Stalled Fertility Decline in Egypt,Why?

After experiencing rapid decline since the 1980s, fertility in Egypt seemed to be stalling during the second half of the 1990s. In an effort to identify the population segment(s) responsible for the stalling, this study considers fertility trends of women from three standard of living strata (low, middle, and high). Using data collected by the 1988, 1992, 1995, and the 2000 Egypt Demographic and Health Surveys, the study indicates that the reproductive behavior of women from high and middle standards households is largely responsible for stalling of the fertility decline during recent years, and that prospects for a lower fertility in the future is limited, once the gap between the three groups closes. This means that the expectation of achieving replacement fertility Egypt within the next 15 to 20 years is in doubt if the current trends in the both actual and desired fertility of the middle and high strata continued. The key for future decline in fertility is the decline in desired number of children below the current level of 3 children by at least one segment of the population. The fact none of the three population segments expressed a desired fertility below 3 children deprived the society of a vanguard group that leads the rest of the society to replacement level fertility.     

中国妇女生育水平变动考证和未来人口发展的策略选择

1990年以来各类人口调查和相关学者的研究结果显示,目前的低生育水平的实现有外在政策强力的作用,更有中国社会经济发展内生化的作用;真实的生育水平既不是调查包括人口普查所显示的那样低(低于1.5),也不是有关部门和政府所想象的那样高。调查显示农村居民平均生育意愿不会高于2个孩子,这是生育率持续稳定的根本。众所周知,为了保证人口稳定持续的发展,应使妇女生育率保持更替水平或至少接近更替水平。从人口发展规律和人口发展与社会经济发展相适应的规律出发,结合当前我国居民生育意愿和生育水平走低的实际,我们应该抓住生育政策调整的最佳时期,调整应该在最佳时期即未来5-10年内完成。     

Explanations of the fertility crisis in modern societies: a search for commonalities

Near-global fertility decline began in the 1960s, and from the 1980s an increasing number of European countries and some Asian ones achieved very low fertility (total fertility below 1.5) with little likelihood of completed cohort fertility reaching replacement level. Earlier theory aiming at explaining this phenomenon stressed the incompatibility between post-industrial society and behaviour necessary for population replacement. Recent theory has been more specific, often concentrating on the current Italian or Spanish situations or on the contrast between them and the situation in either Scandinavia or the English-speaking countries, or both. Such an approach ignores important evidence, especially that from German-speaking populations. The models available concentrate on welfare systems and family expenses, omitting circumstances that may be unique to individual countries or longer-term factors that may be common to all.     

Explanations of the fertility crisis in modern societies: A search for commonalities

Near‐global fertility decline began in the 1960s, and from the 1980s an increasing number of European countries and some Asian ones achieved very low fertility (total fertility below 1.5) with little likelihood of completed cohort fertility reaching replacement level. Earlier theory aiming at explaining this phenomenon stressed the incompatibility between post‐industrial society and behaviour necessary for population replacement. Recent theory has been more specific, often concentrating on the current Italian or Spanish situations or on the contrast between them and the situation in either Scandinavia or the English‐speaking countries, or both. Such an approach ignores important evidence, especially that from German‐speaking populations. The models available concentrate on welfare systems and family expenses, omitting circumstances that may be unique to individual countries or longer‐term factors that may be common to all.     

An attempt at evaluation of the economic and social factors [influencing] the Polish population's fertility formation

This analysis of economic determinants of fertility in Poland shows that couples' fertility decisions are negatively influenced by factors affecting family income. Social and demographic factors were found to be unrelated to fertility. 17 socioeconomic measures were grouped as those expressing the level of economic development and determining family income size, those reflecting the level of socioeconomic development and determining the level of children's education, and those characterizing the level of social development and determining the need for health care and social security. The level of actual fertility is modeled as a linear function of variables in a main components factor analysis. Average monthly pay in the national economy (37.6%), the sold industrial production per person (13.8%), and the global agricultural production per person (13.2%) account for 64.6% of the variance. Among the social factors, findings indicate that a higher feeling of security is related to lower fertility, but economic factors have a stronger influence. Voivodeships are grouped as having low levels of economic development (24), as having high educational levels (24), and as having low levels of social security (24). Voivodeships with low levels of economic development and high parity include all the grouped voivodeships with the exception of three. Low-security voivodeships showed mixed patterns of fertility. High-education voivodeships showed a weak correlation with high fertility. Only three voivodeships have low economic and security factors and high education factors, and only one voivodeship has high fertility. Of the three voivodeships with high security and economic factors and low education factors, all have low parity.     

Sub-Saharan Africa: population pressures on development

The population of sub-Saharan Africa, estimated at 434 million in 1984, is expected to reach 1.4 billion by 2025. The birth rate, currently 48/1000 population, continues to increase, and the death rate, 17/1000, is declining. Rapid population growth has curtailed government efforts to provide adequate nutrition, preserve the land base essential for future development, meet the demand for jobs, education, and health services, and address overcrowding in urban areas. Low education, rural residence, and low incomes are key contributors to the area's high fertility. Other factors include women's restricted roles, early age at marriage, a need for children as a source of security and support in old age, and limited knowledge of and access to modern methods of contraception. Average desired family size, which is higher than actual family size in most countries, is 6-9 children. Although government leaders have expressed ambivalence toward development of population policies and family planning programs as a result of the identification of such programs with Western aid donors, the policy climat is gradually changing. By mid-1984, at least 13 of the 42 countries in the region had indicated that they consider current fertility rates too high and support government and/or private family planning programs to reduce fertility. In addition, 26 countries in the region provide some government family planning services, usually integrated with maternal and child health programs. However, 10 countries in the region do not support family planning services for any reason. Unfortunately, sub-Saharan Africa has not yet produced a family planning program with a measurable effect on fertility that could serve as a model for other countries in the region. Social and economic change is central to any hope of fertility reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. Lower infant and child mortality rates, rising incomes, higher education, greater economic and social opportunities for women, and increased security would provide a climate more conducive to fertility decline. Given the limited demand, great sensitivity must be shown in implementing family planning programs.     

The demography of words: The global decline in non-numeric fertility preferences, 1993–2011

This paper examines the decline in non-numeric responses to questions about fertility preferences among women in the developing world. These types of response—such as ‘don’t know’ or ‘it’s up to God’—have often been interpreted through the lens of fertility transition theory as an indication that reproduction has not yet entered women’s ‘calculus of conscious choice’. However, this has yet to be investigated cross-nationally and over time. Using 19?years of data from 32 countries, we find that non-numeric fertility preferences decline most substantially in the early stages of a country’s fertility transition. Using country-specific and multilevel models, we explore the individual- and contextual-level characteristics associated with women’s likelihood of providing a non-numeric response to questions about their fertility preferences. Non-numeric fertility preferences are influenced by a host of social factors, with educational attainment and knowledge of contraception being the most robust and consistent predictors.     

The Projection Problem

While world population has continued to increase, fertility has been falling. Projections out to the year 2050 currently assume that fertility will continue to decline to, or below, replacement. 1) Past projections have been very wrong. Estimates of population growth have alternated between being far too low and far too high. 2) Similarly, public anguish has alternated between extreme fears of over- and under-population, neither supported by eventualities. 3) We do not understand the causes of the current fertility decline and so have little reason to project its continuation. 4) Many of the Asian countries, which are exemplars of the current decline, are exceptional because of coercion and/or vast infusions of Western capital. 5) The population decline may as readily plateau at 3 children as at 2 children. With an unknowable future, an emphasis on future population is misplaced. Concerns should be for the present. Poor families and a stressed environment are struggling with current population levels right now. Complacency about the future is unjustified by the facts and may derail efforts to ensure the continuation of the fertility decline.     

Low fertility due to delay in -- not dearth of -- births

Population Council demographer John Bongaarts and his colleague Griffith Feeney argue that recent concern about a lack of births overlooks the fact that many women in developed countries are simply choosing to bear children later than women used to. So-called birth dearths are often caused by temporary delays in childbearing. The two demographers have designed a new way for demographers to account for the timing, or tempo, of childbearing in estimates of fertility. Their tempo-adjusted total fertility rate (TFR) allows demographers to correct skewed fertility trends, such as those leading to projections of birth dearths. The new measure provides a better indication of women's true propensity to bear children. Standard measures of fertility are distorted by changes in tempo. Such changes occur when large numbers of couples delay or accelerate their initiation of family building. The authors used historical data and theoretical arguments to validate the tempo-adjusted TFR, which improves upon the two common measures of fertility. Flaws in the TFR and the completed fertility rate (CFR) are corrected by Bongaarts and Feeney's new measure. To demonstrate their new tool, they examined the below-replacement fertility seen in recent decades in the US. By the mid-1990s, the TFR in almost every developed country had fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 births/woman, and in Italy, Spain, and Germany it fell below 1.5. If such fertility persists, declining population size, extreme population aging, and financial pressure upon social security systems may result. However, if fertility preferences hold at current levels, the very low fertility rates observed in the developed world will approach 2 children/couple.     

An Econometric Investigation of Easterlin's ‘Synthesis Framework’: The Philippines and the United States

In this paper we estimate a fertility model based on Easterlin's synthesis framework. The model assumes that not all couples are able to achieve their desired number of living children because of supply constraints and that, for other couples, the number of living children may exceed desired fertility, depending upon child mortality, the level of fertility in the absence of control, and the degree of contraceptive regulation practised. Estimates of the model for samples of women with completed fertility taken from the Philippines (1973) and the United States (1965) indicated that a higher proportion of Filipino women than women in the U.S. were unable to achieve desired fertility because of supply constraints, that levels of fertility control of Filipino women not supply-constrained were lower, and that excess fertility of Filipino women was much higher. Demand-for-children equations based on the constraints model were quite different from those not taking into account the possibility that some women were supply-constrained, or that some women may have had more children than desired.     

A Transaction Cost Approach to Outsourcing by Households

Below‐replacement fertility and late marriage reflect, in part, the incompatibility of women's family and paid work roles. The outsourcing of childcare and housework to market and state service providers offers a strategy for reconciling work–family conflicts. By referring to the household as an organizational unit, I use the transaction cost approach (TCA) of organizational economics to discuss the factors that facilitate or impede outsourcing by households. In my analysis the frequency, specificity, and uncertainty level of the transaction, as well as normative and social beliefs, can facilitate or impede the household's decision to outsource. Monetary considerations, preferences, and government policies might moderate the effect of the transaction cost on this decision. The analysis further demonstrates that gender is an important factor, because transaction costs are often not distributed equally within households.     

Sex preferences for children in Ghana: the influence of educational attainment

Education influences aspects of demographic behaviour and outcomes including a child sex preference. Sex preferences of children have been studied in different societies because of its associated social and demographic implications. Using the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, we examined the association between educational attainment and sex preferences of children. Findings from the study indicated that there is preference for sons (26.1%) compared to daughters (17.4%). At higher levels of education, there is a higher likelihood for no preference for a sex of a child. Among the characteristics of respondents that influenced sex preferences are: gender, lineage, religion, occupation and desired family size. Acquisition of knowledge through education to some extent alter fertility preferences and hence the need to motivate individuals to attain some level of education.     

After the demographic transition: policy responses to low fertility in four Asian countries

In the low fertility countries of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand, policy-makers are concerned about the consequences of low growth. In South Korea, a family planning (FP) program was instituted in the early 1960s, and fertility declined to 1.6 by 1987. Rural fertility is still higher at 1.96, and abortion rates are high. 32.2% of fertility reduction is accomplished through abortion. South Korean population will not stabilize until 2021, at 50.6 million people. The elderly are expected to increase and strain housing, energy, and land resources. Government support for FP is being reduced, while private sector services are being enhanced. Government sterilization programs have been reduced significantly, and revisions in the Medical Insurance Law will cover part of contraceptive cost. Integrated services are being established. Many argue for an emphasis on birth spacing, child and family development, sex education, and care of the elderly. In Taiwan, replacement level fertility was reached in 1983. Policy in 1992 recommended increasing fertility from 1.6 to 2.1. The aim was to stabilize population without pronatalist interventions. Regardless of policy decisions, population growth will continue over the next 40 years, and the extent of aging will increase. In Singapore since the 1960s, the national government focused on encouraging small families through fertility incentives, mass media campaigns, and easy access to FP services. Fertility declined to 1.4 in 1988. Since 1983, government has established a variety of pronatalist incentives. In 1989, fertility increased to 1.8. The pronatalist shift is viewed as not likely to succeed in dealing with the concern for an adequate work force to support the elderly and economic development. In Thailand, fertility declined the fastest to 2.4 in 1993. The key factors were rapid economic and social development, a supportive cultural setting, strong demand for fertility control, and a successful FP program. The goal is to reduce fertility to 1.2 by 1996. Replacement level may be reached in 2000 or 2005. Future trends are not clear.     

Modernization and Tradition in the Recent History of Italian Fertility

The secular decline of Italian fertility, started in the last decade of the nineteenth century, came to an end in the early 1950'sand has recovered slightly in the last fifteen years. Italian experience seems to follow, with a twenty-year lag, the experience of the more advanced western European populations. At present, with an average of 2.5 children per marriage, Italian fertility is very close to the French and to the average European level.At the regional level, two contrasting patterns can be detected. On one side stands the very low fertility of the North and of the Center, mostly below replacement in the last thirty years;on the other, the still high fertility of the South.In the North and in the Center, where the decline started earlier, fertility has fallen well below replacement level in the last thirty years. In the South, where the decline started in the late 1920's and early 1930's, a large family system still prevails, and the spreading of voluntary control faces barriers setup by a long historyof cultural isolation,attachment to tradition and religion. In the last 15 years, however, the gap has narrowed slowly, more because of an upturn of fertility in the North and in the Center than because of the decline in the South.Another interesting feature of Italian fertility is low class differentials: the fertility of the most prolific segment (farmers, farm laborers) is only 20 percent higher than the fertility of the less prolific professional groups. Finally, Italian experience provides an interesting example of the changing relationship linking the economic level of the population and fertility changes; in 1931-51 a negative correlation linked the changes in fertility to the economic level of the region, while in 1951-61 and 1961-66 a very high and positive correlation can be observed.As for the future trends in fertility, two factors may have an important role. In the first place, on the one hand, the economic policy of the government, aiming at reducing the economic gap between the South and the rest of the country, may accelerate the leveling of regional fertility differentials. The same effect, on the other hand, may be reached by more liberal legislation, now under way, for birth control and family planning propaganda.     

Below-replacement fertility in Thailand and its policy implications

The fertility transition in Thailand has been one of the most rapid among Asian countries that are yet to attain newly industrialized country status. In the early 1960s, the total fertility rate exceeded six births per woman; currently, it stands at 1.9 or slightly below replacement level. At present, it is hard to predict the future trend in fertility as this involves several factors that need much closer study, in particular, fertility preferences, changes in marriage patterns and the wider effects of the current economic crisis in Thailand. Rapid declines in fertility and mortality have had a profound effect on the age structure of the population, notably the increasing elderly proportion. Thailand now faces new challenges and priorities for population policy. Policy responses to concerns arising from below-replacement fertility will be much more complex and involve greater government activism, improved institutional capacities and more resources than in the past. This paper reviews the fertility transition in Thailand and looks at some consequences and policy implications of low fertility, with special reference to the family and the elderly population. National Statistical Office     

The Impact of Deviations from Desired Hours of Work on the Life Satisfaction of Employees

We estimate an ordinal logistic multilevel model to examine the determinants of the life satisfaction of employees in Europe. Data drawn from the European social survey reveals that deviations from desired hours of work (measured as the absolute difference between the actual and preferred weekly number of hours) reduce overall life satisfaction, but the effect is smaller in countries with higher unemployment rates. We interpret this finding as evidence that in environments where anxieties about job security are high, having a job brings about a certain level of life satisfaction regardless of the gap between the actual and preferred time spent in the labor market. We also find no statistically significant difference between male and female employees with regard to the impact of the work hours mismatch. This finding suggests that the gender differences which would have been expected in this context are already incorporated in the respondents’ subjectively determined desired hours of work. In fact, further examinations confirm that ‘desired hours’ are associated with both socio-demographic characteristics (in particular, gender) and preferences for labor market work.     

Fertility decline in Taiwan: A study using parity progression ratios

Taiwan's decline in fertility is studied by using period parity progression ratios. Levels of marriage and motherhood are found to have been high and essentially constant though the late 1980s, suggesting that the decline has been due almost entirely to declines in second and higher order-births. Families with three or more children play an important role in maintaining the current level of fertility. The level of fertility would be even lower without these families. They contributed more than one-half child per woman to the total fertility rate during most of the 1980s. Total fertility rates computed from the period parity progression ratios indicate a substantially higher level of fertility than the conventional total fertility rate; they remained above or at replacement level through 1988. A formal demographic analysis suggests that the conventional total fertility rate has been depressed by shifts in age at childbearing.     

Below-replacement fertility in east and southeast asia: Consequences and policy responses

Fourteen countries in Asia have total fertility rates at or below replacement level. This is more pronounced in China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand. The implications are far-reaching and profound as they affect the age structure of the population, giving rise to population ageing, labour force shortages, increased elderly dependency ratios and feminization of the aged population. Evidence from European countries suggests that although fertility may rebound, in most countries it is highly unlikely that fertility will recover sufficiently to reach replacement level in the near future. Mortality reduction will continue to be an overriding policy goal, which would further enhance the ageing process. Therefore, the greatest challenge will be to pension systems, old-age care systems, and health systems or health insurance. This paper first examines the fertility transition in five low-fertility countries. It then discusses the policy measures that these countries have adopted in response to low fertility and population ageing. The paper concludes with the policy implications for healthcare, social care, income security and caregiving facility, and the scope for further study.     

俄罗斯人口发展状况及对中国的启示

本文利用俄罗斯的历史人口数据,对俄罗斯人口数量和结构变动状况进行了分析,并对俄罗斯三次人口转型中的社会经济情况变化对人口变动状况的影响进行了分析。结果表明,俄罗斯的人口出生率下降很快,人口死亡率升高,总和生育率已远低于替代水平,因此人口自然增长率迅速下降,总人口数长期处于下降通道,出生预期寿命不增反降,特别是男性出生预期寿命远低于女性出生预期寿命。在推动人口增长的社会经济相关措施实施后,俄罗斯人口数量仍不能增加,这对目前总和生育率已经很低的中国有一定的借鉴意义。     

Shifting shares of the population and U.S. fertility

American fertility, as measured by the total fertility rate, apparently has been climbing since 1988 and could approach replacement level in 1990. Three possible explanations are explored: incorrect denominators, actual fertility increase, and changing ethnic proportions of the population. Using California data as a surrogate for the nation, it is found that at least part of the gain in fertility is attributable to what is called "shifting shares." Given that minorities have higher fertility than the majority, as these groups increase their share of the population, the nation's fertility can be expected to continue climbing. Any attempt to attain zero population growth must therefore be postponed indefinitely.