Fertility

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

Contraceptive failure in the United States.

Abstract: Data obtained from the 1970 National Fertility Study are analyzed to determine the incidence of contraceptive failure according to intent social background and method. Analyzed by life-table procedures the data indicate that 40% of contraceptive users fail to achieve their goal of either delaying (26%) or preventing (14%) pregnancy. Those women who are relatively young at the beginning of their exposure to risk are much more likely to fail than older women. Pregnancy order and educational attainment do not affect contraceptive failure rates when intent and age are held constant. Blacks are much less successful than whites in delaying and preventing pregnancy and white Catholics are less successful in delaying but just as successful in preventing pregnancy as white non-Catholics. Attempts to prevent or delay pregnancy were much more successful in 1970 than 1955 partially because of the use of oral contraceptives but also because of greater care taken no matter which method was used. Failure rates by method with intent and age constant are as follows: pill--6% IUD--12% condom--18% diaphragm--23% foam--31% rhythm--33% and douche--39%. These figures reflect the characteristics of those who use each method as well as the method itself. Methodological problems with this analysis are discussed along with their implications.

Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil

Abstract: This paper focuses on fertility choices in Brazil, a country where soap operas (novelas) portray families that are much smaller than in reality, to study the effects of television on individual behavior. Using Census data for the period 1970-1991, the paper finds that women living in areas covered by the Globo signal have significantly lower fertility. The effect is strongest for women of lower socioeconomic status and for women in the central and late phases of their fertility cycle. Finally, the paper provides evidence that novelas, rather than television in general, affected individual choices.

Muslim and Non-Muslim Differences in Female Autonomy and Fertility: Evidence from Four Asian Countries

Abstract: The hypothesis that greater female power and autonomy produce lower fertility appears in many explanations of fertility differences and change (Dyson and Moore 1983; Cain Khanam and Nahar 1979; Basu 1992; Jeejeeboy 1995). This article examines the specific claim that the higher fertility of Muslims (compared to non-Muslims) can be traced to the lower level of power and autonomy (hereafter autonomy) afforded Muslim women. This lower autonomy reflects more rigid forms of patriarchy that characterize Muslim communities. Key elements of this argument "in here at the systemic institutional aggregate level" and thus require analysis at the community level (Smith 1989: 173-174; see also Balk 1994; Jeejeeboy and Sathar 2001). From a set of surveys of more than 50 communities in four Asian countries we identify 14 Muslim/non-Muslim pairwise community comparisons--that is pairs of communities that share many characteristics but differ in that one is predominately Muslim and the other predominately non-Muslim. Although not representative of any country or region these pairs of communities reflect substantial diversity of social and economic setting. Across most pairs of settings we show that Muslims have more children are more likely to want another child and if they want no more children are consistently less likely to be using contraception. We test whether these differences parallel differences in married womens autonomy. We use data collected for the purpose of investigating womens power autonomy and fertility: the Survey on the Status of Women and Fertility (SWAF). These data collected in 1993 and 1994 include a number of potentially relevant dimensions of womens autonomy: freedom of movement economic autonomy and exposure to intimidation/coercion. Direct measurement of multiple dimensions of autonomy avoids many of the criticisms of prior research on "womens status" and fertility (as discussed in Mason 1984 1996 1987). (excerpt)

Sibling size and investment in children’s education: an asian instrument

Abstract: This study estimates the trade-off between child quantity and quality by exploiting exogenous variation in fertility under son preferences. Under son preferences, both sibling size and fertility timing are determined depending on the first child’s gender, which is random as long as parents do not abort girls at their first childbearing. For the sample South Korean households, I find strong evidence of unobserved heterogeneity in preferences for child quantity and quality across households. The trade-off is not as strong as observed cross-sectional relationships would suggest. However, even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, a greater number of siblings have adverse effects on per-child investment in education, in particular, when fertility is high.

The Idea of a Second Demographic Transition in Industrialized Countries

Abstract: 1. The basic idea At the end of the 19 th century several French scholars noted that a remarkable change was taking place in the population of their country. The number of children per family declined, clearly as the result of deliberate efforts to reduce fertility within marriage. It was soon understood that the voluntary limitation of marital fertility was a revolutionary novelty and the term 'demographic revolution' was, in fact, the original term used to describe it. Efforts to explain what was happening began almost immediately. Interestingly enough these first explanations assumed the phenomenon reflected what people wanted out of life. Dumont (1890:130) argued that the desire to be upwardly mobile was the root cause. When climbing the social ladder having a large family would be, no doubt, a hindrance. Dumont concluded that, as a result, the birth rate would decline as social mobility increased. Other French authors, such as Leroy-Beaulieu (1896) and Landry (1909) attributed it to changes in the moral order. Towards the end of the Second World War, and also after it, American scholars took de lead in the discussions about the demographic changes that were taking place. As a result the explanations preferred became more economic in nature and the term 'transition' replaced the term revolution. The changes in demographic behaviour were considered to be mainly a function of progress in society (Kirk, 1944:28). Notestein (1945), who played a crucial part in the formulation of the demographic transition theory, stressed the overriding importance of mortality decline and the impact of the modernization process in people's lives and in society as a whole. He concluded that the demographic transition was likely to be a universal phenomenon; all countries were bound to pass through it once they had achieved the level of development required. It was understood by all knowledgeable people that the decline in fertility was an adjustment made necessary by the decline in mortality. The latter had resulted in unsustainably high levels of natural population growth. The long-term demographic balance had been upset; consequently a new balance had to be established at low levels of both mortality and fertility. The very appealing assumption was that we would move from one long-term quasi- equilibrium to another. As Bongaarts recently stated in a paper (2001:260): 'If fertility in contemporary post-transitional societies had indeed levelled off at or near the replacement level, there would have been limited interest in the subject because this would have been expected.' He then continues as follows: 'However, fertility has dropped below the replacement level -sometimes by a substantial margin- in virtually every population that has moved through the demographic transition. If future fertility remains at these low levels, population will decline in size and age rapidly.' The basic idea behind the concept of the Second Demographic Transition as launched in 1986 is that industrialized countries have indeed reached a new stage in their demographic