World Population Prospects, the 2010 Revision: Estimation and projection methodology

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

Trends toward later and less marriage and childbearing have been even more pronounced in East Asia than in the West. At the same time, many other features of East Asian families have changed very little. We review recent research on trends in a wide range of family behaviors in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. We also draw upon a range of theoretical frameworks to argue that trends in marriage and fertility reflect tension between rapid social and economic changes and limited change in family expectations and obligations. We discuss how this tension may be contributing to growing socioeconomic differences in patterns of family formation. This focus on East Asia extends research on the second demographic transition in the West by describing how rapid decline in marriage and fertility rates can occur in the absence of major changes in family attitudes or rising individualism.

/pdf/marriage-and-family-in-east-asia-continuity-and-change-us4inc7ool.pdf

Marriage and Family in East Asia: Continuity and Change

Social change with respect to culture and original nature

Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea

Fertility throughout East Asia has fallen rapidly over the last five decades and is now below the replacement rate of 2.1 in every country in the region. Using South Korea as a case study, we argue that East Asia's ultra-low fertility rates can be partially explained by the steadfast parental drive to have competitive and successful children. Parents throughout the region invest large amounts of time and money to ensure that their children are able to enter prestigious universities and obtain top jobs. Accordingly, childrearing has become so expensive that the average couple cannot afford to have more than just one or two children. The trend of high parental investment in child education, also known as ‘education fever’, exemplifies the notion of ‘quality over quantity’ and is an important contributing factor to understanding low-fertility in East Asia.

/pdf/education-fever-and-the-east-asian-fertility-puzzle-a-case-4ya3t1cs0v.pdf

Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle: A case study of low fertility in South Korea

While new empirical findings and theoretical frameworks provide insight into the interrelations between socioeconomic development, gender equity, and low fertility, puzzling exceptions and outliers in these findings call for a more all-encompassing framework to understand the interplay between these processes. We argue that the pace and onset of development are two important factors to be considered when analyzing gender equity and fertility. Within the developed world, "first-wave developers"-or countries that began socioeconomic development in the 19th/early 20th century - currently have much higher fertility levels than "late developers". We lay out a novel theoretical approach to explain why this is the case and provide empirical evidence to support our argument. Our approach not only explains historical periods of low fertility but also sheds light on why there exists such large variance in fertility rates among today's developed countries.

/pdf/low-fertility-socioeconomic-development-and-gender-equity-1c69v5qc6o.pdf

Low Fertility, Socioeconomic Development, and Gender Equity

While new empirical findings and theoretical frameworks provide insight into the interrelations between socioeconomic development, gender equity, and low fertility, puzzling exceptions and outliers in these findings call for a more all-encompassing framework to understand the inter-play between these processes. We argue that the pace and onset of development are two important factors to be considered when analyzing gender equity and fertility. Within the developed world, “first-wave developers”—or countries that began socioeconomic development in the 19th/early 20th century – currently have much higher fertility levels than “late developers”. We lay out a novel theoretical approach to explain why this is the case and provide empirical evidence to support our argument. Our approach not only explains historical periods of low fertility but also sheds light on why there exists such large variance in fertility rates among to-day’s developed countries.

/pdf/demographic-transition-revisited-low-fertility-socioeconomic-3cweromr96.pdf

Thomas M. Anderson

Papers

Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle: A case study of low fertility in South Korea

Low Fertility, Socioeconomic Development, and Gender Equity

Demographic Transition Revisited: Low Fertility, Socioeconomic Development, and Gender Equity