Fertility levels and trends in Indonesia

Summary Fertility estimates from the 1973 Indonesian Fertility Mortality Survey are presented and compared with estimates from the 1971 population census. Although there are some differences, on the whole the two sources are remarkably consistent, indicating the same regional differentials: highest fertility in Sumatra (T.F.R. in rural areas around 7.0), followed by West Java and Sulawesi, Bali, then Central and East Java (T.F.R. in rural areas around 50). Coale's Index of Overall Fertility (If) is 39 per cent higher in rural Sumatra than in rural East Java. Fertility in urban areas is somewhat below rural fertility in all regions. The age pattern of fertility in Sumatra, Sulawesi and West Java is consistent with Henry's notion of 'natural fertility', and indeed the survey data show these regions to be almost innocent of deliberate practice of contraception. The lower fertility levels in Central and East Java appear to be related to patterns of extended lactation and post-partum abstinence, though modern contraception promoted by the national family planning programme is also on the increase. Though lower than elsewhere, both actual fertility and stated ideal family size in Central and East Java are well above the levels needed to achieve replacement levels of fertility.     

Determinants of fertility and the unmet need for family planning in Indonesia

Indonesia's fertility has declined to an average of slightly more than 3 children/woman. The islands of Java and Bali have the lowest birth rates. Indonesia's family planning program has been a model of innovation, flexibility, and community involvement, and has been effective in reducing fertility, changing family preferences, and increasing contraceptive use. Fertility decline is also determined by factors other than contraceptive use, as provinces in Jakarta and East Java has low fertility and low contraceptive use. Recent research by Suyono and Palmore found that among cohorts of women in Jakarta lowest fertility rates were explained by greater nonexposure to pregnancy in an unmarried state or by a divorced or widowed status, and by infecundity. In East Java, fertility determinants were the same with the possible addition of lower coital frequency. The study estimated nonexposure due to marriage, infecundity, and contraceptive use. Policy considerations, however, are concerned with the exposed state of the percentage of time women are currently married, fecund, not using contraceptive, and sexually active. Suyono and Palmore also calculated the percentage of time spent in the exposed state by province. The estimates ranged from 12% in Yogyakarta to 25% in West Java and the Outer Islands. Exposed was further divided into groups with a manifest, latent, and no current need. Women with a manifest need for family planning are those who are aware of their contraceptive needs to stop or postpone childbearing and not using. Manifest need was highest in high fertility areas: 12% in Central Java, 13% in West Java, and 12% in the Outer Islands. Programs targeting these women should focus on wider availability of information and services. Women with latent needs are unaware of their need for family planning and are not using contraception. These women were also concentrated in high fertility areas. The percentage of years spent in the latent unmet need state was estimated at 23-24% in West Java and the Outer Islands. Program emphasis should be on education and motivation to show how family size can be controlled. Women with current need can be educated toward future acceptance.     

A study on the demographic impact of an IUD programme

Abstract This paper discusses and presents data obtained through various studies and surveys on the effect of the IUD contraceptive programme in Taiwan. It has been demonstrated that the fertility of IUD acceptors before first acceptance was 58 % higher than that of married women in general and that, after acceptance, it declined by about 76%. The corresponding fertility decline among married women in general was only about %. Acceptors had had more recent births, as indicated by their shorter 'open interval' of 20.7 months, compared with 374 months among the women in the KAP survey sample. If the fertility of IUD acceptors had declined at the same rate as that of married women in general in the absence of IUD, the insertion of about 4 IUDs would probably prevent one live birth in the following year. Observation over a longer period, however, is needed to determine the demographic effect of IUD. Data on fertility control practice after termination, type of termination of pregnancies after first acceptance, life-table rates by various socio-demographic characteristics of acceptors, and the 'life expectancy' of the first segment of IUD are also presented.     

Reproductive control in apartheid South Africa

Since its inception in 1974, the South African family planning programme has been widely believed to be linked with white fears of growing black numbers. The programme has been repeatedly attacked by detractors as a programme of social and political control. Yet, in spite of the hostile environment, black women's use of services has steadily increased. Using historical and anthropological evidence, this paper delineates the links between the social and political context of racial domination and individual fertility behaviour. It is argued that the quantitative success of the family planning programme is rooted in social and economic shifts conditioning reproductive authority and fertility decision-making. State policies of racial segregation and influx control, ethnic 'homeland' politics, and labour migration of men transformed opportunities and constraints for black women and men, and altered local and household expectations of childbearing. Women came to manage their own fertility as they increasingly found themselves in precarious social and economic circumstances.     

The relation of economic class and fertility: An analysis of some Indonesian data

Summary Many recent fertility studies in developing societies put forward the hypothesis of a negative relation between economic class and fertility. Data showing a positive relationship are frequently dismissed a priori as resulting from the reporting errors of illiterate women. This study draws on data from Indonesia's 1971 Census, a 1973 sample survey of fertility and mortality, and an intensive community study in Java, to argue that an observed positive relation between class and fertility is real, and is related to differences in patterns of marital disruption, postpartum abstinence, and fecundity. The positive relation may be reversed in the future as changes in these patterns, and the impact of the national family planning programme, affect the family structure of each class differently. Had the positive relation in this context been attributed offhand to reporting errors, these important socio-economic changes would have been misunderstood, and possibly ignored.     

The child survival hypothesis

Summary Because of current interest in the child survival hypothesis, we have reviewed available evidence bearing upon the relationships of infant and child mortality to fertility and contraceptive behaviour. The evidence is drawn from time series data for local and national vital events, from special in-depth studies of the infant mortality-fertility relationships in family formation, and from service statistics from health and family planning programmes. As a result of this review, we suggest five clarifications which should be made in redefining the child survival hypothesis and assessing its potential programme implications. The child survival hypothesis states that improved child survival will contribute to increased family planning motivation and consequent fertility decline. The evidence presented here suggests that the effect is not automatic and probably not a necessary pre-condition for fertility decline. There is certainly not a reflexive one-to-one replacement, but a partial effect may still be important. In the clearly demonstrated reduction in inter-pregnancy intervals after a child death, the major component is undoubtedly the removal of the biological protection of lactational amenorrhoea. A separate but somewhat smaller effect has been demonstrated in situations where lactation did not seem to have been the explanation. It is expected that increased child survival will contribute to fertility decline mainly in countries experiencing rapid mortality decline and population growth. The replacement of children who die is probably not so much 'volitional' as a result of alterations in sub-conscious expectations. It is apparent that in traditional agrarian populations, few direct and manipulable means of influencing motivation for fertility limitation are available, and, therefore, it must be stressed that integrated health and family planning programmes do provide opportunities for immediate programme development. By making parents aware of improved changes of survival through health services in which they develop confidence, the spontaneous linkages between mortality and fertility can presumably be reinforced. Family planning services must be provided as an essential initial step in programme development, but they can be made more effective, as well as politically more acceptable if appropriately integrated with maternal and child health and nutrition services.     

非政策因素对我国生育率影响的量化分析

以西方生育率变动理论为依据,利用中国第五次人口普查的省区截面数据,采用路径分析法对影响中国生育率的非政策因素进行量化分析。目前对生育率直接效应最大的非政策因素是社会经济发展水平,妇女的受教育状况次之,避孕节育对生育率的影响已经减弱;同时还发现社会经济发展水平主要是直接或通过教育因素间接对综合生育率产生影响,而教育对综合生育率的影响除了直接或通过避孕节育间接发生作用外,还有一些影响是通过模型以外的其他要素来发生作用的。     

Population growth and poverty in the developing world

The links between rapid population growth and the absolute poverty currently affecting 780 million people in the developing countries (excluding China and other centrally planned economies) were examined. Absolute poverty is defined as having less than the income necessary to ensure a daily diet of 2150 calories per person ($200 per person a year in 1970 United States dollars). Focus is on poverty and demography in the developing world (defining poverty; income, fertility and life expectancy; demographic change and poverty), effect of poverty on fertility, family planning programs and the poor, and the outlook for the future. Rapid population growth stretches both national and family budgets thin with the increasing numbers of children to be fed and educated and workers to be provided with jobs. Slower per capita income growth, lack of progress in reducing income inequality, and more poverty are the probable consequences. Many characteristics of poverty can cause high fertility -- high infant mortality, lack of education for women in particular, too little family income to invest in children, inequitable shares in national income, and the inaccessibility of family planning. Experience in China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Colombia, Korea, Sri Lanka, Cuba and Costa Rica demonstrate that birthrates can decline rapidly in low income groups and countries when basic health care, education, and low-cost or free family planning services are made widely available.     

Some problems in determining the number of acceptors needed in a family planning programme to achieve a specified reduction in the birth rate

Abstract The paper attempts to revive professional interest in a problem originally considered by Lee and Isbister and which has assumed added importance recently because of the increasing number of national family planning programmes that are being instituted, which require the determination of the number of acceptors needed in a family planning programme in order to achieve a specified reduction in the birth rate. The publication of subsequent papers on births averted by programmes, notably by Potter and Wolfers, each of whom had made some criticisms of the paper by Lee and Isbister, has tended to obscure the differences in the nature between the problem raised by Lee and Isbister, and that discussedby Potter or Wolfers. The paper tries to bring out these differences and points out one of the limitations of the estimates of births averted obtained by using either Potter's or Wolfers's methods, viz. the inability to determine the time period to which the birth reduction refers, thereby further complicating the issues involved in assessing the social and economic implications of births averted by a family planning programme. The paper also points out some of the unrecognizedtechnical considerations which arise in dealingwith the 'target-setting' problem raised by Lee and Isbister and suggeststhat stochasticmodel studies might offera clue for evolving practical methods for tackling this problem.     

Family planning in Taiwan, Republic of China: Progress and prospects

Abstract The family planning programme in Taiwan is considered to have been most successful and has been systematically evaluated. In the light of some expressed scepticism, however, its impact on fertility will have to be carefully reviewed. The present article discusses six specific problems : How many women have accepted the Lippes loops or pills offered in the programme ? How long will the loop stay in utero ? What proportion of married women is currently wearing the loops ? What changes have occurred in the knowledge-attitude-practice (KAP) of family planning among the target population ? How many births have been prevented by the IUD programme ? And finally, How much has fertility declined ? The fertility decline in Taiwan has been accelerating since the programme started in 1964. Approximately 40% of the decline in the birth rate, from 36.3 in 1963 to 27.7 in 1969, or 8.5 points per 1,000 in six years, however, was due to changes in age structure and delayed marriage. An increasing proportion of girls of marriageable age and a possible increase in the fecundability of the population will work against the programme's objective. Concerted efforts and heavier investment are essential for the final success of the programme.     

Determinants of national family planning effort

In light of recent research demonstrating a substantial impact of family planning programs on fertility, we develop and estimate a multivariate model of the determinants of national differences in family planning program effort (FPPE). The framework that guides the specification of this model identifies three broad classes of factors—those that create demand for family planning, those that facilitate the initiation and expansion of family planning programs, and finally those that encourage or inhibit program development. The results from multiple regression using 84 less developed countries indicate that demand for family planning, facilitating infrastructure, and certain demographic and geographic factors are important determinants of program effort. These results suggest that popular demand for family planning is helpful, but that policy makers must perceive the adverse consequences of high fertility and have the infrastructure necessary to develop an effective organized family planning program. Current U.S. policies relevant to reducing birth rates are discussed and found to reflect quite well research on determinants of fertility declines among LDCs. U.S. policy also balances the often competing claims of family planners and their opponents by encouraging support to both developmental projects as well as direct aid to family planning program activities.     

论生育文化和生育文明

生育文明中表现了生育文化的种种现象和活动,生育文化也体现了生育文明的历史轨迹、进程和内容。生育文化的发展表现了不同时期人类生育文明的进步与发展,不体现生育文化内涵的生育文明显然是不存在的。然而,严格说来,生育文化和生育文明是既有密切联系,又有一定区别的两个不完全等同的概念。正确认识和理解生育文化和生育文明的概念、内涵、功能及其相互关系,对于推动新时期人口计生工作的深入发展,进一步开展人口和计划生育的理论研究,具有十分重要的意义和作用。     

A tentative analysis of the effect of income on women's fertility]

The impact of income on women's fertility in China is analyzed using data from official and other published sources. The author notes that there is a clear link between lower fertility and higher income up to a certain point. This point seems to be when family income reaches a level of 300 yan in rural areas. Other factors affecting fertility are also considered, including the national family planning program, female educational level, and female labor force participation.     

A brief introduction to China's family planning programme

China's family planning program is described in reference to its goals, approaches, and achievements. Between 1949-83, China's population increased from 541 million to 1,024,950,000. The population has a young age structure, and the median age is 22.9 years. 80% of the population is rural, and 90% of the population lives in the southeastern region of the country. In view of this demographic situation, the government recognizes the need to control population growth. China's goals for the year 2000 are to increase industrial and agricultural input by 400% and to keep population size below 1.2 billion in order to ensure that per capita income increases. In accordance with these goals, the government, in 1979, began advocating a 1-child policy. To ensure the survival of single children, the government also launched a program to upgrade maternal and child health (MCH). In some rural areas and among certain minority groups, the 1-child restriction is not applied. Family size goals will vary with time. These variations will reflect the need to maintain a balance between economic growth and population growth. A variety of incentives are used to promote the 1-child family. For example, single children receive medical and educational benefits, and in some rural areas, the parents of single children can obtain additional land contracts. Economic disincentives are also used. The government seeks to obtain compliance with the policy primarily through educating the public about the consequences of uncontrolled population growth. All channels of the mass media are used to deliver the messages, and the publicity campaign is especially intensive in rural areas. A comprehensive plan to provided family planning and population education for middle school students is currently being implemented. Each local area develops its own fertility control plan. This plan is then incorporated into the nation's overall plan and the overall plan is implemented from above. Family planning workers bring free contraceptives directly to the people, and family planning motivators are found in almost all villages, neighborhood committees, factories, and military units. As a result of these efforts, China made great strides in controlling population growth and improving MCH during the last decade. The birth rate declined from 27.93 to 18.62, and the total fertility rate declined from 4.01 to 2.48. 124 million couples were practicing contraception by the end of 1983. 41% used IUDs, 37.4% relied on tubal ligation, 12.9% relied on vasectomy, 5.1% on oral contraceptives, and 1% on other methods. The quality of maternal and child care also improved. 92.7% of all deliveries are now performed by trained midwifes. Infant and maternal mortality rates declined considerablely in recent years. Currently the respective rates are 35.68/1000 live births and 0.5/1000 live births. In 1983 alone, the gross national agricultural and industrial output increased by 46.1%. Since 1979 per capita income increased annually by 18.3% among rural residents and by 10.7% among urban workers. China controls and operates its own population program, but in recent years, it increased its cooperation with UN Fund for Population Activities, other UN agencies, and nongovernment agencies. China recently completed its 3rd national census, and demographic research institutes have been established in 10 universities.     

The method of measuring probability of the annual fertility]

At the present time, under the guidance of national planning, population control is the most important theme of China's population policy. In order to realize the national goal of controlling population growth, family planning should be worked out at local levels. How to achieve a reasonable population planning norm at a local level is a very crucial problem in family planning work. Up to the present time, various methods have been used to measure the probability of the annual fertility. In his report, the author provides a new formula to calculate the probability of the annual fertility. Based upon this formula, we may calculate the number of planned birth for a certain year and its fertility. From the figure we may set a reasonable goal according to population policy and actual population components. This formula is suitable for use in annual planning, as well as short-term or long-term population planning.     

The AID computer programme, used to predict adoption of family planning in Koyang

Abstract A highly useful computer programme has been developed for predicting values of a dependent variable. Basically a sequential analysis of variance, it creates a tree of two-way splits of the sample. Each split maximizes the reduction of unexplained variance in the dependent variable. The programme is remarkably sensitive to interactions, since it assumes neither linear relationships, normal distributions, nor homoscedasticity. This programme is put to work here on a prediction problem of administrative importance: which women in Korean villages will adopt family planning under a mild programme and under an intensive programme? Optimum predictors are identified and are arranged in a hierarchy of combinations which give progressively higher predictive accuracy. The best two or three predictors isolate large proportions of women with extremely low adoption rates.     

A cost benefit analysis of the barbados family planning programme

Abstract Of the Caribbean islands, Barbados has the lowest fertility level. The crude birth rate in 1970 was only 20·5 per 1,000, which is one of the lowest found in any country of similar economic development anywhere in the world. In 1960 the crude birth rate was much higher, at about 33·6 and for almost 40 years before that had fluctuated around a value of 33. Thus, a decline of about 40% has been achieved within the comparatively short period of a decade. The reasons for this rapid decline are of particular interest to all those concerned with population growth and economic development in the less developed areas. In Barbados, the importance of population control and the role of family planning was recognised early by the government and other civic agencies, and the Barbados Family Planning Association (BFPA), an autonomous national family planning agency, was established. Since its modest beginning in 1955 the BFPA has grown to be a major social institution, comprising 14 clinics situated in various localities throughout the island. In 1970, a full-time staff of 28 were providing services to an estimated 10,000 clients, about 20% of all women of reproductive age. Funds for the BFPA have come from local government with considerable assistance from international agencies.     

Power Outages,Power Externalities,and Baby Booms

Determining whether power outages have significant fertility effects is an important policy question in developing countries, where blackouts are common and modern forms of family planning are scarce. Using birth records from Zanzibar, this study shows that a month-long blackout in 2008 caused a significant increase in the number of births 8 to 10 months later. The increase was similar across villages that had electricity, regardless of the level of electrification; villages with no electricity connections saw no changes in birth numbers. The large fertility increase in communities with very low levels of electricity suggests that the outage affected the fertility of households not connected to the grid through some spillover effect. Whether the baby boom is likely to translate to a permanent increase in the population remains unclear, but this article highlights an important hidden consequence of power instability in developing countries. It also suggests that electricity imposes significant externality effects on rural populations that have little exposure to it.     

Number and mean age of acceptors and users as related to programme duration

Abstract A decline in annual acceptances in a contraceptive programme is open to multiple interpretation. The decline may reflect an adverse change of attitudes and therefore a lowered disposition to accept the method among couples of the population generally. Alternatively, if the population has an irregular age distribution, the decline may mean only that the numbers of couples of prime contraceptive age have temporarily dropped. Thirdly, if the rate of previous acceptance has been high, the main cause of a slackening in new acceptances may simply be that previous acceptances have partially depleted the pool of eligible couples. Fewer eligible couples are left than previously as a consequence of past acceptance, removing couples interested in contraception faster than the family-building process can create new ones.     

Public policy and the total fertility rate: cross-sectional evidence from the LDCs

A framework developed by Easterlin for the analysis of fertility in developing societies is modified and then tested using a sample of 65 less-developed countries. The focus is on assessing the impact of public policy on the national fertility rate. Public policy is reflected in the average levels of education and health in the population and in the condition of the national family planning program. To test for threshold effects with respect to socioeconomic development, the sample is divided on the basis of the infant mortality rate. Fertility rates in those nations characterized by high infant mortality are likely to be determined more by conditions of natural fertility. Those nations with lower infant mortality, and hence greater socioeconomic development, are more likely to exhibit deliberate fertility control. The results of the regression analysis do suggest that different factors influence the national fertility rate depending upon the stage of development. For the least-developed nations, the secondary school enrollment rate, an indicator of the extent of economic mobility, and the ratio of school age children to teachers, a proxy for the national commitment to human capital formation, are important. For the more advanced of the LDCs, adult literacy and the infant mortality rate seem to predominate. For all the developing nations, however, the results confirm the importance of strong family planning programs. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the research.