Nuptiality and population growth

In the European historical experience, nuptiality patterns played a very significant role in the development of low fertility. Late marriage and widespread celibacy provided one of the mechanisms by which age-specific fertility rates were brought to low levels in the populations of Western Europe. In Eastern and Central Europe on the other hand, where marriage customarily occurred earlier and was more nearly universal, a somewhat slower fertility transition was achieved through a reduction in marital fertility — without any drastic accompanying nuptiality change. Populations of developing countries, however, commonly exhibit nuptiality patterns characterized by a still higher incidence and a considerably younger age-pattern of marriage than even the earliest observed schedule from Eastern Europe. With few exceptions, little work has been done to date to examine the implications of these very early and universal marriage schedules for fertility in general and for the growth of these populations in particular.¹ We have therefore tried to analyse the impact of nuptiality on the fertility and growth of a series of populations from developing nations where extra-marital fertility is negligible. Populations in which the prevalence of cohabitation by age is not well documented by existing marital-status data (mainly those in Latin America and tropical Africa) are excluded from this analysis; an attempt will be made in later work, however, to extend the analysis to these populations.     

A preliminary investigation of the double-track feedback model of fertility control]

The need to consider the impact of nuptiality and fertility changes when developing models of fertility change in China is stressed. The authors conclude that the development of a system that regulates both fertility and marriage patterns is required if population growth is to be efficiently controlled through a population policy.     

Explaining cross-cultural variations in age at marriage and proportions never marrying

Abstract According to censuses taken around 1960, the distinction between the 'European' pattern of late marriage and high proportions never married and the 'traditional' pattern of early and universal marriage remains generally valid for female populations in spite of trends toward convergence in the past few decades. Among male populations, however, the regional overlap is great. Variations in the timing and quantity of nuptiality in 57 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the English-speaking nations overseas are explained on the basis of variables measuring the desirability and feasibility of marriage. The conclusion is that marriage is becoming more feasible in the wealthier nations of the West and less feasible in many developing non-Western nations. Social and economic penalties of non-marriage are stronger in non-Western societies than in the West, and stronger for women than for men.     

Marriage at an earlier than ideal age in six Latin American capital cities

Abstract The study of nuptiality has taken on urgency, for demographers as well as for sociologists, with the increased world concern over sustained high fertility and the evident contribution of early marriage to that high fertility. Moreover, along with despair over the efficacy of conventional family planning programmes has come an expectation that more basic institutional changes, such as changes in marriage patterns, will be necessary in order finally to achieve a tolerably low world population growth rate. Yet our understanding of the determinants of such primary nuptiality dimensions as age at first marriage is very imperfect and unlikely to give much guidance in policy formation.     

Nuptiality and fertility of birth cohorts

The impact of changes in age patterns of nuptiality on the net reproduction rate is examined using life table techniques and assuming that age-specific fertility within marriage and fertility outside of marriage are fixed. In the second section, a standardization technique is used to investigate the impact of changes in nuptiality on age-cumulative measures of marital fertility. Examples using data for selected generations of Australian women demonstrate the extent to which recent changes in average completed family size in Australia were affected by changing nuptiality patterns.     

Polygyny and the rate of population growth

Summary The roots, motives and feasibility of practising polygyny in societies with a balanced sex structure and the effect of polygyny on the rate of population growth are considered. High demand for labour combined with limited supply over the last several centuries, had been conducive to the evolution of a polygynous nuptiality pattern. The unprecedentedly high rates of population growth during the last several decades combined with progressive economic development have led to a change in the role of the labour factor and consequently diminished its impact upon polygyny. Polygyny is feasible because of a sex-age differential at first marriage, which enables younger cohorts of women to enter the marriage market, and thus results in a very early age at first marriage and universal incidence of marriage among women. A very young pattern of nuptiality inevitably evolves under polygyny, which tends to raise the rate of population growth. No significant variation in fertility between polygynous and monogamous women was found but substantial gaps in standards of living, child mortality, and educational attainment were noted for polygynous households. The findings imply that during the transition from polygyny to monogamy family size will tend to diminish, although initially fertility may not decline concurrently with changing socio-economic status. The most important effects on the rate of population growth thus result from the increase in age at first marriage and declining proportions of ever married women.     

Patterns underlying fertility schedules: A decomposition by both age and marriage duration

Summary Model fertility schedules based on the proportions married and the age pattern of marital fertility are unsatisfactory to the extent that marital fertility does not depend on age alone but also on other factors. Most notably, models based just on age fail to allow for differences between populations in their composition by marriage duration. Examination of the major series of fertility rates specific by both age and duration of marriage (Sweden 1911-70, England and Wales, 1941-70) reveals striking underlying regularities. The marital fertility rates observed at any given point in time can be factored into three independent components - an overall level, a vector of age effects common to all marriage durations and a vector of duration effects common to all age groups. A simple product of these three components is shown to approximate the data very closely over the entire series, despite major changes in the aggregate levels of fertility and nuptiality during the periods concerned. Not only are the data tightly structured, conforming very closely to this simple multiplicative model, but the vectors of age and duration effects themselves are shown to exhibit clear and meaningful regularities.     

A model of the age patterns of births by parity in natural fertility populations

This research develops a convolution model to express the age patterns of fertility at each birth order in natural fertility populations in terms of six parameters, directly representing the proximate determinants of fertility, and a series of parity level indicators. The parity level indicators at each birth order are simply the proportions of women in a cohort who will eventually have births at each birth order it the age‐related fecundity decline is controlled. The Coale‐McNeil nuptiality model is adopted to represent the age pattern of first marriage rates and the natural fertility schedule employed in the Coale‐Trussell fertility model is incorporated to adjust age effects. The fast Fourier transform is used in solving the model numerically. It proves that the model is able to provide excellent fits to fertility for rural Chinese women in the 1950s.     

Causes of fertility decline in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

Abstract This is the first part of a wider study which attempts to throw iight on the demographic, economic and social factors that have led to dramatic declines in fertility levels in most socialist countries of Eastern Europe during the last fifteen years or so. The present part is concerned with the purely demographic influences, that is mainly with the impact of changes in the age and sex structure of the populations under study, and in nuptiality. The statistical evidence adduced indicates that the observed downward trends in the annual number of births and in crude birth rates are a reflection of genuine changes in attitudes towards family size.     

Marriage patterns and fertility of the world population]

Marriage patterns of the world population may be divided into two major categories; i.e., the traditional marriage pattern, and the European marriage pattern. Characteristics of the traditional marriage pattern are: early marriage, a high percentage of married people, and a low percentage of people who remain single during their lifetime. Characteristics of the European marriage pattern include: late marriage and a higher percentage of females who do not marry in their lifetime. In most parts of Asia and Africa and some Latin American countries, the traditional marriage pattern is dominant, and the birth rate in these countries has remained very high. Most countries in Europe show the characteristics of the European marriage pattern, and the fertility rate in these countries is comparatively low. Some other countries, such as Sri Lanka, are in a process of transformation in their marriage pattern, and their fertility level also shows a transition from a high fertility rate to a lower fertility rate. There is a close relationship between marriage patterns and the level of fertility.     

The conflicting effects of delayed marriage and declining divorce rates on cumulative fertility in Indonesia

The impact of nuptiality patterns on fertility in Indonesia is examined with multivariate analysis controlling for 8 socioeconomic variables. Data were obtained from the 1987 Indonesian Contraceptive Prevalence Survey. Marriage is usually universal by age 35, and in this study all women 30 years had been married at least once. 20% were married at 15 years and 45% married at 18 years. For those married more than once, prevalence of 1st marriage was 7% for women 15-24 years, 15% for 25-34 years, and 29% for 35-49 years. In 1976 and 1987, the age at 1st marriage and number of times married were both strongly and negatively correlated. The % never marrying between 15-49 years rose from 21.5% to 26.4% between 1980-87. Cumulative fertility w as related to both age at 1st marriage and number of times married. Muslim women, women in Java and Bali, and rural women all marry at younger ages. 27% of the variance in age at 1st marriage is explained by women aged 25-34, current residence, region, religion, language, education, and work or not before marriage. The number of times married is also associated with socioeconomic characteristics without control, i.e., Muslim women 25-34 years were 3 times more likely to have been married more than once than in other faiths. With controls for socioeconomic factors, only 13% of the variance is explained and being Muslim has no statistically significant effect. The important net effects were being interviewed in Balinese, age, and age at 1st marriage. In the analysis of cumulative fertility, age at 1st marriage consistently is related to cumulative fertility in almost every socioeconomic group when age and number of times married is controlled for. Women married more than once have lower fertility. 36% of the variance is explained by all the variables. Being married more than once leads to having 2.1 fewer children. A 5-year delay in marriage leads to .75-1.1 fewer children. When other variables are controlled for, neither educational level nor prior work experience has a statistically significant effect on cumulative fertility. In the contraception analysis, women married more than once used contraception less. Among women 35-49, those marrying later had higher contraceptive use, but in general contraceptive use declined with age. More information is needed on why marriage patterns are changing.     

Asymptotic implications of fluctuating nuptiality and fertility considering both sexes together

In this paper we have suggested a procedure of measuring population change which takes into account fluctuating sequences of nuptiality and fertility schedules as they reflect a population’s response pattern to its changing socioeconomic conditions. Through numerical experiments, the two-sex population model of cyclical change, which considers the interaction between sexes through marriage, is seen to converge to an asymptotic stability. The advantage of such a convergence is to enable comparative investigations, in terms of a set of asymptotic parameters, of rather complex series of nuptiality and fertility changes and their implications for short-run oscillation in population structure as well as for long-run population growth.     

Migration and fertility in Ticino

Summary Migration in the Swiss canton of Ticino is one example of the wide variety of demographic systems that existed in pre-industrial Europe. The continuous movement of men was a consequence of economic, social and geographic conditions which restricted the demand for labour. Seasonal migration and overseas migration were both sex and age selective. They resulted in an imbalance of the sex ratio and a remarkably low female nuptiality. They also reduced fertility within marriage by separating husbands and wives during their childbearing years. The effect of long, medium and short-term migration on fertility can be isolated from census and vital registration sources.     

Economic fortunes, ethnic divides, and marriage and fertility in Central Asia: Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan compared

Declining marriage and fertility rates following the collapse of state socialism have been the subject of numerous studies in Central and Eastern Europe. More recent literature has focused on marriage and fertility dynamics in the period of post-crisis political stabilization and economic growth. However, relatively little research on marriage and fertility has dealt with the Central Asian part of the post-socialist world. We use survey and published data from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, two multiethnic countries with differing paths of post-crisis recovery, to examine overall and ethnic-specific trends in entry into marriage and fertility. We find that in both countries rates of entry into marriage continued to decline throughout post-crisis years. By contrast, fertility rose, and this rise was greater in the more prosperous Kazakhstan. However, we also detect considerable ethnic variations in fertility trends which we situate within the ethnopolitical and ethnodemographic contexts of both countries.     

Cohort nuptiality in England and Wales

Summary A computerized nuptiality system, called GENMAR, has been developed to investigate trends in cohort nuptiality in England and Wales. This system has five main programmes dealing with first marriage, the effects of changes in mortality on nuptiality measures, divorce, re-marriage, and marital status distribution. This paper summarizes the results of the application of the first programme to England and Wales data on first marriages of persons who were born in every single year since 1900. GENMAR-1 generated for each of these cohorts a 'complete' gross nuptiality table. The analysis shows that there have been substantial increases in the intensity of first marriage at young ages, a downward shift in the modal age at marriage, and a significant rise in the proportion ever married among women. The cohort nuptiality tables also show that the change in the nuptiality of women was due to changes in both the tempo and level of nuptiality, whereas the change for men was mainly the effect of shifts in the temporal pattern of nuptiality. There are, however, signs of a slow down of marriage among the cohorts born since the early 1950's.     

The relations between male and female nuptiality in a stable population

Both male and female nuptiality conditions can be calculated from any given population. Generally these conditions will be inconsistent in the sense that if applied continuously with given mortality and fertility conditions they would produce different sets of marriages, both in total numbers and in age distribution of bridegrooms and brides. It is shown that, given, say, male nuptiality, female nuptiality conditions consistent in the sense that both male and female conditions could hold in a stable population can be deduced. These consistent conditions depend on the ultimately stable rate of growth of the population. The mathematical formulae for the relations connecting various characteristics of the two consistent sets of nuptiality conditions are worked out (e.g. net probability of marrying, mean ages at marriage, marriage-rates at particular ages, etc.), the magnitudes of the parameters in the relations estimated and the relations are translated into numerical terms, showing the effects of changes in the level of the stable rate of growth on the. consistent nuptiality conditions.     

Law, marriage and illegitimacy in nineteenth-century Germany

Abstract Concern arose among legislators in several German States during the first half of the nineteenth century about overpopulation and increasing numbers of the impoverished classes. This led them to pass legislation restricting marriage to those considered by the community authorities as morally and financially capable of rearing a family. Census data at the time of the repeal of these laws indicate the extent to which they succeeded in repressing marriage. Declining illegitimacy which paralleled the repeal, however, suggests strongly that the legislation was far less effectual in limiting reproduction than it was in preventing marriage. Added confirmation of this interpretation is provided by the contrasting nuptiality and illegitimacy patterns of German states with liberal marriage regulations.     

The Decline of Fertility in Los Angeles,California, 1880–1900

Data from the 1900 U.S. Census of Population show that fertility in Los Angeles California, declined by more than 50 per cent between 1880 and 1900. Women's mean age at first marriage, which rose by approximately three years, contributed to the decline, but change in marital fertility was more important than change in nuptiality. Although the fertility of in-migrating U.S.-born women was lower than that of California-born women, the decline was not explained by in-migration. The emergence of a class differential in fertility, with couples of higher status having fewer children than those of lower status, and the simultaneous weakening of class differentials in secondary-school attendance, together suggest that the rise of universal secondary schooling probably did not account for the marital fertility decline experienced in middle- and upper-status families.     

The path to lowest-low fertility in Ukraine

The phenomenon of lowest-low fertility, defined as total fertility below 1.3, is now emerging throughout Europe and is attributed by many to postponement of the initiation of childbearing. Here an investigation of the case of Ukraine, where total fertility--1.1 in 2001--is one of the world's lowest, shows that there is more than one pathway to lowest-low fertility. Although Ukraine has undergone immense political and economic transformations in the past decade, it has maintained a young age at first birth and nearly universal childbearing. Analyses of official national statistics and the Ukrainian Reproductive Health Survey show that fertility declined to very low levels without a transition to a later pattern of childbearing. Findings from focus-group interviews are used to suggest explanations of the early fertility pattern. These include the persistence of traditional norms for childbearing and the roles of men and women, concerns about medical complications and infertility at a later age, and the link between early fertility and early marriage.     

Age patterns of marriage

Abstract In different populations there is a common curve describing first-marriage frequency (first marriages per woman) as a function of age for each cohort. To fit the variety of patterns of human nuptiality it suffices to choose the age that serves as origin for a standard curve of first-marriage frequency, and to choose appropriate horizontal and vertical scales for the curve. The prevalence of a standard form for first-marriage frequency implies that the proportion ever-married in any cohort also rises along a standard curve, subject to choice of origin (the earliest age of first marriage), vertical scale (the proportion ever-marrying by the end of life), and horizontal scale (the pace at which the proportion ever-married increases with age). A mathematical expression (a double exponential) is found to fit the risk offirst marriage (among those who ever marry), and some of the implications of uniform features of nuptiality in different populations are discussed.