Perceived Economic Uncertainty and Fertility: Evidence From a Labor Market Reform

Whereas in theory individuals tend to postpone fertility decisions in times of economic uncertainty, empirical evidence on that question is scarce. Using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel (N = 4,548), the authors estimated the effect of economic concerns on the probability of becoming pregnant in the next year. They exploited exogenous variation in economic concerns induced by the announcement of a major German unemployment benefit reform as an instrumental variable and found that strong economic concerns were significantly related to lower fertility of women between ages 26 and 44 years cohabiting with a male partner. Jointly estimating the impact of male and female concerns in a model that allows for endogeneity of perceived economic uncertainty revealed that it was strong economic concerns perceived by the women that reduced fertility. The effect was driven by male main breadwinner couples, by couples with a medium household income, and by couples who already had children.     

影响生育的国外家庭政策分析

利用联合国公开发表的资料以及英国、加拿大和日本相关部门的官网信息．就低生育水平对不同国家家庭政策的影响以及有关国家对生育水平具有隐性或显性作用的家庭政策进行了分析。研究结果表明,低生育水平是有关国家态度转变的依据,态度的转变也带来了政策上的相应变化。三个国家的家庭政策具有明显的增强家庭养育子女经济实力、提升家庭照料子女能力以及促进家庭自身良性发展的作用。     

The Structure of Pregnancy Intervals by Planning Status

Measures of pregnancy intervals are reported for data from the 1975 National Fertility Study in the United States. The structure of such intervals is aggregated into its components by planning status. A measurement model is devised to infer from a survival function some dimensions of the initial distribution of respondents by propensity to experience the event in question. It is adaptable to the study of reproductive intention as well as fecundability and contraceptive effectiveness. The model is applied to the study of the dependence of such behaviour in a given interval on the planning status of the previous pregnancy. Planning status is sequentially well-ordered. Those previously successful with contraceptive use are less likely to fail than those who had previously failed; those who had previously used contraception, whether successful or not, are less likely to fail than those who had not previously used. The credibility of the findings is prejudiced less by the form of model than by the reliability of the basic data.     

Marital dissolution among the 1958 British birth cohort: The role of cohabitation

This paper investigates the effect of previous cohabitation on marital stability among the 1958 British birth cohort. Prospective data from the National Child Development Study are used to investigate the way in which family background factors and early lifecourse experiences, including cohabitation, affect the risk of first marriage dissolution by age 33. Discrete time logistic regression hazards models are used to analyse the risk of separation in the first eight years of marriage. Many socio-economic and family background factors are found to act through more intermediate determinants, such as age at marriage and the timing of childbearing, to affect the risk of separation. Previous cohabitation with another partner and premarital cohabitation are both associated with higher rates of marital breakdown. The effect of premarital cohabitation is attenuated but remains significant once the characteristics of cohabitors are controlled, and cannot be explained by the longer time spent in a partnership.     

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.     

Individual and community effects of women's education and autonomy on contraceptive use in India

This study makes use of the National Family Health Survey of 1998‐99 to investigate whether differences in women's autonomy can explain much of the relationship between education and contraceptive use among married Indian women with at least one child. The analyses show that a woman's education does not influence her contraceptive use through a strengthening of her position in relation to that of men, but that the inclusion of a simple indicator of her general knowledge reduces education effects appreciably. Further, the average educational level of other women in the census‐enumeration area has an effect on a woman's contraceptive use above and beyond that of her own education. This effect cannot be explained by the specific indicators of autonomy, but can to some extent be explained by the son preference of the community. The latter is a more general autonomy indicator that may also pick up other contextual factors.     

Changing compatibility of cohabitation and childbearing between young British women born in 1958 and 1970

We investigate the effect of parenthood on whether non-marital unions led to marriage or parting for two cohorts of British women when they were aged between 16 and 29. We compare the effect of conceptions leading to births and the presence and characteristics of children on the odds that a cohabitation was dissolved, or that it was converted to marriage, for women born in 1958 and 1970. A multilevel, multiprocess, competing-risks model allows for multiple cohabitations per woman and endogeneity of fertility status. We find that cohabiting couples’ response to impending parenthood and the presence of children changed over time. In particular, the proportion of cohabiting couples who married before a birth decreased and, in the 1970 cohort only, the risk of dissolution declined during pregnancy. There is also evidence that the presence of a child cemented a cohabiting union for women from the 1970, but not the earlier, cohort.     

Motherhood status and union formation in Moshi,Tanzania 2002–2003

Age at first union is increasing throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa at the same time that not all couples are waiting for marriage before their first sexual intercourse. We assessed the effect of a premarital first birth on entrance into a first union in an urban area in East Africa—Moshi, Tanzania. The data come from the Moshi Infertility Survey of 2002–2003. Women who spent less than a year in single motherhood were significantly more likely than childless women to enter into a first union, although the magnitude of this relationship was weaker for more recent cohorts. Women who had been single mothers for 5 or more years (about two-thirds of women with a premarital birth) were significantly less likely than women without children to enter into a first union.     

Family allowances in France

We model the impact of past migration on fertility, assessing the separate effects of relative urbanization of the destination, as a proxy for norms, and post-migration employment, as a proxy for opportunity costs. In the Philippines, we find that large fertility declines accompany post-migration employment. If not followed by work for pay, the estimated fertility impact of migration is small. We find little evidence of migrant selectivity in fertility, and offer speculative evidence that fertility disruption accompanying migration may be large enough to account for much of the apparent effect of normative adaptation.     

The Activities of the Elderly in Rural Bangladesh

Despite a mounting interest in the elderly, and a rapidly expanding literature on the subject, there is a dearth of empirical research that can shed light on their condition. For Bangladesh and the rest of South Asia, the record is very thin. With the aid of observed and retrospective data on time-use from a sample of rural Bangladeshis, this paper seeks to help redress this situation by describing the role of the elderly in the household division of labour, management, and authority. The objective is to elaborate how labour-use and activity patterns change with advancing age, for men and women and rich and poor, and to explore the broader implications of such change. Concepts of work, retirement, and dependency are critically examined. The results of several labour surveys are used to estimate the limits that the physical effects of ageing place on the labour-force participation of the elderly.