Natural fertility in the Philippines

The hypothesis that modernization trends in the Philippines led to an increase in fecundity and natural fertility between 1953-1972 was tested, using data from the 1973 National Demographic Survey. More specifically, it was hypothesized that increases in education, income levels, urbanization, female labor force participation, and other factors exerted a positive influence on the population's health and nutritional status and increased the risk of pregnancy by diminishing the strength of sexual taboos and by decreasing the incidence of breastfeeding. These changes, in turn, had a positive impact on natural fertility. Natural fertility was defined as marital fertility in the absence of specific efforts to control fertility. The use of natural fertility instead of fecundity allowed for the influence of behavioral patterns, such as breastfeeding and sexual taboos, on fertility. Period analysis of age specific marital fertility rates for each 5 year period between 1953-72 and cohort analysis of age specific marital fertility rates for the birth cohorts, aged 55-59, 50-54, 45-49, 40-44, and 35-39 in 1973 were undertaken. The effect of fertility control was determined by using an index derived from an equation provided by Coale and Trussell. Findings of both the period and cohort analysis supported the hypothesis. Period analysis revealed that natural fertility increased between 1953-57 and 1969-72 by 10% and that the greatest increase occurred during the 1950s when Philippine society experienced major modernization changes. The increases in natural fertility were accompanied by corresponding increases in fertility regulation in each time period. These trends tended to cancel each other out and resulted in a relatively stable total marital fertility rate throughout the time period. Cohort analysis revealed that only the total marital fertility rate of the youngest cohort was influenced by fertility regulation. The level of natural fertility for all cohorts as a group increased by about 7.5% between 1953-72. The major increase occurred during the post war years. All of these occurred during the time period when the Philippines underwent major socioeconomic changes. Data on changes in socioeconomic indicators during the time period under observation were presented. For example, between 1948-70, the literacy rate increased from 62.8%-84.6% for males and from 56.9%-82.2% for females. The infant mortality rate declined from 125.5-67.3 between 1948-70, and breastfeeding declined from 64.2%-26.5% between 1958-74. The increase in the natural fertility level tapered off during the last few years, and in the future the impact of fertility control on the fertility rate should become stronger.     

Recent Trends in Canadian Fertility*

Depuis 1941, on a observe au Canada des variations importantes du niveau de la fecondite et la tendance est souvent illustree par les fluctuations du taux de natalite. Afin de mieux interpreter ces fluctuations, une analyse des principales composantes du taux de natalite s'avere necessaire: la distribution par age de la population feminine (mariee ou de tout etat matrimonial) et les taux de fecondite par age tant pour les femmes mariees que pour l'ensemble des femmes. C'est la baisse de la fecondite legitime qui est en majeure partie la cause de la chute du taux de natalite observee depuis 1959. Pour approfondir l'analyse, on etablit une comparaison entre des indices de fecondite legitime de cohorte et du moment. De 1946 a 1960, les indices du moment sont nettement plus eleves que ceux de cohorte; cependant contrairement a ce qui s'est passe au cours de cette periode, on observe maintenant un etalement des intervalles entre naissances, de telle sorte que depuis 1960, les indices du moment sont nettement plus faibles que les indices de fecondite legitime de cohorte.
Observers have witnessed important changes in the level of fertility in Canada since 1941. The trend is often illustrated by variations in the birth rate. To understand these variations better, the main components of the birth rate will be analysed: age distribution of total and married female population, and age-specific fertility rates for all women and married women. The decline of marital fertility is mostly responsible for the fall of the birth rate observed since 1959. In a further analysis, period and cohort marital fertility are compared: from 1946 to 1960, period measures were much higher than cohort measures; in contrast to what happened during those years we now observe a spread in birth intervals, so that, since 1960, period measures are much lower than cohort marital fertility measures.     

Analysis of fertility using cohort-specific socio-economic data

Review of Economics of the Household - In this paper we propose a novel approach that relates age-specific cohort fertility rates with socioeconomic conditions faced by each cohort in each single...     

Canadian fertility trends: a further test of the Easterlin Hypothesis

Selon Richard Easterlin, le taux de fertilite d'une cohorte est inversement proportionnel a sa taille relative. C'est principalement aux Etats-Unis qu'on a trouve des donnees
peut-itre pas a ce pays. En general, il semble qu'au Canada les taux de fertilite relatifs de grosses cohortes sont plus Pleves que ceux de cohortes plus petites, et ceci malgre le fait que les taux de fertilite ont diminue pour toutes les cohortes au cours des dernieres annees. Lorsque I'on examine la taille relative des cohortes en contrdant les effets d'ige et de periode, la relation entre la taille de la cohorte et son taux de fertilitP disparait completernent ce qui reduit plus encore la validite de I'hypothPse de Easterlin
Richard Easterlin has argued that the fertility rate of a cohort is inversely related to the relative size of that cohort. Evidence to support this proposition has been derived primarily from studies in the United States. A breakdown of Canadian fertility trends to decompose age, period and cohort effects suggests that Easterlin's hypothesis may not hold for the Canadian situation. Overall, larger Canadian cohorts appear to have higher relative fertility rates than do smaller cohorts, despite the fact that fertility rates have declined across all cohorts in recent years. Focusing on relative cohort size, and controlling for age and period effects, the relationship between cohort size and fertility disappears completely further minimizing the validity of the Easterlin Hypothesis. supportant cette these. Une analyse de la fertilite au Canada, qui distingue entre les effets d'ige, de periode et de cohorte indique que I'hypothese de Easterlin ne s'applique     

The impact of marriage on fertility intentions and related values

Entry into and occupancy of major adult roles are of longstanding theoretical interest, but few studies have designs adequate to examine the consequences of associated changes in orientation. This study is based on a longitudinal project in which changes in fertility intentions and the importance of marriage and the family are examined among four subgroups--females who remained single, females who married, males who remained single, and males who married over a five-year period. Females, regardless of marital status, became less inclined to have children, males remaining single became more inclined and males who married over the interval changed little. When a control for value of marriage and the family was introduced, gender-based differences in fertility desires disappeared. There were substantial changes in the value domain according to sex and marital status--those who married over the five-year period displayed significant increases in the importance of the value of marriage and family. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Immigrant and native fertility during the 1980s: adaptation and expectations for the future

Many immigrants have come to the US since the mid-1960s. The demographic effects of this phenomenon may be seen in both the changing racial and ethnic composition of the population and in the increasing contribution of immigration to sustaining population growth. Given the current below replacement level of fertility in the country, US population growth depends increasingly upon the entry of new immigrants each year and their subsequent fertility. Over much of the 20th century, immigrants had consistently lower fertility than native-born women. This situation changed, however, since the 1970s with the arrival of large numbers of immigrants from countries with high fertility. Studies based upon the US census have shown that, despite considerable variation according to country of origin, recent immigrants have higher fertility on average than native-born women. Moreover, the gap between immigrant and native fertility levels appears to have increased during the 1980s. By 1986, immigrant women aged 18-44 had about one-quarter child more than similarly aged native-born women. This article compares both the fertility behavior and expectations for future childbearing of foreign and native-born women in the US with the goal of analyzing the sources of the growing fertility gap between immigrant and native women, and exploring the extent to which immigrants adapt their fertility once in the US. Data are drawn from the 1980 US Census and the 1986 and 1988 June Current Population Surveys. The author found that the immigrant-native fertility gap increased during the 1980s, not because immigrant fertility increased, but because fertility dropped at a faster rate for natives than for immigrants. The relatively high fertility of immigrants compared to natives can be explained by compositional differences with respect to age, education, income, and ethnicity. The two analyses of adaptation, however, yielded different results. The synthetic cohort analysis, which traced the fertility behavior of a fixed cohort of immigrants during the 1980s, found little evidence of adaptation or assimilation, except for immigrants from southeast Asia. On the other hand, the analysis of fertility expectations suggests that although immigrants expect to have higher fertility than similar natives, they tend to adapt their fertility goals over time, both within and across generations.     

Duration of residence in the United States and the fertility of U.S. immigrants

"This paper analyzes census data on the fertility of U.S. immigrants to study trends in fertility after migration. The results showed that immigrant fertility may rise after arrival in the new country perhaps because immigrants are making up for births or marriages that may have been postponed due to the move. After a period of time, the fertility of immigrants may fall and as immigrants become more assimilated to the new country their fertility may come to be similar to cohorts of longer duration. These relationships were examined in a multivariate context so that variations between groups in socioeconomic status, fertility in the country of origin, age and marital status could be controlled. Relationships were studied for all U.S. immigrants as well as for subgroups defined by country or region of origin. The results indicate that simple measures of immigrant fertility that do not consider duration of residence are likely to be misleading if used to draw conclusions about the fertility impacts of immigration and advisable policy interventions."     

Migration and fertility in Malaysia: a tale of two hypotheses

2 hypotheses that are prevalent in the migration and fertility literature, are tested using data from the 1966-67 West Malaysian Family Survey. Particular attention is paid to conceptual and methodological frameworks of research and study of sociodemographic trends in Malaysia. Noting that confusion exists in previous studies of migration and fertility, especially in regards to comparing migrants and nonmigrants with residence background and migration experience, the 2 hypotheses are discussed: 1) the assimilation hypothesis in which a) place of childrearing (origin) is an important influence on fertility behavior (e.g. geographical differentials of fertility norms, family size preference), b) residence during childbearing period (destination) is a residential status that may be related to fertility (e.g. values, expectation, economic opportunities, contraceptive availability), and c) the assimilitation process can be expressed as a weighted combination of specific influences of either place of childrearing or childbearing; 2) the migration hypothesis in which a) there is something intrinsic to geographical shifts that cannot be accounted for by mere knowledge of the place of origin or destination, b) individuals are selected by age, education, ethnicity, and motivation, and c) the impact of migration is selected on specific fertility-related characteristics, e.g. the postponment of childbearing. The data in the study are drawn from a KAP-style national survey which utilized a stratified (size of place) probability sampling frame of 5457 married Malaysian women between 15 and 45 years of age. In view of the hypothesis, the identification of area of early socialization and adult experience measures the area of greatest influence on individual fertility behavior. Measures of migration are advantageous to approximating the true timing of migration and fertility in a causal ordering. To conclude, Bach suggests that fertility levels of migrants can be accounted for through the assimilation model, while migration is considered to have only a unique and small effect. The acceptance of the assimilation model also suggests that migration is related to fertility through exposing individuals to two divergent environments. Rural to urban and urban to small town migrants, however, require use of both the assimilation and migration models.     

How female education reduces fertility: models and needed research

Although the correlation between female education and fertility has been documented, the operators that link greater female education to lower fertility at either the individual or aggregate levels have not been specified or submitted to systematic empirical tests. Discovering which aspects of female education account for reduced fertility requires a refined conceptualization of the education-fertility relationship as well as identification of all the causal variables and operators that mediate the effects of female education. A series of propositions from the research literature regarding indirect effects of female education on fertility through effects on age at marriage or first conception, labor force participation, social mobility, economic utility of children, exposure to mass media, knowledge and use of contraception, husband-wife communication, and infant mortality are set forth along with their rationale and empirical support. These propositions are supplemented by 1 on the direct effects and 3 on the interaction effects of female education on fertility. A block-recursive model is presented by means of which the 12 propositions can be brought together and assessed. A methodology for applying appropriate statistical procedures to World Fertility Survey or other high quality data arranged in the form of multivariate models in order to decompose the direct, indirect and joint effects of female education is then proposed and discussed.     

Military service and marital dissolution: a trajectory analysis

Military service adds additional challenges for married couples. Previous literature on service and marital stability is comprised of mixed results and has often ignored the timing of these effects. This timing is important as it helps disclose the nature of causality and has implications for both military and social security policies. Using a trajectory specification, I estimate the effect of military service on the likelihood of divorce during the volunteer’s period of service and the years following. Two veteran cohorts are examined, those who served during the early twenty-first century wars and those who served during the early 1980s. Among my results, the former cohort is shown to have had their divorce probability increased in the first 2 years post-service, while the opposite effect is found for the latter cohort. Unlike many previous studies of military service and marital stability, I find that effects are not overly dissimilar across racial groups.     

Variance Function Regression in Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort Models: Applications to the Study of Self-Reported Health

Two long-standing research problems of interest to sociologists are sources of variations in social inequalities and differential contributions of the temporal dimensions of age, time period, and cohort to variations in social phenomena. Recently, scholars have introduced a model called Variance Function Regression for the study of the former problem, and a model called Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort regression has been developed for the study of the latter. This article presents an integration of these two models as a means to study the evolution of social inequalities along distinct temporal dimensions. We apply the integrated model to survey data on subjective health status. We find substantial age, period, and cohort effects, as well as gender differences, not only for the conditional mean of self-rated health (i.e., between-group disparities), but also for the variance in this mean (i.e., within-group disparities)-and it is detection of age, period, and cohort variations in the latter disparities that application of the integrated model permits. Net of effects of age and individual-level covariates, in recent decades, cohort differences in conditional means of self-rated health have been less important than period differences that cut across all cohorts. By contrast, cohort differences of variances in these conditional means have dominated period differences. In particular, post-baby boom birth cohorts show significant and increasing levels of within-group disparities. These findings illustrate how the integrated model provides a powerful framework through which to identify and study the evolution of variations in social inequalities across age, period, and cohort temporal dimensions. Accordingly, this model should be broadly applicable to the study of social inequality in many different substantive contexts.     

Own‐Choice Marriage and Fertility in Turkey

Goode's foundational work on the fertility transition identified own‐choice marriage as a factor driving fertility decline, part of a widening repertoire of choice pertaining to marriage and childbearing. Yet research supporting this connection in today's transitional societies is scarce and somewhat contradictory, and it is unclear how other marital traditions, such as consanguineous marriage, shape this relationship. This study evaluates Goode's theorized connection using pooled Demographic and Health Survey data from Turkey, comparing children ever born, use of contraception, and parity progression across four types of marriage: own‐choice and arranged marriage and marriage to a cousin versus an unrelated spouse. Results are largely consistent with the idea that a move toward own‐choice marriage reflects a widening repertoire of choice that also leads to fertility decline. However, they also show that hybrid models like own‐choice marriage to a cousin tempers these effects.     

Female labour force participation and fertility

The levels of labor force participation by women in selected Asian countries were recorded in a series of censuses taken over a period of years. These levels were less influenced than male employment levels by economic conditions and more influenced by cultural traits of the country. Postwar trends seem to have fallen in Korea, risen in Singapore and the Philippines, and remained steady in Japan, Malaya, and Thailand. The limitations of these data are mentioned. In Thailand and West Malaysia greater percentages of women worked in agricultural than non-agricultural employment; in the Philippines, where women did not work so much in agricultural pursuits, their jobs were still in traditional rather than in development industries. In the cities of Bangkok, Manila, and Kuala Lumpur, fertility was lower for working than for non-working women. In rural agricultural areas, the fertility of working women was minimally higher, probably due to economic need of lar ger families. It is concluded that urban life separates the employment and the family roles of working women, leading to lowered fertility; this does not occur in rural areas. The creation of new roles for women alternative or supplementary to marriage and motherhood would result in lowered fertility. In high fertility Asian countries, policies directed toward greater participation of women in non-agricultural work and great er exposure to an urban lifestyle might achieve fertility reductions.     

World system status,techno-economic heritage,and fertility

The relevance of world system/dependency theory, and ecological-evolutionary theory for the population processes of currently developing nations is explored and evaluated by testing hypotheses drawn from models of fertility and fertility decline implied by them. Despite the preliminary and necessarily limited nature of the tests and measures, some support is found for hypotheses drawn from boh perspectives. Techno-economic heritage is found to affect fertility change directly, and world system status and techno-economic heritage are each found to affect fertility level and fertility change through independent effects on intervening variables. In addition, a significant interaction effect of techno-economic heritage and world system status on fertility level is found.     

Fertility expectation and employment across three female cohorts

The purpose of the study reported here is to assess the relationship between fertility expectation (total number of children expected to have or have had), childrearing career (ratio of actual or intended total time per child taken out of the labour force to rear children), and the following variables across female age cohorts: (a) age, (b) education, (c) personal income, (d) religious strength, (e) marital status, and (f) employment status. The random sample consists of 323 women. Results of simultaneous equation modelling indicates that fertility expectation and childrearing career are influenced by different factors in the age cohorts. Results are discussed in terms of role compatibility and new home economics theories.Data were part of the Winnipeg Area Study, managed by Raymond Curry in the Department of Sociology, University of Manitoba.Dr. Kingsbury received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Her research interests are fertility decision-making and women's employment.     

Women's status and fertility in the Sudan

This paper summarizes the history of women's education in Sudan; data on the relationship between their educational levels and fertility; and data on the relationship between fertility and women's employment. In general, the data point to an inverse relationship between the education of women and fertility. This relationship exists when considering the education of husbands. In terms of employment, women who report no work experience have the highest fertility, those who are self-employed or are family workers have an intermediate level of fertility, while those women who work for others have the lowest level of fertility. Education appears to be more closely associated with fertility than employment. The author concludes that as the status of women shifts to perceptions based on education and gainful employment, fertility will decline. However, in the Sudan, strong traditional values, based on women's roles related to childbearing and childrearing, will continue to sustain a relatively high fertility rate. (author's)     

Cohort shifts in the timing of births in Ghana

A comparison of cohorts of ever-married Chanaian women suggests evidence of a fertility transition beginning among younger women and select subgroups. Ghana's crude birth rate declined from a high of 50/1000 population in 1970 to 38.8/1000 in 1985. To ascertain whether marital fertility is now being controlled through conscious attempts to lengthen birth intervals, World Fertility Survey data from 1979-80 on the timing of births among different birth cohorts were analyzed. It was hypothesized that, as a result of the influence of Western values that stress independence from parents and the introduction of compulsory education, cohorts of the mid-1950s and 1960s would be more likely to postpone childbearing, more active in the modern sector of the economy, and more accepting of modern contraceptive usage for birth spacing than women in the 1930-39, 1940-49, and 1950-59 cohorts. For the 1940-49 cohort, it took 10.8 months for 25% to have a birth following 1st marriage, 18.7 months for 50% to have a 1st birth, and 27.4 months for 75% to complete this step. By comparison, these figures for the 1955-64 birth cohort were 9.9, 16.7, and 20.5 months, respectively. The significantly shorter (p 0.01) interval between marriage and 1st birth found among younger women in part reflects rising age at marriage; mean age at 1st marriage was 17.9 years for the 1940 cohort and 21.6 years for the most recent cohort. After the birth of the 1st child, recent cohorts were more likely to wait longer for the 2nd birth. For women born in 1950-64, it took 21.8, 36.7, and 44.6 months for 25%, 50%, and 75%, respectively, to reach parity 2. This pattern of lengthened birth interval beyond the 1st birth was apparent at all parities in the youngest cohort and indicates increasing acceptance of contraception among those who have come of age during a period of rapid social change.     

Marital Quality and Income: An Examination of the Influence of Government Assistance

Using data from a random telephone statewide survey in Utah, the associations between income, government assistance and six dimensions of marital quality were explored with a sample of 295 married individuals with incomes below $40,000. Results indicate that income has a main effect on negative interaction and feeling trapped. An interaction of government assistance and income on two dimensions of marital quality was found. Individuals that experienced the combination of earning less than $20,000 per year while receiving government assistance had significantly lower levels of overall marital satisfaction and commitment than individuals receiving government assistance with higher incomes and individuals who have never received government assistance. Implications and possible explanations are discussed.     

Education and fertility: policy implications for developing countries

Efforts to reduce the high rates of population growth in Africa are largely hampered by a social and political climate which does not recognize high birth rates as a problem. Only 2 countries (Kenya and Ghana) are actively antinatalist officially, the rest being actively pronatalist or taking no firm stand. The author argues that support for family planning will grow only when governments support mass education programs. A framework showing the linkages between fertility and formal education is developed. On the demographic level, pursuit of higher levels of education delays entry into marriage, directly and through pursuit of occupations which do not encourage early marriage. Lowered infant mortality through improved utilization of modern health care by the educated also leads to reduced fertility. On the sociocultural level, migration to urban centers among the educated leads to new cultural norms and constraints on large families from the pursuit of modern careers. The author asserts that the inverse relation between education and fertility is well known, and that national support for mass education is needed to speed economic development, change the position of women and alter peoples' values.