The effect of longevity on schooling and fertility: evidence from the Brazilian Demographic and Health Survey

This paper presents microevidence on the effect of adult longevity on schooling and fertility. Higher longevity is systematically associated with higher schooling and lower fertility. The paper looks at the 1996 Brazilian Demographic and Health Survey and constructs an adult longevity variable based on the mortality history of the respondent's family. Families with histories of high adult mortality in previous generations have systematically higher fertility and lower schooling. These effects are not associated with omitted variables and remain unchanged after a large array of factors is accounted for (demographic characteristics, family-specific child mortality, regional development, socioeconomic status, etc.).

The impact of family policies on fertility in industrialized countries: a review of the literature

This paper examines the theoretical propositions and empirical evidence linking policies and fertility. More specifically, the analysis presented in this paper draws attention to the complex mechanisms that theoretically link policies and demographic outcomes: mechanisms that involve imperfect information and decisions that are rationally bound by very specific circumstances. As to the empirical evidence, studies provide mixed conclusions as to the effect of policies on fertility. While a small positive effect of policies on fertility is found in numerous studies, no statistically significant effect is found in others. Moreover, some studies suggest that the effect of policies tends to be on the timing of births rather than on completed fertility.

Gendering fertility: Second births in Sweden and Hungary

With the growing prevalence of the dual-earner family model in industrialized countries the gendered nature of the relationship between employment and parenting has become a key issue for childbearing decisions and behavior. In such a context taking into account the societal gender structure (public policies, family-level gender relations) explicitly can enhance our understanding of contemporary fertility trends. In this paper we study the second birth, given its increasing importance in the developed world as large proportions of women remain childless or bear only one child. We focus on Sweden where gender equality is pronounced at both the societal and the family level and on Hungary where the dual-earner model has been accompanied by traditional gender relations in the home sphere. Our analysis is based on data extracted from the Swedish and Hungarian Fertility and Family Surveys of 1992/93. We use the method of hazard regression. The results suggest that the second-birth intensity increases as the combination of parenthood and labor-force attachment of either parent is facilitated. We see this in the effect of family policies in Sweden and in the higher second-birth intensity of couples who share family responsibilities as compared to those with traditional gender-role behavior in both countries. Also, the lack of any visible impact of men's educational attainment in both Sweden and Hungary is probably linked to public policies as state support for families with children has reduced the importance of income for second childbearing. A positive educational gradient for Swedish women and an essentially zero gradient in Hungary reflects the success of policy measures in reducing fertility cost for more educated women in both countries.     

中国的人口老龄化经济压力及其调控

运用作者提出的AECI指数法并借助人口模拟,对1980～2050年中国人口老龄化经济压力的强度、趋势和调控进行系统的定量分析和国际比较,发现:本世纪上半叶中国将面临巨大的人口老龄化经济压力,按中方案预测,2020年代中至2030年代末将是压力增大最快时期,压力高峰将出现在2040年前后,高峰时的压力将可能达到2010年压力的4倍;巨大的人口老龄化经济压力将有可能显著地削弱中国崛起的后劲;缓解未来人口老龄化经济压力必须以经济手段为主、人口手段为辅;在坚持计划生育基本国策的前提下中等幅度逐步放宽现行生育政策,既可有效地缓解未来人口老龄化经济压力,又可同时将人口规模压力控制在可承受范围内,这是调控中国人口老龄化经济压力的合理路径。     

Deliberate birth spacing before the fertility transition in Europe: evidence from nineteenth-century Belgium

Many scholars have argued that deliberate birth spacing may have played a role before and during the modern fertility transition. There are good historical and theoretical reasons for this view, but it has proved to be hard to demonstrate convincingly that birth intervals were in fact partly determined by attempts at deliberate fertility control. This paper suggests a method of securing evidence on the issue for married couples. The method is applied to three cohorts living in a Belgian town in the nineteenth century. The findings indicate that, even before the fertility transition, couples in the working class were controlling their fertility by deliberate spacing.     

独生子女和非独生子女生育意愿差异的比较研究——基于江苏省生育意愿和生育行为调查

根据“江苏省生育意愿和生育行为”基线调查数据,本文使用交叉分析,多元线性回归等方法,探讨独生子女和非独生子女生育意愿的差异。结果表明,在意愿生育数量、意愿生育性别和意愿生育时间方面独生子女和非独生子女没有显著差异。     

Demographic pressure,economic development,and social engineering: An assessment of fertility declines in the second half of the twentieth century

Population Research and Policy Review - Concerns over the prospects of explosive demographic growth led to concerted efforts to engineer fertility reductions in the developing world, while skeptics...     

The role of intergenerational transfers,land, and education in fertility transition in rural Kenya: the case of Nyeri district

This qualitative study reveals how population pressures, land availability, inheritance norms, and educational opportunities intertwine to influence fertility decline in rural Kenya. Focus group discussions with men and women whose childbearing occurred both before and after the onset of rapid, unexpected fertility transition in Nyeri, Kenya allowed individuals who actually participated in, or witnessed, the fertility transition to “voice” their perceptions as to the mechanisms underlying the transition. Findings suggest that, since land inheritance is a cultural norm, land scarcity and diminishing farm size often influence fertility decision-making and behavior via preferences for fewer children. Further, education does not appear to be the driving cause of fertility behavior change, but rather is adopted as a substitute for land inheritance when land resources are scarce. These findings have implications for our understanding of fertility behavior as well as for improving predictions of fertility transition in other rural sub-Saharan African contexts.     

The transition to parenthood in Puerto Rico: Occupational status and the timing of first births

This study examines the relationship between occupational status and fertility timing during a period of rapid development in Puerto Rico. Our fundamental hypothesis is that women with higher status occupations face greater opportunity costs than those with less valued jobs and therefore will be more likely to postpone parenthood until later ages than women without such high costs. We test this hypothesis using event history techniques with data from the 1982 Puerto Rico Fertility and Family Planning Assessment, an island-wide survey of women between the ages of 15 and 49. The analysis examines the effects of occupational status on the timing of first births, and finds strong support for the basic hypothesis, especially regarding the post-ponement of teen births. After the teen years, the effects are less pronounced. Overall, it appears that employment opportunities have played an important role in childbearing decisions in Puerto Rico.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Denver, Colorado, 30 April–2 May 1992.     

The demand for children in Arab countries: evidence from panel and count data models

This paper provides empirical evidence on fertility determinants in Arab countries. Adopting a macro and micro framework and exploiting panel and count data models the paper estimates the impact of cultural and economic factors on the demand for children. The results obtained strongly support the hypothesis that cross-country heterogeneity buttresses differentiated fertility and that female education mitigates high fertility. Child mortality and parent‘s preferences for sons positively affect fertility. By and large, demand for children is price and income inelastic. Received: 30 May 1995 /Accepted: 19 February 1998     

Family limitation and the fertility transition: Evidence from the age patterns of fertility in Europe and Asia

Summary The age patterns of marital fertility levels and decline in modern Asia and historical Europe are analysed in order to answer two questions: (1) How closely do the age patterns of marital fertility in both areas prior to a systematic fertility decline conform to the age pattern of natural fertility? (2) How similar are the age patterns of the fertility transition experienced in Europe in the past, and the age pattern of fertility decline now under way in a number of Asian populations? The answers have important implications for our understanding of the fertility transition. They suggest that modern family limitation (i.e. parity-specific fertility control) was largely absent prior to a secular decline in marital fertility in both Europe and Asia. Furthermore, the evidence indicates that once the practice of family limitation starts to spread among the broader strata of the population, it seems almost inevitably to increase until it becomes a common behavioural norm. In this respect, the modern fertility transition appears to result from the spread of innovative behaviour and cannot be viewed simply as an adjustment to new socio-economic circumstances based on previously established behavioural mechanisms.     

Completing the fertility transition in the developing world: The role of educational differences and fertility preferences

This study summarizes patterns of educational differentials in wanted and unwanted fertility at different stages of the fertility transition. The data are from Demographic and Health Surveys in 57 less developed countries. As the transition proceeds, educational differentials in wanted fertility tend to decline and differentials in unwanted fertility tend to rise. An assessment of fertility patterns in developed and less developed countries with low fertility concludes that these differentials are likely to remain substantial when less developed countries reach the end of their transitions. This conclusion implies that the educational composition of the population remains a key predictor of overall fertility in late transitional countries and that low levels of schooling can be a cause of stalling fertility.     

Fertility beyond the frontier: indigenous women,fertility, and reproductive practices in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Recent research suggests that after decades of population decline, indigenous populations of the lowland tropics of Latin America are now experiencing rapid growth. At the same time, conservationists have pronounced indigenous lands as a key to the future of Amazon forests. As such, conservationists should have a good understanding of indigenous demography and impacts on conservation and development. Yet, there is little depth to understanding of these demographic changes and a dearth of quantitative research on the reproductive practices of indigenous populations. This study addresses these gaps through analyses of a household survey of 648 women of reproductive age from five distinct ethnic populations in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We estimate fertility, analyze reproductive intentions and contraceptive use, and determine the unmet need for reproductive health services. The analyses confirm high fertility rates and high levels of unmet need for contraception. With regard to program and policy implications, we conclude by arguing that isolation and cultural barriers present unique challenges to meet the reproductive health needs of these populations. Innovative approaches, such as those merging population–health–environment topics, may be most relevant for meeting these challenges.

Completing the fertility transition in the developing world: The role of educational differences and fertility preferences

This study summarizes patterns of educational differentials in wanted and unwanted fertility at different stages of the fertility transition. The data are from Demographic and Health Surveys in 57 less developed countries. As the transition proceeds, educational differentials in wanted fertility tend to decline and differentials in unwanted fertility tend to rise. An assessment of fertility patterns in developed and less developed countries with low fertility concludes that these differentials are likely to remain substantial when less developed countries reach the end of their transitions. This conclusion implies that the educational composition of the population remains a key predictor of overall fertility in late transitional countries and that low levels of schooling can be a cause of stalling fertility.     

The demographic transition in southern Africa: Reviewing the evidence from Botswana and Zimbabwe

Part, but not all, of the observed decline in the number of children ever born reported in the 1984 CPS and the 1988 DHS in Botswana and Zimbabwe can be attributed to differences in sample composition: women in the 1988 survey appear to be better educated than women of the same cohort in the 1984 survey. Blanc and Rutstein argue that differences in education levels in the pairs of surveys are not significant. However, weighted Kolmogorov-Smimov statistics, a comparison of average years of schooling, and the proportions of women who complete primary school or attend secondary school all indicate that the differences are, in fact, significant. This is true in both Botswana and Zimbabwe. Blanc and Rutstein also claim that these differences do not account for any of the observed decline in fertility between the surveys of women age 15 to 49. Their methodology follows cohorts of women rather than age-groups and thus cannot possibly address this issue. Furthermore, to interpret their results, response error and respondent education must be uncorrelated: this is a key assumption which is violated by the data. We stand by our conclusions and argue for caution when aggregate statistics from the CPS and the DHS are used to make projections about the course of fertility and population growth in Botswana and Zimbabwe.     

Involuntary childlessness and voluntary fertility control during the fertility transition: Evidence from men who graduated from an American college

Abstract. Influences on the fertility of men during the American fertility decline are examined using a sample of about 1700 married men born between 1830 and 1880, all of whom attended Amherst College, Massachusetts. We consider two types of reduced fertility: involuntary childlessness as a function of health in early adulthood, and voluntary fertility control as a function of access to contraceptive technology. The relation between health, as measured by body mass index, and childlessness was nonlinear, with average sized men significantly more likely ever to father children than thin or bulky men. Among men who ever fathered a child, physicians fathered significantly fewer children while having probabilities of childlessness that were statistically indistinguishable from those of other men. Physicians may have had greater access to relatively new contraceptive technologies, which suggests a role for voluntary fertility control.     

The demographic transition in southern Africa: Another look at the evidence from Botswana and Zimbabwe

Botswana and Zimbabwe have been acclaimed as being on the vanguard of the demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the comparability of the CPS and the DHS data for each country and finds that part of the observed decline in aggregate fertility rates in both countries can be attributed to differences in sample composition. Women of the same cohort tend to be better educated in the second survey relative to the first. This fact explains part—but not all—of the observed fertility decline; for example, it appears to account for up to half the observed decline among women age 25–34 in 1984 in Zimbabwe.     

The role of contraceptive supply and demand in Mexican fertility decline: evidence from a microdemographic study

This paper uses retrospective life history data to assess the impact of family planning services on contraceptive use in a rural Mexican township. Between 1960 and 1990 contraceptive use rose and fertility declined dramatically. Both contraceptive supply and demand factors were influential in these trends. The start of the government-sponsored family planning programme in the late 1970s was associated with a sharp rise in female sterilization and use of the IUD. However, once we controlled for the changing socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the sample, the presence of family planning services had no significant effect on the likelihood that women used modern reversible methods compared to traditional methods. Men and women expressed concerns about the safety of modern methods such as the pill and the IUD. Efforts to increase modern contraceptive use should place greater emphasis on communicating the safety of these methods and improving the quality of services.     

从"五普"地市数据看生育政策对出生性别比和婴幼儿死亡率性别比的影响

以"五普"数据为基础,分析全国"地市"的出生性别比、婴儿死亡率性别比与生育政策的关系.本文的分析表明实行"第1个孩子为女孩,间隔几年允许生第2个孩子"生育政策的人口比例越高的地区,出生性别比和婴儿死亡性别比失常越严重;实行较为宽松生育政策的地区比较接近正常.实行较为宽松的生育政策有利于解决目前出生性别比严重失常和女婴死亡严重偏高的问题.