Youth and Well-Being: A South African Case Study

This paper was a result of an analysis from various data sources with a purpose to develop a better understanding of the level of socio-economic well being of young people in South Africa. Such understanding is aimed at enabling government to plan and implement well-structured and integrated development programmes that are relevant to the socio-economic needs of the youth and that will enable them to fully participate in all aspects of society. Two main sources of data were used for this analysis. The first is the Status of the Youth (SYR) data set. The second data set used in this study is the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) which is a national representative sample of 5,000 households. The study shows that the quality of life among majority of young people remains low, reflecting the historical racial cleavages of South African society. This is mainly due to the emergence of the AIDS pandemic in South Africa, and the fact that many young people remain outside the labour market.     

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.

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...     

Bargaining over family size: The determinants of fertility in Brazil

Understanding how households make fertility decisions is important to implementing effective policy to slow population growth. Most empirical studies of this decision are based on household models in which men and women are assumed to act as if they have the same preferences for the number of children. However, if men and women have different preferences regarding fertility and are more likely to assert their own preferences as their bargaining power in the household increases, policies to lower fertility rates may be more effectively targeted toward one spouse or the other. In this paper, we test the relevance of the single preferences model by investigating whether men and women's nonwage incomes have the same effects on the number of children in the household. We find that while increases in both the man and woman's nonwage income lower the number of children in the household, an equivalent increase in the woman's income has a significantly stronger effect than the man's. In addition, we find that increases in women's nonwage transfer income have the strongest effects on the fertility decisions of women with low levels of education. The most important policy implication of our results is that policies aimed at increasing the incomes of the least-educated women will be the most effective in lowering fertility rates.     

文化力对中国生育率下降的重要影响

中国在经济不发达的情况下 ,仅用 30年的时间实现了人口再生产类型从高出生、低死亡、高增长到低出生、低死亡、低增长的历史性转变。中国生育率迅速下降是政策力、经济力、文化力综合作用的结果。其中文化力对生育率的下降起着推动力、导向力、凝聚力和鼓舞力的作用。在文化力日积月累、潜移默化的影响下 ,中国城乡育龄夫妇生育观念正在发生巨大变化 ,且这种变化还远没有完成。     

Social change,population policies,and fertility decline in Colombia and Venezuela

This paper takes a comparative case-study approach to examine the social and policy correlates of fertility decline. The analysis compares fertility behavior across a mature and young cohort of women in Colombia and Venezuela, two countries that experienced rapid demographic change under dissimilar socioeconomic and population policy conditions. Based on the distinction between birth-spacing and birth-stopping behavior the analysis tests several propositions derived from the adaptation and innovation explanations of fertility decline. Results show that fertility regulation at low parities was largely absent among mature women in both countries, representing an innovative behavior among younger women. The introduction of fertility control, however, was highly dependent on women's socioeconomic position, particularly their educational and occupational characteristics. The strong family planning programs in Colombia resulted in a more rapid extension of contraceptive use, particularly female sterilization, and stopping behavior after two children relative to Venezuela. Results highlight the diversity of conditions under which fertility can decline in developing countries and the importance of family planning and other policy initiatives to understanding the different pathways towards lower fertility.     

Are there crisis-led fertility declines? Evidence from central Cameroon

Past demographic transitions have beenobserved with and without economic progress, but thereis little empirical record of crisis-driven fertilitytransitions. In recent years, several authors haveargued that conditions for such transitions are met inAfrican countries under economic crisis and structuraladjustment. Using retrospective family histories,this study examines fertility responses to crisis inCameroon, a country with a particularly abrupteconomic reversal. The thesis of a crisis-led declineis tested on the basis of five criteria includingtiming of the decline, statistical and substantivesignificance, rural-urban response differentials andsocial salience. Findings are consistent with acrisis-led effect.     

The effects of family caps on the subsequent fertility decisions of never-married mothers

Family caps seek to reduce fertility among welfare recipients by denying additional cash assistance to recipients who have children while on welfare. A necessary condition for family caps to be an effective policy tool is that welfare recipients respond to financial incentives in making decisions that affect subsequent fertility outcomes. This paper uses data from the 2001 and 2004 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine whether welfare mothers respond to the incentive provided by the Aid to Families with Dependent Children/Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (AFDC/TANF) system in determining whether or not to have a second child. The results show no evidence that family caps have an effect on the subsequent childbearing of never married women.

The mismatch between employment and child care in Italy: the impact of rationing

In Italy the women’s participation is among the lowest in Europe. The female employment rate stands almost 13 percentage points below the EU average and 22 below the Lisbon target. One of the most important reasons is related to the characteristics of child care system. We analyze the characteristics of the child care system in Italy and its relationship to the labor market participation decision of mothers. The two decisions are jointly considered in a discrete choice framework, which also allows for simple forms of rationing. We go on to estimate a bivariate probit model of the child care and employment decisions and find evidence that rationing is an important factor in interpreting price effects on utilization rates and employment decisions. Responsible editors: Deborah Cobb-Clark & Tito Boeri     

Planned fertility and family background: a quantile regression for counts analysis

This paper examines how education and family background affect the fertility plans of young individuals in Mexico. Quantile regression for count data is used for the analysis. Results indicate that education and family structure affect planned fertility only at the tails of the conditional distribution. Education reduces planned fertility only among women with relatively strong preferences towards children. An absent father reduces planned fertility mostly at the bottom of the conditional distribution.