Effects of child mortality on subsequent fertility of women in some rural and semi-urban areas of certain Latin American countries

Abstract With the rapid decline in child mortality in developing countries there is considerable interest in understanding its effects on fertility. According to the theory of demographic transition, mortality declines are accompanied by fertility declines after a time lag, as countries go through the process of economic development. However, the immediate effects of a mortality decline on fertility have not been uniform as in many countries fertility has actually increased. For example, in many Latin American countries where mortality declines have been very rapid there have not been any appreciable changes in fertility. Only in recent years has there been a noticeable decline in the urban areas of some nations. While it is possible to examine the effects of various socio-economic factors on mortality and fertility at the macro-level, any real understanding of how mortality itself influences fertility would require information at the micro-level on couples who have experienced child mortality and who are also exposed to the risk of childbearing.     

Measuring the effect of sex preference on fertility: The case of Korea

Preferences for male or female children or a balanced number of sons and daughters are common throughout the world. The dominant preference is for male offspring, particularly in less developed countries. Strong son preference is often tempered, however, by a desire to have at least one child of each sex. In more developed countries a balance preference is more common, often together with a strong preference for the first child to be a son. Although it is usually assumed that sex preference can substantially influence fertility, some analysts argue that the effect is negligible. An intermediate position is taken by those who say that sex preference may not have much impact at high fertility levels, but that as average family sizes begin to fall, sex preference will become a more important factor in fertility decisions. Despite the keen interest that has been shown in sex preference, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence of its effects on fertility. Moreover, much of the research in this area is methodologically weak. The measures that have been used in the past have been subject to a number of criticisms that call their results into question. This paper proposes a new measure of the effect of sex preference on fertility that avoids many of the problems inherent in other methods. The measure is based on widely available survey data on the sex composition of children and can be used with any measure of fertility or family planning. It can handle any type of sex preference and does not assume a linear relationship between sex preference and fertility.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Fertility differentials among the tribal groups of Sierra Leone

Abstract Sierra Leone is in a position typical of many African countries regarding accurate information on her basic demographic characteristics. Such vital registration as exists is confined to a small area and there has been only one census of any reliability, that of 1963. Estimates of fertility levels from the age distribution obtained from that enumeration have been made by Dow, the method having been used previously by Van de Walle for Nigeria.     

低生育率陷阱:是事实还是神话?

20世纪80年代以后,欧洲国家生育率持续下降,一些国家生育率降到并持续保持极低的水平,这种现象引起了西方人口学界乃至大众的广泛关注,很多学者对欧洲持续的低生育率现象及其原因进行了探讨,其中最有影响的理论之一是鲁茨等人提出的低生育率陷阱。按照鲁茨等人的观点,一国总和生育率一旦降到1.5以下,就会产生一种低生育率自我强化机制,于是,生育率就如同掉进了陷阱,很难再回升到1.5以上。本文介绍了低生育率陷阱的概念和作为其理论核心的低生育率自我强化机制并从人口学机制、社会学机制和经济学机制分析了低生育率自我强化机制本身的缺陷,从理论上论证低生育率陷阱可能存在的问题,在这一基础上笔者结合近年来欧洲一些低生育率国家生育率回升的事实,认为低生育率陷阱究竟是事实还是神话,还需要进一步的理论证明和实践检验。     

The Bangladesh fertility decline: an interpretation

The claim has been made, notably in a 1994 World Bank report, that the Bangladesh fertility decline shows that efficient national family planning programs can achieve major fertility declines even in countries that are very poor, and even if females have a low status and significant socioeconomic change has not occurred. This article challenges this claim on the grounds that Bangladesh did experience major social and economic change, real and perceived, over the last two decades. This proposition is supported by official data and by findings of the authors' 1997 field study in rural southeast Bangladesh. That study demonstrates that most Bangladeshis believe that conditions are very different from the situation a generation ago and that on balance there has been improvement. Most also believe that more decisions must now be made by individuals, and these include decisions to have fewer children. In helping to achieve these new fertility aims, however, the services provided by the family planning program constituted an important input.     

Equity,Security and Fertility: A Reaction to Thomas

This paper assesses recent arguments that sustained fertility decline cannot occur in circumstances of inequality, insecurity, and injustice. Naturally, these conditions are to be abhorred. However, the empirical record suggests that none of them acts as an absolute barrier to mass adoption of birth control and subsequent fertility decline. Recent trends in Bangladesh illustrate this point most vividly. One of the greatest fallacies of many fertility theories has been the assumption that there is an economic or social imperative in underdeveloped countries for couples to have many children. To the contrary, the historic norm for all societies has been an average of only about two surviving children per woman, implying an adaptation to low, not high, net fertility.     

生育激励与个人所得税 ——理论逻辑与经验论据

中共十九大报告提出要进一步“促进生育政策和相关经济社会政策配套衔接”。在厘清税收激励生育的理论逻辑基础上,运用工资税模型,获取OECD国家对此的经验论据。结果显示,许多国家运用税收政策向有子女家庭提供正向激励,且更注重中低收入家庭。进一步分析发现,通常为符合资格条件的儿童设计相同的或递增的定额税收优惠,甚至为大规模家庭赋予额外优惠;将儿童税收宽免转化为抵免,引进收入限制和可退抵免制;单亲家庭可享受额外优惠,而已婚家庭还通过个人申报纳税、婚姻优惠、家庭申报纳税等多种举措受益。应汲取和借鉴OECD国家的成功经验,逐步构建我国“生育友好型”的税收制度。     

The second great wall of China: Evolution of a successful policy of population control

Since the 1949 revolution, Chinese population policy has undergone many shifts that have alternated with general political trends. However, in the past two decades the policy has grown increasingly antinatalist as a response to slower-than-desired economic development and rapid population growth. The remarkable declines of fertility during this period have been made possible by effective contraceptive technology, efficient administration, tight political organization down to grass-roots levels, and by linking national goals of population control to patriotism. Recent minor reverses in policy and in fertility suggests that there are practical limits to such policies, but other countries have much to learn from the Chinese experience.This is an updated version of a paper published in theNPG Forum, Negative Population Growth, Inc. October, 1989.     

Delayed Marriage and Very Low Fertility in Pacific Asia

The general decline in fertility levels in Pacific Asia has in its vanguard countries where fertility rates are among the lowest in the world. A related trend is toward delayed marriage and nonmarriage. When prevalence of cohabitation in European countries is allowed for, levels of “effective singlehood” in many countries of Pacific Asia have run ahead of those in northern and western Europe. This raises questions about the extent to which delayed marriage has been implicated in fertility declines, and whether the same factors are leading both to delayed marriage and to lowered fertility within marriage. The article argues that involuntary nonmarriage is likely to be more common in Pacific Asia than in Western countries, and that resultant involuntary childlessness plays a substantial role in the low fertility rates currently observed.     

The changing relationship between unemployment and total fertility

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether there has been a fundamental change in the relationship between economic conditions and fertility. We use panel data methods to study the short-term changes in total fertility and the unemployment rate in a range of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1957 to 2014. We find that although fertility was counter-cyclical before 1970, with good economic times being associated with lower fertility, since then it has become pro-cyclical, with good economic times being associated with higher fertility.     

The Role of Migration in the Urban Transition: A Demonstration From Albania

Although natural increase has been recognized as the main driver of postwar urban growth in developing countries, urban transition theory predicts a dominant role for population mobility in the early and late phases of the process. To account for this discrepancy between theory and empirical evidence, I demonstrate the complex role played by internal and international migration in the pattern of urban growth. Using a combination of indirect demographic estimations for postwar Albania, I show that the dominant contribution of natural increase from the 1960s to the 1990s was induced by a limited urban in-migration; this was due to the restrictions on leaving the countryside imposed under communist rule and, thereafter, to the redirection abroad of rural out-migrants. Although young adults in cities also engaged in international movements and significantly reduced their fertility, the indirect effects of rural-to-urban migration attenuated the fall in urban birth rates and postponed demographic aging. In-migrants swelled urban cohorts of reproductive age and delayed the urban fertility transition. Despite a high level of urban natural increase in Albania, I thus conclude that the role of population mobility dominated in the early and most recent phases of urban growth. The results also have implications for our understanding of demographic processes during the second urban transition in developing countries.     

Trade and fertility in the developing world: the impact of trade and trade structure

In the literature on trade and development, fertility and trade have been widely discussed as two separate economic forces. However, an important recent contribution connects these two and suggests that international trade between developed and developing countries has an asymmetric effect on the demand for human capital. The asymmetry leads to a decline in fertility rates in developed countries and an increase in these rates in developing countries. We provide additional comprehensive empirical evidence in support of this novel hypothesis. Our findings suggest that countries that export skill-intensive manufacturing goods experience a decline in fertility rates, whereas in countries that export primary, low-skill-intensive goods, fertility rates are affected positively. Further, our findings indicate that the negative influence of manufacturing exports on fertility holds primarily and most strongly for middle-income countries where structural modernization and a growing manufacturing-intensive export sector is observed.     

On the distribution of completed parities when fertility is heritable

Over the last one hundred years, there has been, in many developed countries, a demographic convergence towards the two child family. The possible implications for population growth of such a tendency are considered in this paper in terms of both family limitation and also the intergenerational transmission of fertility. These two effects interact so that as the proportion of two‐child families increases, the possible influence of mother‐daughter fertility associations on population growth decreases, though even now it could override otherwise significant changes in either or both of the birth and death intensities. In particular, it is shown that according as to how fertility is transmitted through generations, it is still possible to have zero growth rates consistently with a widely dispersed stable distribution of family size as well as a typical mortality regime.     

The objectives of government policies on fertility control in Eastern Europe

Although demographers from the communist countries continue to maintain that overpopulation in the Malthusian sense Is possible only under capitalism, some East European demographers now concede that a form of overpopulation may, at times and under certain conditions, exist In a communist society. In this connection the ideological framework for an optimum population policy under communism has been developed, and demographers have been given the task of determining what the optimum population is and how it is to be attained. There has been considerable ferment on the Issue of fertility control in both the literature and action programmes of Poland, Chechoslovakia, and Hungary. The latter two countries have conducted surveys on family planning, including the use and effectiveness of contraceptives, and have established demographic journals.

All the communist countries of Eastern Europe except Albania and East Germany have relaxed laws restricting abortions and conducted campaigns for the spread of contraceptives. At the same time family allowances have been continued. These paradoxically divergent policies can be rationalized as attempts to sustain existing families while providing the basis for regulating future fertility to achieve an optimum population in relation to the resources of the respective countries.     

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.     

Age–Period–Cohort Decomposition of U.S. and Japanese Birth Rates

Aggregate data on birth rates in the U.S. and Japan, classified by period and by age, are decomposed into age, period, and cohort effects using Bayesian cohort models that were developed to overcome the identification problem in cohort analysis. Main findings are fivefold. First, age, period, and cohort effects movements are all larger in Japan than in the U.S. Second, in both countries, age effects are the largest and are roughly consistent with the life-cycle movements showing an inverted U shape. Third, Easterlin’s cohort size hypothesis roughly fits U.S. birth rates but not Japanese birth rates. Fourth, despite rapid decline of total fertility rates in Japan in last three decades, period effects have been on an upward trend since the early 1990s. Finally, upward and downward cohort effects movements in Japan are derived by rapid economic growth and the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, respectively.     

Policies for fertility reduction: focus on Asia

Fertility can be affected by many factors. Over the long run, socioeconomic development has a decisive effect on reducing fertility. But in the short run, its effects are mixed. Providing greater educational opportunities, particularly for women, typically leads to lower fertility. Urban fertility tends to be much lower than rural fertility since urban residents have better access to information and health care. To the degree that governments are able to extend the reach of the modern sector to rural areas, they may be able to reduce fertility without encouraging urban growth. The effects of income on fertility are mixed: given sufficient time, higher incomes lead to lower fertility; but rising incomes in developing countries can, in the short run, increase fertility. Socioeconomic development factors, however, have less effect on fertility than do fertility dynamics at the individual level. Age at marriage, duration of breastfeeding, and use of contraceptives have important implications for fertility reduction policies. The contribution of of these factors to fertility control have been analyzed for a number of Asian and Pacific countries. Breastfeeding plays a key role in controlling fertility in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. Later marriages compensate for lower breastfeeding levels in controlling fertility in other Asian and Pacific countries. The contribution of contraception to fertility control varies from 2% in Nepal to as much as 28% in Thailand. A low total fertility rate is almost always the result of relatively widespread use of contraceptives. Fertility rate reduction in India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea in he 1970s can largely be explained by increases in contraceptive usage.     

Closing a Sociodemographic Chapter of Chinese History

At its recent Fifth Plenary Session held in Beijing, the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to abolish the one‐child policy and allow all couples to have two children, thus closing an important chapter of China's social and demographic history. Recent fertility trends make it clear why it is urgent to abandon this policy. Census and survey data show that China's TFR had already fallen below replacement in 1991. Since the mid‐1990s, TFRs in most years have been lower than 1.5 children per woman. Since 2010, even lower fertility rates have been recorded by the annual population change surveys. Since the mid‐1990s, fertility decline has been increasingly driven by generalized ideational changes resulting from the social, economic, and cultural transformation of recent decades. In recent years many couples who were entitled to have a second child have chosen not to do so. For this reason, the termination of the one‐child policy is unlikely to lead to a major upturn in fertility, but rather to the continuation of a low‐fertility regime with more diverse fertility patterns across different sub‐populations, a pattern that has been observed in many countries.     

The decline of non-marital fertility in Europe, 1880-1940

Abstract Between 1880 and 1940, to take approximate dates, illegitimate fertility rates in Europe dropped precipitously, falling in most countries by 50% or more. The rates used throughout this paper relate extra-marital births to the number of unmarried (i.e. single, widowed and divorced) women; we use a standardized index, I ({ih}) to be discussed later. In Fig. 1 we present most of the European series of I ( h )'s that can be computed from existing census and vital registration data. Although there are interesting exceptions the general picture is clear: a decline in illegitimate fertility commenced in most countries in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and was arrested in the 1920's and 1930's. Once it had begun in a country, the downward course was swift and uninterrupted, until non-marital fertility had been cut in half.