structure) have opposite effects. As the effect of the socioeconomic variable is caused by differences in the magnitude of the regression coefficient rather than by differences in the value of this variable, even if differences in this variable disappeared, this would still not lead to convergence of the TFR. Thus the article concludes that differences in the TFR between large and small cities are not likely to diminish quickly.     

Timing,togetherness and time windfalls

With appropriate data the analysis of time use, labor supply and leisure can move beyond the standard questions of wage and income elasticities of hours supplied. I present four examples: 1) American data from 1973 through 1997 show that the amount of evening and night work in the U.S. has decreased. 2) The same data demonstrate that workers whose relative earnings increase experience a relative diminution of the burden of work at unpleasant times. 3) U.S. data for the 1970s and 1990s demonstrate that spouses' work schedules are more synchronized than would occur randomly; synchrony among working spouses diminished after the 1970s; and the full-income elasticity of demand for it was higher among wives than among husbands in the 1970s but equal in the 1990s. 4) Dutch time-budget data for 1990 show that the overwhelming majority of the windfall hour that occurred when standard time resumed was used for extra sleep. Received: 6 July 2000/Accepted: 20 January 2001 Daniel S. Hamermesh is Edward Everett Hale Centennial Professor, University of Texas at Austin; research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, and Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit. I thank the National Science Foundation for support under Grants SBR-9422429 and SES-9904699, and two anonymous referees, Gerard Pfann, the late Lee Lillard, Gerald Oettinger, Steve Trejo and participants at the ESPE Conference and at seminars at the University of Bristol and Warwick University for helpful comments. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.     

New insights into the fertility patterns of recent Polish migrants in the United Kingdom

There have been important changes in the United Kingdom’s fertility and immigration in the past decade, with a large share contributed by migrants from Poland. A detailed understanding of Polish migrant fertility is lacking, however, because the relevant data are not routinely collected. This paper provides new insights into the fertility patterns of Polish migrants in the UK, and compares these patterns with those of other large immigrant groups, the UK-born population and in Poland. We use the UK Labour Force Survey with the Own Children Method, illustrating the potential of survey data for estimating immigrant fertility in settings where other data are unavailable. We first compare the fertility patterns of recent Polish migrants with those of other key recent immigrant groups and the UK-born population; estimating Age-Specific Fertility Rates (ASFRs), and Total Fertility Rates (TFRs), by country of birth for the 2004–2012 period; the proportions in each immigrant group that arrive without children; and of those childless at arrival the proportions of women who go on to have births within a short period after arrival. Next, we compare the ASFRs and TFR for Polish migrant women with those observed in Poland. Our results show that the fertility of Polish migrants is among the lowest for all population subgroups in the UK, and that Polish migrants are less likely to have children soon after arrival than other immigrant groups. The findings are consistent with migration not being so closely linked to family formation for Polish migrants as it is for immigrants in the comparison groups. We also find that the fertility patterns of Polish migrants are different from those observed in Poland with a later childbearing profile and a slightly higher TFR.     

计划生育政策的人口效应

文章试图估计计划生育政策使我国少生了多少人。利用1980~2008年世界140多个国家的数据来模拟在没有计划生育政策影响下经济社会变量与人口变量的相关关系,并据此对中国无计划生育条件下的总和生育率进行测算。将测算出来的无计划生育条件下的总和生育率和中国实际总和生育率分别代入模型进行人口模拟,比较无计划生育条件下和现实条件下人口增长的不同过程和结果。研究表明:无计划生育条件下,我国2008年生育率水平的预测值大概在2.5左右。1972~2008年间,排除经济社会发展的影响,单纯由于计划生育的作用,中国少生了4.58亿人。     

Is Lowest‐Low Fertility in Europe Explained by the Postponement of Childbearing?

In 2001, more than half of Europe's population lived in countries with a total fertility rate (TFR) at or below 1.3. Use of the adjusted TFR proposed by Bongaarts and Feeney, which takes into account the effects of the ongoing fertility postponement, changes the European fertility map considerably. All 27 countries analyzed had adjusted TFRs in 1995–2000 above 1.4. Thus, the “lowest‐low” fertility in Europe may be interpreted as a temporary consequence of the increasing age at motherhood. However, substantial regional differences in fertility level across Europe persist even when the differential pace of fertility postponement is taken into account. The estimated adjusted TFRs in Europe (1.63) and in the 25‐member European Union (1.71) contrast with the TFR levels of 1.40 and 1.46, respectively. These seemingly small differences have vastly different implications in terms of the potential long‐term pace of population decline.     

Application of the Own-Children Method for estimating fertility by ethnic and religious groups in the UK

Fertility across and within countries is influenced by a number of socio-economic and cultural factors, including ethnicity and potentially religion. However, apart from census data, little information is available, at least in the UK, to estimate fertility rates and thus fertility trends by ethnic and religious groups between censuses. Previously, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) has been exploited to produce national total fertility rates (TFR) by ethnic groups up to 2001 using the reverse-survival Own-Children Method (OCM). Here the LFS–OCM is assessed and refined to improve accuracy and tested against official statistics. The LFS–OCM is compared with results obtained using more straightforward techniques based on Child-Woman Ratios using the same LFS data, and differences are discussed. The refined method is applied to produce recent fertility profiles by ethnic groups, including trends in the TFR and age-specific fertility rates, showing significant and decreasing differences between groups. Furthermore, the method allows us to reliably investigate TFR within one ethnic group by other criteria, as illustrated by differences in the TFR by religious affiliation of Indian women.