The End of the Fertility Transition in the Developed World

By the late 1990s the average period total fertility rate in the developed world had declined to 1.6, a level substantially lower than projected in the 1970s and 1980s. This article examines recent trends and patterns in fertility in the developed world with particular emphasis on the effects and implications of changes in the timing of childbearing. The main objective is to demonstrate that while fertility in these countries is indeed low, women's childbearing levels are not as low as period measures such as the total fertility rate suggest. To obtain a full understanding of the various dimensions of fertility change. several indicators are examined, including period and cohort fertility by birth order and childbearing preferences. An analysis of these indicators demonstrates that period fertility measures in many developed countries are temporarily depressed by a rise in the mean age at childbearing. The distortion of the TFR is as great as 0.4 births per woman in Italy and Spain. These effects have been present in many developed countries since the 1970s and could continue for years into the future. But tempo effects are temporary, and once the postponement of childbearing ends—as it eventually must—the corresponding fertility‐depressing effect stops, thus putting upward pressure on period fertility. Countries with very low fertility and substantial tempo effects may well experience rises in fertility in the near future if the timing of childbearing stabilizes. Even if this happens, however, it seems unlikely that fertility will rebound to the replacement level.     

The Gap Between Lifetime Fertility Intentions and Completed Fertility in Europe and the United States: A Cohort Approach

Population Research and Policy Review - We study the aggregate gap between intended and actual fertility in 19 European countries and the US based on a cohort approach. This complements prior...     

Cohort Parity Analysis and Fertility Transition Dynamics: Reconstructing Historical Trends in Fertility Control from a Single Census

The Cohort Parity Analysis (CPA) method for the indirect measurement of the extent of marital fertility control makes use of parity distribution data of the kind reported, for specified marriage duration and marriage-age (or current age) groups of women, by a fertility census. Corresponding to every such distribution, CPA yields efficient upper and lower bounds on the proportion of controllers in the specified cohort, as well as bounds for the parity distribution of the controllers. As the women who belong to different marriage cohorts are observed at different durations of marriage in a census, it is possible to infer inter-cohort trends in the extent of fertility control (at some specified marriage duration(s)) if one knows the time pattern of the adoption of control among the members of each cohort. It is shown in this paper that robust estimates of the intracohort diffusion pattern can be obtained from the census cross-section itself, by supplementing the basic assumptions of the CPA framework with a plausible assumption about the behaviour of the ‘representative’ controller in a given cohort. The estimation technique is illustrated by applications to data for married women in urban Eire from the Census of Ireland in 1911, and to native white married women in the U.S. South from the U.S. Census of 1910.     

生育文化涵义及其特征新解

本文试图通过概念对比 ,例证分析 ,成因探讨 ,从内涵上阐明生育文化理论及其特征。     

Probabilistic Forecasting Using Stochastic Diffusion Models, With Applications to Cohort Processes of Marriage and Fertility

In this article, we show how stochastic diffusion models can be used to forecast demographic cohort processes using the Hernes, Gompertz, and logistic models. Such models have been used deterministically in the past, but both behavioral theory and forecast utility are improved by introducing randomness and uncertainty into the standard differential equations governing population processes. Our approach is to add time-series stochasticity to linearized versions of each process. We derive both Monte Carlo and analytic methods for estimating forecast uncertainty. We apply our methods to several examples of marriage and fertility, extending them to simultaneous forecasting of multiple cohorts and to processes restricted by factors such as declining fecundity.     

Cohort Replacement and Homeostasis in World Population, 1950–2100

Using a simple empirical approach, we analyze world and regional‐level cohort replacement as determined by the key components of population dynamics, i.e. fertility, survival, and migration, for 1950–2010, using UN data. We define two kinds of homeostatic relationships among these components: fertility responses to mortality change (type I) and migration responses to changes in net reproduction (type II), and show that both can be observed to some degree in this period. We examine the extent of cohort replacement embodied in the medium‐variant UN population projections over 2010–2100 and consider how the international migration assumptions made in such projections would be affected by a homeostatic perspective.     

Cohort Succession in the US Housing Market: New Houses, the Baby Boom, and Income Stratification

Federal housing policy in the US across the postwar period supported the construction of new houses more than public provision or renovation of older structures as a means of ensuring a sufficient supply of quality dwellings. Understanding trends in new housing in particular is thus crucial to understanding the housing regime. Following Myers (Housing demography: Linking demographic structure and housing markets. University of Wisconsin Press, 1990; Housing Studies, 14, 473–490,1999), this paper conceptualizes historical change in the housing stock within a demographic framework as the movement of cohorts of households through cohorts of housing stock. Recent evidence suggests that a new cohort of houses arose in the 1980s and 1990s (larger with more amenities than past vintages), and that buyers of those new houses were increasingly affluent. In this paper, I link the succession to a new cohort of houses to household cohort succession and examine the increasing affluence of new house buyers by age and cohort, focusing especially on the entry of the Baby Boom generation exactly when the new cohort of houses arrived. I use US Census microdata for 1960–2000 to develop a cohort longitudinal dataset, and analyze historical change in stratification in new house ownership. I find significant shifts between cohorts in income inequality among new house buyers, with implications for the capacity of the housing regime to meet the future needs of an increasingly diverse population.

The Untold Story of 50 Years of Adolescent Fertility in West Africa: A Cohort Perspective on the Quantum,Timing, and Spacing of Adolescent Childbearing

Although recent studies examine overall fertility trends in West Africa, few using advanced demographic techniques focus on adolescents. This study explores long‐term patterns of adolescent childbearing in 12 West African countries using 51 Demographic and Health Surveys covering birth cohorts that span 54 years (1940–1994). We employ classic demographic measures as well as disaggregation by early‐ (10–14 years old), middle‐ (15–17), and late adolescence (18–19). Cohort‐based estimates of total adolescent births, parity progression ratios, and rapid repeat birth probabilities reveal little change over time. Most women begin childbearing in adolescence, the progression to additional adolescent births remains common, and the incidence of rapid repeat births is high. In recent cohorts, women exit adolescence with an average of between 0.4 (Ghana) to 1.3 (Niger) births. Contrary to common assumptions, it is women commencing motherhood in early‐ and middle‐, not later adolescence, who account for most West African adolescent fertility.     

International Fertility Change: New Data and Insights From the Developmental Idealism Framework

Many scholars have offered structural and ideational explanations for the fertility changes occurring around the world. This paper focuses on the influence of developmental idealism—a schema or set of beliefs endorsing development, fertility change, and causal connections between development and fertility. Developmental idealism is argued to be an important force affecting both population policy and the fertility behavior of ordinary people. We present new survey data from ordinary people in six countries—Argentina, China, Egypt, Iran, Nepal, and the United States—about the extent to which developmental idealism is known and believed. We ask individuals if they believe that fertility and development are correlated, that development is a causal force in changing fertility levels, and that fertility declines enhance the standard of living and intergenerational relations. We also ask people about their expectations concerning future trends in fertility in their countries and whether they approve or disapprove of the trends they expect. The data show widespread linkage in the minds of ordinary people between fertility and development. Large fractions of people in these six settings believe that fertility and development are correlated, that development reduces fertility, and that declines in fertility foster development. Many also expect and endorse future declines in fertility.     

试论时期总和生育率、终身生育率与政策生育率的关系

通过对总和生育率(TFR)、终身生育率(CFR)与政策生育率(PFR)的概念及相关数据分析,论证总和生育率与政策生育率是完全不同的概念,不可直接比较。在特定条件下TFR、CFR和政策生育率会产生差异,在一个国家生育水平下降的历史时期,TFR必然小于当年49岁组女性的CFR;"超生率"、"未婚率"、"未育率"和"不孕率"的变化,决定了政策生育率与终身生育率的差异。借鉴日本经济与人口发展相关数据,可以相信由平均初婚年龄推迟、女性有偶率下降导致的生育水平下降很可能成为对我国人口均衡发展的最大潜在威胁。因此,当前以及今后相当的时期内,我国的政策生育率应高于1.8。     

Husbands,wives, sons,and daughters: Fertility preferences and the demand for contraception in Ethiopia

Ethiopia, with nearly 65 millionpeople, is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa. Fertility levels are among the highest in the world. Using the matched wife-husband sample from the 1990 National Family and Fertility Survey of Ethiopia we investigate the fertility desires of wives and husbands and the degree to which they are similar, including whether a preference for sons exists. We model the determinants of the desire to limit or space births, and estimate unmet need. Results indicate high levels of concurrence among husbands and wives on reproductive preferences. Where differences exist, husbands are more pronatalist than their wives. Both husbands and wives prefer to have sons and daughters, but more sons overall. Approximately 22% of wives and husbands desire to limit or space births but do not use contraception. More than half of wives and husbands with an unmet need for limiting are paired with a partner who has no such need. Three implications follow from these results: (1) differences in wives' and husbands' son and daughter preferences may help to explain discordant views among couples when it comes to the desire to limit or space births; (2) husbands' overall contribution to wives' unmet need can be substantial in African societies in the early stages of fertility transition; and (3) wives' preferences regarding children and contraception can result in unmet need on the part of husbands, even in highly gender-stratified societies where men are more pronatalist.     

Methods for Small Area Population Forecasts: State-of-the-Art and Research Needs

Population Research and Policy Review - Small area population forecasts are widely used by government and business for a variety of planning, research and policy purposes, and often influence major...     

Land,Fertility, and the Population Establishment

Attempts to demonstrate the dependence of fertility decline in the Third World on radical change have often depended on simplistic statistical analyses. Here some of the data used to explore the relationship between fertility, and land size and ownership, are re-examined. It is concluded that the land-fertility hypotheses of Stokes and Schutjer are not supported by the evidence, but that such analyses are inherently inconclusive and ambiguous. Instead, an understanding of the wider institutional context is called for. The Population Establishment – foreign and international donors supporting population programmes and research – recruits an intelligentsia to validate its activities. The philosophy of this intelligentsia is examined and rejected through an analysis of ideas it derives from the World Fertility Survey and the Matlab family planning project. It is concluded that the Establishment perpetuates rapid population growth by legitimizing unpopular and elitist governments, and by misleading them to believe that fertility decline can, indeed, occur in a political economy of inequality and injustice.     

Fertility desires and fertility: Hers,his, and theirs

The relationship between desired and achieved fertility may be misspecified by excluding husbands' fertility desires or by confounding effects of shared desires with the resolution of conflicting desires. Using couple data from the classic Princeton Fertility Surveys, we find relatively large husband effects on fertility outcomes as well as unique effects of spousal disagreement. Wives and husbands were equally likely to achieve fertility desires, and disagreeing couples experienced fertility rates midway between couples who wanted the same smaller or larger number of children. These conditions do not hold, however, when we include willingness to delay births for economic mobility as part of the measure of fertility desires. Among couples who both wanted a third child, only husbands' willingness to delay births had significant negative effects on birth rates.     

Fertility,Education, and Development: Evidence from India

Fertility has declined significantly in many parts of India since the early 1980s. This article examines the determinants of fertility levels and fertility decline, using data on Indian districts for 1981 and 1991. The authors find that women's education and child mortality are the most important factors explaining fertility differences across the country and over time. Low levels of son preference also contribute to lower fertility. By contrast, general indicators of modernization and development such as urbanization, poverty reduction, and male literacy exhibit no significant association with fertility. En passant, the authors probe a subject of much confusion— the relation between fertility decline and gender bias.     

Population Dynamics: Poverty,Inequality, and Self-Regulating Fertility Rates

Population growth without a parallel increase in capital impoverishes any society and tends to deepen inequality. The system is dynamic because people who perceive or foresee contracting economic opportunity usually restrict family size. Worsening poverty feeds back into the loop to slow, then stop further population growth.     

Low Fertility Trap:Theories,Facts and Implications

The low Fertility Trap Hypothesis proposes that there are three self-reinforcing mechanism--demographic,sociological and economic,working towards a downward spiral in future fertility.Once TFR drops below 1.5,it will be difficult to recover.The fertility recovery emerging in many countries across the world has changed the lowfertility trap theory and also the justification of the theory itself.So low-fertility trap is more likely a pattern summarized from a short-time phenomenon than a generalized social law.As with China,the current fertility level is above 1.5 births per woman,and China is not in the "Low-fertility trap".Moreover,most recent surveys suggests that current fertility intention in China is above 1.8 births per woman and more than60 percent of people would have a second child if there is an adjustment of fertility policy.In addition,birth postponement is still playing an important role in reducing TFR in China.Thus,with the high fertility intention,adjustment of family planning policy and decreasing tempo effect,TFR in China will experience upturn but not further decline in the near future.It is lack of evidence to conclude that China has already been or is going to be trapped in low fertility.     

亚洲发展中国家和地区妇女实际生育水平与更替生育水平的评估

随着社会经济的发展,人口趋势发生转变,自然增长率与总和生育率降低。在这种大趋势背景下,对世界人口形势的判断有过于乐观之嫌以及针对人们对妇女更替生育水平的误解,利用亚洲一些国家(或地区)1990～2000年期间妇女年龄别生育率和死亡模式等数据资料,计算得到各国妇女更替生育水平,表明各国之间妇女更替水平存在较大差异。通过与其实际总和生育率比较,可以发现在发展国家中绝大部分国家实际生育水平依然高于妇女更替生育水平,发展中国家人口潜在的增长能量依然很大,世界人口增长的趋势依然强劲。因此,在注意生育率下降所带来问题的同时,也不能够忽视发展中国家人口增长所带来的全球影响。