Using Discrete-Time Event History Fertility Models to Simulate Total Fertility Rates and Other Fertility Measures

Event history models, also known as hazard models, are commonly used in analyses of fertility. One drawback of event history models is that the conditional probabilities (hazards) estimated by event history models do not readily translate into summary measures, particularly for models of repeatable events, like childbirth. In this paper, we describe how to translate the results of discrete-time event history models of all births into well-known summary fertility measures: simulated age- and parity-specific fertility rates, parity progression ratios, and the total fertility rate. The method incorporates all birth intervals, but permits the hazard functions to vary across parities. It can also simulate values for groups defined by both fixed and time-varying covariates, such as marital or employment life histories. We demonstrate the method using an example from the National Survey of Family Growth and provide an accompanying data file and Stata program.     

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.     

Attitudes About Children and Fertility Limitation Behavior

The relationship between attitudes and individual behavior is at the core of virtually all demographic theories of fertility. This paper extends our understanding of fertility behavior by exploring how psychic costs of childbearing and contraceptive use, conceptualized as attitudes about children and contraception, are related to the transition from high fertility and little contraceptive use to lower fertility and wide spread contraceptive use. Using data from rural Nepal, I examine models of the relationship between multiple, setting-specific attitudes about children and contraception and the hazard of contraceptive use to limit childbearing. Specific attitude measures attempt to capture the relative value of children versus consumer goods, the religiously based value of children, and the acceptability of contraceptive use. Findings demonstrate that multiple measures of women’s attitudes about children and contraception were all independently related to their fertility limitation behavior.     

Spatial Analysis of the Causes of Fertility Decline in Prussia

This article contributes to the geographic analysis of fertility decline in the demographic transition in Europe. We reanalyze Galloway, Hammel, and Lee's (1994) Prussian data with spatial analysis methods. Our multivariate analysis provides evidence of the predictive effect of both economic and cultural variables. Furthermore, even after all of the observable economic, social, and cultural variables have been controlled for, our findings show that a significant unexplained geographic clustering of fertility decline remains. We then specify spatial econometric models, which show that in addition to economic and cultural factors, socio‐geographic factors such as being adjacent to areas of sharp fertility decline are also needed to understand the pattern of fertility decline. These results provide new support for the role of social diffusion in the process, while allowing for the direct structural effects of economic change.     

Mapping the Timing,Pace, and Scale of the Fertility Transition in Brazil

Between 1960 and 2000, fertility fell sharply in Brazil, but this transition was unevenly distributed in space and time. Using Bayesian spatial statistical methods and microdata from five censuses, we develop and apply a procedure for fitting logistic curves to the fertility transitions in more than 500 small regions of Brazil over this 40‐year period. Doing so enables us to map the main features of the Brazilian fertility transition in considerable detail. We detect early declines in some regions of the country and document large differences between early and late transitions in regard to both the initial level of fertility and the speed of the transition. We also use our results to test hypotheses regarding changes in the level of development at the onset of the fertility transition and identify a temporary stall in the Brazilian transition that occurred in the late 1990s. A web site with project details is at http://schmert.net/BayesLogistic .     

中国生育率转变的因素分析

阐述了中国生育率由传统的高出生率向近代的低出生率转变的原因,利用邦加兹生育率模式和多元回归分析分别对生育率转变的避孕、人工流产等生物人口学因素,以及都市人口比率、计划生育率等社会经济的因素进行了论述。     

Fertility Differences between the Majority and Minority Nationality Groups in China

There is an extensive sociological and demographic literature about why racial and ethnic minority groups in the U.S. have different levels of fertility, usually higher, than the majority white group. The four major hypotheses are the subcultural hypothesis, the social characteristics hypothesis, the minority group status hypothesis, and the economic hypothesis. In this paper we focus on fertility patterns of the majority Han and the larger minority groups in China and examine the degree to which the above hypotheses may be useful in articulating the reasons why the fertility of the Han majority differs from that of the minorities. We first present a brief historical review of the genesis and development of the majority and minority nationalities in China. We next present short vignettes of each of the eight minority nationalities we will be examining. We then review the Western literature on fertility differentials between majority and minority nationalities, and summarize the theoretical expectations behind the four prominent hypotheses to be tested. Finally, we present the results of the analysis, and draw out the implications of our work.     

Factors Associated with the Finnish Fertility Decline Since 1776

The analysis of annual age-specific fertility rates in Finland over more than 200 years reveals the existence of a significant early fertility decline at the end of the eighteenth century preceding the secular decline that started around 1910. A reconstruction of age-specific proportions married by a simulation model based on Coale's marriage model indicates that the mean age at marriage increased and the proportion ever-marrying decreased substantially during the period of the early fertility decline. A modification of the index of family limitation applied under certain assumptions to overall fertility rates also indicates that fertility was essentially natural until 1910. Cross-lagged correlation analysis shows that infant mortality does not influence subsequent fertility in the pre-modern period. Finally, a number of socio-economic indicators are related to fertility, and conclusions are drawn from the Finnish case about several hypotheses in the field of demographic transition.     

A Cohort Model of Fertility Postponement

We introduce a new formal model in which demographic behavior such as fertility is postponed by differing amounts depending only on cohort membership. The cohort-based model shows the effects of cohort shifts on period fertility measures and provides an accompanying tempo adjustment to determine the period fertility that would have occurred without postponement. Cohort-based postponement spans multiple periods and produces “fertility momentum,” with implications for future fertility rates. We illustrate several methods for model estimation and apply the model to fertility in several countries. We also compare the fit of period-based and cohort-based shift models to the recent Dutch fertility surface, showing how cohort- and period-based postponement can occur simultaneously.     

Failure to Realize Fertility Intentions: A Key Aspect of the Post-communist Fertility Transition

Our paper focuses on the realization of fertility intentions, exploring a new aspect of the post-communist fertility transition. By making use of a follow-up study, it was possible to compare five European countries and to analyze the chances of realizing short-term, time-dependent fertility intentions. There is always a difference between intention and behavior. It is partly due to demographic and social factors, such as age, parity, partnership status, but once these are accounted for, important differences remain between western European and post-communist countries. In the period after the turn of the millennium, chances of realizing intentions are significantly lower in post-communist countries than in western European countries. The lower chance of realization is a consequence of social anomie originating from discrepancy between slow value shift and the increased dynamism of structural changes.     

Options for Fertility Policy Transition in China

This article compares five currently debated scenarios for fertility policy transition in China, in terms of their implications for future population growth and population aging, the proportions of elderly living alone, labor force trends, pension deficits, economic costs, the marriage squeeze, and other socioeconomic outcomes. Based on these comparative analyses, the author concludes that China needs to begin a gradual modification of its fertility policy as soon as possible. He proposes a three‐stage “soft‐landing” strategy for fertility policy transition: (1) a 7‐year initial smooth transition period; (2) from approximately 2014‐15 to 2032‐35 a universal two‐child policy combined with late childbearing in both rural and urban areas; (3) after 2032‐35 all Chinese citizens would be free to choose family size and fertility timing. This strategy will enable China to have much more favorable demographic conditions and socioeconomic outcomes, as compared to keeping the current policy unchanged.     

Fertility Decline in Czechoslovakia During the Last Two Centuries

The decline of fertility in Czechoslovakia on the territory of the Czech Socialist Republic began with a rise in the age at marriage; the decline of marital fertility began only after 1860. On the territory of the Slovak Socialist Republic marital fertility began to decline after 1900 without previous significant changes in the age at marriage. The differences between the demographic behaviour in the two parts of Czechoslovakia have persisted, although they are now gradually disappearing. There are other significant regional differences in the fertility decline caused by the overall process of economic and social development. The end of the demographic transition in the Czech Socialist Republic came during the 1930's and in the Slovak Socialist Republic during the 1960's.     

生育率演变的生态学逻辑及人口增长的长期趋势

人口增长的长期过程一直是充满困惑与引发争论的话题,将人类复归到生态系统的普通成员,按照生态学逻辑构建一个由替代生育率内生引导、人口容量外生制约的人口增长新模型,以代替用具体社会经济因子解释短周期人口变动的传统思路,探讨生育率转变的一般模式及人口发展的长期趋势。工业革命以来,全球人口已经或正在经历着第一次、第二次生育率转变,全球生育率演变可以聚类为欧美、亚非拉、撒哈拉以南非洲和东亚四种区域模式;在计划生育政策的推动下,我国在短短的三十年内完整经历了两次生育率转变。极限替代生育率是生育率演变的长期目标,但当前已有一些国家跌破更替水平,这也许会成为各个国家的普遍经历,预示着人口容量约束的日益显性化;世界及主要国家的人口规模正在日益逼近其容量极限,并会在惯性驱动下突破容量限制,达到峰值后再以负增长方式趋近人口容量,同期的生育率也将向极限替代生育率递增复归。按趋势模拟世界和中国的可持续人口容量分别约为65亿人和12亿人。研究设计出测量人口增长惯性的新指标——人口增长惯性系数,它是生育率与实时替代生育率之比或出生率与死亡率之比,相比常用的人口惯性因子更为简便易行。     

Fertility trends in Europe since the second world war

Abstract Before discussing the movements in fertility in Europe since World War II, it is necessary to consider, both as a background and a yardstick for measurement, the general situation around the mid-1930's. This period has been chosen for several reasons. First, it was at about this time that the crude birth rates and other period indices of fertility in most Western and North-Western countries of Europe reached their lowest points. The decline initiated in the 1870's and 1880's had proceeded without interruption except for the years immediately after World War I, and had gathered momentum in the 1920's. Only in France, in which the birth rate had been falling throughout the 19th century, did there appear to be some approach to stabilization. Secondly, pro-natalist policies began to expand in France, Belgium and Italy, and were initiated in Germany with the Nazi takeover. The very expansion of such policies reinforced the feeling of impending depopulation in other Western countries, a feeling made more intense by the increasingly frequent use of period net reproduction rates as indicators of national 'vitality' ('true' rates of natural increase were much less frequently cited: they required more elaborate computations and appeared to be less striking). Such rates were regarded as sophisticated and meaningful measures of replacement tendencies and they were given a semi-official status by inclusion in the League of Nations Statistical Yearbooks. The apparent implications of these rates were made even more sharply visible by the publication of population projections constructed on a component basis, and using essentially the same approach as that embodied in net reproduction rates - that is, with fertility measured in terms of age-specific fertility rates, and with no regard paid to nuptiality. Thirdly, the early thirties saw the great economic depression, with its correlate of mass unemployment, and offering a natural economic explanation for at least part of the apparent demographic depression.     

Agency in Fertility Decisions in Western Europe During the Demographic Transition: A Comparative Perspective

We use a set of linked reproductive histories taken from Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain for the period 1871–1960 to address key issues regarding how reproductive change was linked specifically to mortality and survivorship and more generally to individual agency. Using event-history analysis, this study investigates how the propensity to have additional children was influenced by the number of surviving offspring when reproductive decisions were made. The results suggest that couples were continuously regulating their fertility to achieve reproductive goals. Families experiencing child fatalities show significant increases in the hazard of additional births. In addition, the sex composition of the surviving sibset also appears to have influenced reproductive decisions in a significant but changing way. The findings offer strong proof of active decision-making during the demographic transition and provide an important contribution to the literature on the role of mortality for reproductive change.     

Fathers’ Imprisonment and Mothers’ Multiple-Partner Fertility

We consider the intersection between two striking U.S. trends: dramatic increases in the imprisonment of fathers and increases in the proportion of mothers who have children with more than one partner (multiple-partner fertility, or MPF). Using matched longitudinal administrative data that provide unusually comprehensive and accurate information about the occurrence and timing of imprisonment, fertility, and MPF for the population of the state of Wisconsin, we consider the relationship between paternal imprisonment and MPF among unwed mothers. Employing discrete-time event history analysis with multinomial logistic regression, we model the occurrence and timing of the mother’s second birth, distinguishing between a birth with the same father and a birth with a different father, and distinguishing between current imprisonment and a history of imprisonment. We find that current imprisonment is associated with an increased likelihood of MPF and a decreased likelihood of fertility with the same father (compared with no additional birth) and that a history of imprisonment is associated with increased MPF in some models but not in our preferred model. To control for unobserved heterogeneity among mothers and assess the evidence of a causal effect of fathers’ imprisonment, we also employ the case-time-control method, a fixed-effects method for the analysis of nonrepeated events. Results suggest that fathers’ current imprisonment may increase mothers’ MPF. Policy implications are discussed.     

人口、文化与政策：解读日本的低生育率

通过对日法两国生育状况进行对比（法国1．98,日本1．29）,挖掘日本总和生育率急剧下降的原因。两国都采取了政府干预的行政手段以及在实用主义的右翼政党支持下进行家庭政策改革,以期提高人口出生率,但是两国家庭政策的作用效果却不尽相同。一种可能的解释是植根于日本劳动力市场的文化：它使得年轻夫妇若中断他们的职业生涯来抚养孩子需要付出高额的机会成本：使得理想的雇员无法拥有太多的时间来安排家庭生活：同时假设并强化了一种传统的社会性别意识,将女性推向非正规劳动力就业市场,迫使她们只能在“正规工作”与“生养孩子”之间做出取舍。这也是越来越多的日本年轻人宁可选择单身并推迟结婚,也不愿轻易结婚生子的重要原因。     

Does Global Fertility and Cultural Transition Affect Human Development? The Neglected Role of the Demographic Transition

This study approaches the potential influence of the demographic transition on outcomes of human development. By re-conceptualizing demographic transition as global fertility and cultural transition and combining all distal macro forces including modernization, techno-economic heritage, and economic dependency, an integrated model for explaining human development outcomes can be theoretically formulated and subjected to empirical test. A panel regression analysis of available data from all developing countries supports the influence of the distal macro forces and the intervening role played by global fertility and cultural transition in affecting human development. In particular, a four-indicator index of global fertility and cultural transition shows the strongest effect on human development index, even controlling for the lagged dependent variable and the latest most competing explanatory variables. Following the long continuing process of the demographic transition, the empirical implication of this newly constructed index of global fertility and cultural transition for exploring alternative measures of human development and policy implications for third world human development are discussed.     

Catholicism and the Economics of Fertility

The economic approach to fertility is an application of the economic theory of consumer behaviour. It is assumed that utility-maximizing decisions regarding children are affected by explicit and implicit prices and income. One of the criticisms of this approach is that social norms tend to be given short shrift. In this paper, we examine the effect of Catholicism on fertility in the United States. Several new findings are presented. Most importantly, it is shown that many studies on Catholicism are flawed because of sample selection bias, which arises because ex-Catholics prefer smaller families than non-Catholics. We also show that religious activity has no effect on fertility if it is treated as an endogenous variable. Further, it is shown that the fertility transition in the United States is partly related to the changing effect of Catholic norms.     

Adapting Fertility Exposure Analysis to the Study of Fertility Change

Fertility exposure analysis was developed recently by Hobcraft and Little in order to evaluate the relative importance of the various proximate determinants upon levels of current fertility. In the present paper we extend the analysis to the study of changes in fertility between two cross-sectional surveys. We show how to express fertility change as a product of terms which represent changes in the proximate determinants. The model of change is adapted to a log-linear framework, in which the proximate determinants on the one hand, and socio-economic variables such as education, on the other, are considered together. A few simplifications of the method are also suggested so that fewer demands are made on data. The model and its possible interpretations are illustrated with pairs of surveys from Pakistan and Mexico. In each pair, one survey was part of the WFS programme and the other was very similar but conducted five years later.