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Fertility

About: Fertility is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 29988 publications have been published within this topic receiving 681106 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A prospective multi-center efficacy trial was conducted to test, in a heterogeneous population, the contraceptive efficacy of the Standard Days Method as mentioned in this paper, which is a fertility awareness-based method of family planning in which users avoid unprotected intercourse during cycle days 8 through 19.

156 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Kertzer and Hogan as mentioned in this paper used aggregate-level historical data from over 700 European districts and found that fertility decline did not follow the threestage path enshrined in demographic transition theory.
Abstract: THREE DECADES AGO, THERE WAS WIDE CONSENSUS on why fertility falls. Now, however, it seems that the closer we get to understanding specific fertility declines, the further we move from a general theory of fertility transition. In the late 1960s the European Fertility Project began to chip away at the foundations of classical transition theory-that part-theory, part-explanation which embodied the collective wisdom of the 1950s and 1960s (Notestein, 1953; Davis, 1963; for the critique, see Coale, 1969, 1973). Using aggregate-level historical data from over 700 European districts, demographers collaborating on the Princeton-based project found that in many parts of the continent the pattern of demographic change failed to follow the threestage path enshrined in demographic transition theory. In the critical transitional stage, fertility decline actually preceded mortality decline in some localities. The project also established that fertility decline occurred at varying levels of socioeconomic and demographic development, undercutting the central tenet of transition theory (Knodel and van de Walle, 1979; Watkins, 1986). The most recent blow to received wisdom comes in a new study of fertility decline in northern Italy (Kertzer and Hogan, 1989). Drawing on a wealth of individual-level historical data from the town of Casalecchio, David Kertzer, an anthropologist, and Dennis Hogan, a sociologist, show that macrolevel social and economic changes affected members of different classes living in the same community differently. In Casalecchio there occurred not one, but four, temporally discontinuous fertility transitions, a finding that challenges the image fostered by the European Project of whole regions undergoing demographic transition together. Kertzer and Hogan corroborate the European Project's finding that fertility decline does not follow changes

155 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that increased availability of child care increases completed fertility and this positive effect of child-care availability is found at every parity transition.
Abstract: The child-care and fertility hypothesis has been in the literature for a long time and is straightforward: As child care becomes more available, affordable, and acceptable, the antinatalist effects of increased female educational attainment and work opportunities decrease. As an increasing number of countries express concern about low fertility, the child-care and fertility hypothesis takes on increased importance. Yet data and statistical limitations have heretofore limited empirical tests of the hypothesis. Using rich longitudinal data and appropriate statistical methodology, We show that increased availability of child care increases completed fertility. Moreover, this positive effect of child-care availability is found at every parity transition. We discuss the generalizability of these results to other settings and their broader importance for understanding variation and trends in low fertility.

155 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The demand for children to parental incomes and the cost of rearing children is linked — especially to the value of the time spent on child care and to public policies that change thecost of children.
Abstract: Fertility and the economy is examined in the context of the Malthusian question about the links between family choices and longterm economic growth. Micro level differences are not included not are a comprehensive range of economic or determinant variables. Specific attention is paid to income and price effects the quality of children overlapping generations mortality effects uncertainty and economic growth. Fertility and the demand for children in linked to parental incomes and the cost of rearing children which is affected by public policies that change the costs. Demand is also related to child and adult mortality and uncertainty about sex of the child. Fertility in one generation affects fertility in the next. Malthusian and neoclassical models do not capture the current model of modern economies with rising income/capita and human and physical capital extensive involvement of married women in the labor force and declining fertility to very low levels. In spite of the present advances in firm knowledge about the relationships between fertility and economic and social variables there is still much greater ignorance of the interactions. The Malthusian utility function that says fertility rises and falls with income did hold up to 2 centuries of scrutiny and the Malthusian inclusion of the shifting tastes in his analysis could be translated in the modern context to include price of children. The inclusion of net cost has significant consequences i.e. rural fertility can be higher because the cost of rearing when children contribute work to maintaining the farm is lower than in the city. An income tax deduction for children in the US reduces cost. Economic growth raises the cost of children due the time spent on child care becoming more valuable. The modern context has changed from Malthusian time and the cost of education training and medical care is relevant. The implication is that a rise in income could reduce the demand for children when education and training of children increases. Quality is substituted for quantity. The neoclassical model that "the capital-labor ratio and the degree of capital deepening" is affected by population growth is examined as well as the modern approach and the implications are expressed i.e. intergenerational transfers and parental altruism.

155 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20241
20232,042
20223,958
20211,098
20201,105
20191,047