Chapter 6
the Preconditions for Decline in Fertility
how would an individual have to perceive the world on a daily basis if fertility were to be consciously limited? Coale argued that there are three *preconditions for a substantial fertility decline:* 1. the acceptance of calculated choice as a valid element in marital fertility - secularization - status of women *READY* 2. the perception of advantages from reduced fertility - increased cost and decreased benefits for having children - motivations to limit fertility - social and economic advantages *WILLING* 3. knowledge and mastery of effective techniques of control - diffusion of contraceptives - availability of means by which fertility can be regulated *ABLE*
Motivations for Lower Fertility Levels *the Innovation/Diffusion and "Cultural" Perspective*
humans also take into account many changes in society that are the result of the diffusion of innovations, which spread through out various social networks the innovation may be technological or it may be attitudinal and/or behavioral to accept an innovation and change your behavior accordingly, you must be "empowered" to believe that it is within your control to alter your behavior the diffusion of an innovation requires that people believe that they have some control over their life, which is the essence of the rational-choice model that underlies the economic approach to the fertility transition public policy may play a role in implementing or attempting to thwart cultural innovations that effect levels of reproduction
Fertility Policy
in 2001, over 2/3 of countries around the world had applied some sort of policy to regulate fertility, either to raise up or to lower down fertility 92% of all countries supported family planning programs and contraceptives *in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean* - many countries began providing direct support for contraceptive distribution as early as the mid 1970s unmet need of contraceptives and unwanted pregnancy are why family planning policy is more effective in some countries than in others and why family planning policy is more effective in some regions within a country
How High Could Fertility Levels Be? *the Biological Component* Amenorrhea and Anovulatory Cycles
*amenorrhea* temporary absence or suppression of menstruation *anovulatory* pertaining to a menstrual cycle in which no ovum (egg) is released a certain amount of fat must be stored as energy before menstruation and ovulation can occur on a regular basis for younger women, the onset of puberty may be delayed until an undernourished girl reaches a certain critical weight better nutrition has been linked to earlier onset of menstruation in girls the average age of menarche has been continually decreasing
Measures for Fertility
*crude birth rate:* births/total population *general fertility rate (GFR):* births/ women aged 15-49 *age-sex Specific Fertility Rate (ASFR):* age-sex specific births/ age-sex specific population *total fertility rates (TFR):* the average number of children that would be born alive to a women during her lifetime
How High Could Fertility Levels Be? *the Biological Component* Menarche and Menopause
*menarche* the onset of menstruation, usually occurring when a women is in her teens *menopause* the time when menstruation ceases permanently, usually between the ages of 45 and 50 occasionally, you get mothers at very young or very old ages - oldest verified mother was 57 years old - although, almost any woman could be successfully implanted with an embryo at any age
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Period Measures of Fertility*
*period data* population data that refer to a particular year and represent a cross section of population at one specific time *period data* - crude birth rate (CBR) - general fertility frate (GFR) - child-woman ratio (CWR) - age-specific fertility rate *(synthetic) cohort measures* - total fertility rate - gross reproduction rate - net reproduction rate
Why Was Fertility High for Most of Human History? (Class Notes)
*social* need to replenish society *economic* children as security and labor *cultural* desire for large family and for sons
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Synthetic Cohort Measures of Fertility* Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
a synthetic cohort estimate of the average number of children who would be born to each woman if the current age-specific birth rates remained constant combines ASFRs into a single fertility index covering all ages approximates knowing how many children women have had when they are all through with childbearing by using the age-specific fertility rates a particular date to project what could happen in the future if all women went through their lives bearing children at the same rate as women at the given date (sum of ASFRs) x number of years in year intervals its interpretation is simple and straightforward
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Vasectomy
a technique of male sterilization (surgical contraception) in which each vas deferens is cut and tied, thus preventing sperm from being ejaculated during intercourse the much more extreme and historically popular method is castration second most common
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Male Condom
a thin sheath, usually of rubber, worn over the penis during sexual intercourse to prevent conception or venereal disease the sperm are trapped inside the condom very effective, especially when paired with a form of spermicide also useful in preventing the spread of STDs
Motivations for Lower Fertility Levels *the Supply-Demand Framework* Fertility Differential
a variable in which people show clear differences in fertility according to their categorization by that variable education level - broadens perspective - allows for social mobility the fertility differential concerning education is greater in some countries than in others, and the differential is reversed in some countries - some of this variability may be due to economics or culture - still, education is such a critical factor in fertility once fertility has dropped to very low levels, however, its relationship to education appears to get more complicated - better education is leading to having more children (probably due to economic advantages) likely that higher fertility in low-fertility nations is encouraged by family-friendly public policies - these are also likely to be countries in which the gender equality is greater than in other places motivations for specific family size vary - communication with others - fertility behavior - obviously, wealth and education
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Emergency Contraception
also called postcoital contraception a means of averting pregnancy within a few days after intercourse, usually by taking a large dosage of the same hormones contained in the contraceptive pill ("Plan B"), or using the CopperT Intrauterine Device (IUD)
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Intrauterine Device (IUD)
any small, mechanical device for semipermanent insertion in the uterus as a contraceptive not widely manufactured and distributed until the 1960s different IUDs work in slightly different ways operates largely as a barrier method, preventing the sperm from reaching the egg
Case Studies in the Fertility Transition *China*
at the time of the communist revolution in 1949, the average woman in China was bearing 6.2 children, which was already more than half a billion, was growing rapidly the government realized this was a problem and implemented "stated advocated and encouraged birth planning" reasons for this: - too rapid an increase in population is detrimental to the acceleration of capital accumulation - rapid population increase hinders the efforts to raise the scientific and cultural level of the whole national quickly - rapid population growth is detrimental the improvement of the standard living the goal of this was to achieve zero population growth by 2000 started by suggesting people to delay marriage, childbearing, not having a third child, and promoting the one-child policy - these goals have accomplished partly by increased social pressure, partly by the increased manufacture and distribution of contraceptives, especially of the IUD, the wide availability of sterilization, of course, abortion economic incentives for one-child families - monthly allowance for child-rearing - preference over others in obtaining housing - preference in school admissions and job applications - larger-than-average pension when retired - increasingly heavy tax on each child after the first - after the second child, each family will pay full maternity, medical, and educational costs - fines for unplanned births (a huge source of revenue) - local officials were held accountable for too high of a birth rate, which led to widely publicized abuses and forced abortions 1971: government instituted "later, longer, fewer" supposed to be temporary change policy periodically reviewed - in 2013, the rules loosened a little --- couples in which at least one of them is an only child can apply to have a second child currently well below replacement level
Why Was Fertility High for Most of Human History? *Children as Security and Labor*
children can be viewed as a form of insurance that rural parents, in particular, have against a variety of risks, such as a drought or poor harvest children are seen as a safety net a more modern version of this may be that an adult child may migrate elsewhere and then send money home in a high mortality society, parents were probably aware of two things: - each child born has only a limited chance of surviving to adulthood - the chances are very good that they (the parents) will themselves die before needing assistance in old age quantity over quality; bearing over rearing
How High Could Fertility Levels Be?
fertility is composed of biological and social components fertility in population studies means how many children are actually produced, not how many could be produced
How Does Fertility Affect a Population?
fertility largely determines a population's age structure: high fertility is responsible for the youth dependency in LDRs declining fertility is responsible for the aging of population in MDRs
How High Could Fertility Levels Be? *the Biological Component* Natural Fertility
fertility levels that exist in the absence of deliberate, or at least modern, fertility control closer to an average of six to seven live births per woman might be that the secret of human success lies in the very fact that as a species we have not actually been content to let nature take its course; that rather than there being some "natural" level of fertility, human have always tried to exercise some control over reproduction
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? Postpartum
following childbirth
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Cohort Measures of Fertility*
following the fertility of groups of women as they proceed through their childbearing years
Family Planning Program
goal effects supports critics "Mexico City policy"
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives*
most ancient ways: - abstinence - withdrawal - the douche some historical evidence that various plants were used in earlier centuries to produce "oral contraceptives" and early-stage abortifacients the lack of effectiveness of these methods meant that a badly unwanted pregnancy was more likely to end in an attempted, unsafe abortion or the woman trying to conceal her pregnancy and then abandoning then baby
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Induced Abortion* Prevalence of Abortion
nearly half of pregnancies in the US are unintended, and 40% of those unintended pregnancies end in abortion abortion rates are higher for - unmarried women than for married - African Americans than other racial/ethnic groups - teenagers than older women Canadian women are less likely than women in the US to use abortion
How High Could Fertility Levels Be? *the Social Component*
opportunities and motivations for childbearing vary considerably from one social environment to another, and the result is great variability in the average number of children born to women *hunter-gatherer societies* - needed to keep children several years apart - low fat, so chance of conception was low anyway *agricultural societies* - more children may be advantageous - improved nutrition might well have improved a woman's chances of becoming pregnant more often *rich, modern societies* - low mortality and high standard of living reduce the demand for children to the lowest it's ever been - paradoxically, the ability to reproduce is higher than it's ever been
Motivations for Lower Fertility Levels *the Supply-Demand Framework*
original formulation of the demographic transition: - balance between births and deaths *(homeostasis)* - mortality is assumed to decline for reasons that are often beyond the control of the average person *(exogenous factors)* - a person's reproductive behavior is dominated by a rational calculation of the costs and benefits to himself or herself *(endogenous factors)* of maintaining high fertility in the face of declining mortality the idea is that people will eventually perceive that lower mortality has produced a situation in which more children are going to survive than can be afforded, and, at that point, fertility will decline draws its concepts largely from the field of neoclassical economics, which assumes that people make rational choices about what they want and how to go about getting it couples strive to maintain a balance between the potential supply of children and the demand for children the fertility transition does not occur in a vacuum--it happens because other changes in society are taking place that allow individual couples or people within households to respond an imrpoved economy generates other things in life that compete with children
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility?
partly a function of how healthy a woman is most rates are based on *period* data, *cohort* measures, or a *synthetic cohort*
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Surgical Contraception
permanent methods of contraception, including tubal ligation for women and vasectomy for men more common among older adults
Social Policy on Fertility
policy to lower down the fertility in LDRs policy to boost fertility in MDRs
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Oral Contraceptive
popularly known as "the pill," a compound of synthetic hormones that suppress ovulation by keeping the estrogen level high in a female prevents the pituitary gland from sending a signal to the ovaries to release an egg in addition, the progestin content of the pill makes the cervical mucus hostile to implantation of the egg if it is released and may block the passage of sperm as well more common among younger women
Motivations for Lower Fertility Levels *the Supply-Demand Framework* Homeostasis
population stability, meaning that the birth and death rates are equal and the age structure is unchanging
Fertility Transition for MDRs
pre-transition (before 1900): high fertility transition (1900-1950): decline in fertility late-transition (after 1950): low, fluctuated fertility
Fertility Transition for LDRs
pre-transition (before 1970): high fertility transition (1970 to ?) declining fertility many LDRs are still at pre transitional stage
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Calendar Rhythm Method
requires couple cooperation also called periodic abstinence not having during the woman's ovulation couples can also engage in non-vaginal sexual activity to prevent pregnancy
How Is the Fertility Transition Accomplished?
the first part of the transition has to do with women feeling that they are in control of their own reproduction then, people have to be motivated to break the old rules finally, women/couples must decide how they are going to try to limit the children born one of the first signs of a fertility decline in a population is an increase in the age at which a woman has her first birth - often, the transition will begin with a stark contrast in fertility between women at the two ends of their reproductive career all of the perspectives on the fertility transition assume that fertility will not decline until people see limiting fertility as being in their interest
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *The Relative Importance of the Proximate Determinants*
the four proximate determinants are not equally important, and their importance varies across time and space modern contraception has been the most important at least since the 1960s without contraception, fertility can be maintained at levels below the biological maximum, but it is very difficult to actually achieve low levels
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Induced Abortion*
the induced or spontaneous premature expulsion of a fetus could happen as a result of involuntary fetal mortality (miscarriage or stillbirth) became legal in the US in 1973 and in Canada in 1969 changed from a largely disreputable practice into an accepted medical one demand for it is decreasing but is still high estimated that one of five pregnancies in the world may end in abortion - most are occurring in Africa and Asia most often used form of birth control in the world has played a major role in fertility declines around the world
Replacement-Level Fertility
the level at which women, on average, have enough daughters to "replace" themselves in the population 2.1 for MDRs 2.3 for LDRs why is the number for LDRs higher? - higher mortality why does the number not equal two? - not all women can survive to child bearing age or to the end of fecund year
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Proportion Married--Limiting Exposure to Intercourse*
the longer past puberty a woman waits to begin engaging in sexual unions, the fewer children she will probably have the likelihood that a teenager will have had sex is lower if she is in a family with both a mother and father and if her mother is well-educated modern contraception has altered the relationship between intercourse and having a baby, but it remains true that an effective way to postpone childbearing is to postpone engaging in sexual activity, particularly on the regular basis implied in marriage
How High Could Fertility Levels Be? *the Biological Component*
the most prolific mother in world history was a Russian woman who gave birth to 69 children - only 27 births; several multiple births by doing the math, the average woman could bear a child about every two years, and have a total of 16 children - this is the theoretical max no known society has ever averaged as many as 16 births per woman, and there's biological reasons why such high fertility is unlikely: - pregnancy is dangerous (especially on your sixteenth pregnancy) - not all couples are "normally" fecund - the principal control a woman has over her fecundity is to provide herself with a good diet and physical care, which oftentimes isn't available in LDRs --- *amenorrhea* and *anovulatory* cycles
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Period Measures of Fertility* Crude Birth Rate (CBR)
the number of births in a given year divided by the total midyear population in that year (b / p) x 1000 is "crude" because: - does not take into account which people in the population were actually at risk of having the births - it ignores the age structure of the population can mask significant differences in actual reproductive behavior between two populations, and, on the other hand, can imply differences that do not really exist often used because it only requires two pieces of information
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Period Measures of Fertility* Age-Specific Fertility Rate (ASFR)
the number of children born to women of a given age divided by the total number of women at that age more precise and requires a rather complete set of information number of births occurring in a year to mothers in a given age interval per 1,000 women of that age
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Involuntary Infecundity from Breastfeeding* Contraceptive Prevalence
the percentage of "at risk" women of reproductive age (15 to 44 or 15 to 49) who are using a method of contraception about 64% of "at risk" women are using contraceptives traditional vs. modern contraceptives - 58% of this 64% are using modern contraceptives very low rates of contraceptives are used in Africa, and, consequently, they have the highest fertility rates in the world Hong Kong has very low fertility and 75% of women are using some modern form of contraception not a perfect relationship
Motivations for Lower Fertility Levels *the Supply-Demand Framework* Exogenous Factors
those things that are beyond the control of (external to) the average person
Motivations for Lower Fertility Levels *the Supply-Demand Framework* Endogenous Factors
those things that are within the scope of (internal to) one's own control
Ideational Changes That Must Take Place
traditional societies are most resistant to the idea that women, or couples working as a team, should be in charge when it comes to reproduction first nations to undergo such a change were during the Enlightenment - people broke free from tradition - science broke out - acceptance of secular ideas status of women!!!!!! the decline in mortality that has spread around the globe leads to an increase in child survival that forces people o think differently about the world than they did before - having more children survive than ever imagined demands attention from everyone in a group
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Period Measures of Fertility* Fertility Index
used in the Princeton European Fertility Project fertility index = (proportion of the female population that is married) x (index of martial fertility) martial fertility is represented as a decimal between 0.0 and 1.0, with 1.0 being the maximum presumed biological fertility
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? Family Control
ways of limiting family size after the birth of children as more children survive through childhood, the child-control options become more difficult because the number of children who can no longer be afforded may stretch the limits of what families can get away with in terms of infanticide, fosterage, and orphanage families have also exercised important control fertility by determining the age at which their daughters will be allowed to marry
the Preconditions for Decline in Fertility Coale's First Precondition
who is in control? God? the husband? other family members? a woman is not going to run the risk of insult or injury by doing things that she knows are disapproved of by those who dominate her women need to be in control of their reproduction in order for a fertility decline to begin to meet the first precondition, some ideational changes must take place - secularization - modern education - rise in the status of women
Motivations for Lower Fertility Levels *the Supply-Demand Framework* Opportunity Costs
with respect to fertility, the things foregone in order to have children children can be seen as "commodities" that require both time and money for parents to acquire switch from quantity of children to quality of children education and a career have recently become costs for women social approval children may allow you to vicariously relive (and perhaps revamp) your own childhood children tend to provide a means of establishing a network of social relationships in a community through school, organized sports, and activity groups
the Preconditions for Decline in Fertility Preconditions for Substantial Fertility Decline
Ansley Coale's theory as to how an individual would have to perceive the world on a daily basis if fertility were to be consciously limited
Why Was Fertility High for Most of Human History? *Need to Replenish Society*
a baby's chances of surviving to adulthood are not very good if a society is going to replace itself, an average of at least two children for every woman must survive long enough to be able to produce more children societies have generally been unwilling to leave it strictly up to the individual or to chance to have the required number of children societies everywhere developed social institutions to encourage childbearing and reward parenthood in various ways social pressures are not actually defined in terms of the need to replace society, and an individual would likely not recognize them for what they are the societal disconnection between infant and child mortality and reproductive behavior probably explains why at the individual level there is not much evidence of a relationship between infant deaths in a family and the number of children born to those parents - this just says that the generation of parents who experience the improvement in their children's chances of survival is unlikely to be the generation that responds to that change with a decline in fertility
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Period Measures of Fertility* Child-Woman Ratio (CWR)
a census-based measure of fertility, calculated as the ratio of children aged 0-4 to the number of women aged 15-49 provides an index of fertility that is conceptually similar to the GFR but relies solely on census data (p(age interval) / F(age interval)) x 1000 about 4.5 times the GFR
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Withdrawal
a form of fertility control that requires the male to withdraw his penis from his partner's vagina prior to ejaculation also called coitus interruptus one of the more popular historically for trying to control fertility the importance of any kind of contraception can be gauged by the likelihood of getting pregnant if no method is used a sexually active woman who is using no method at all has an 85% chance of getting pregnant over the course of a year
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Synthetic Cohort Measures of Fertility* Net Reproduction Rate (NRR)
a measure of generational replacement specifically, the average number of female children that will be born to the female babies who were themselves born in a given year, assuming no change in the age-specific fertility and mortality rates and ignoring the effect of migration takes into account a woman's risk of dying before the end of her reproductive years sum of: each ASFR x (the number of women surviving to the age interval / radix) always less than the GRR a value greater than one = potential for growth, as long as fertility and mortality don't change a value less than one = potential for decline in numbers not equivalent to the rate of population growth in most societies
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Synthetic Cohort Measures*
a measurement obtained by treating period data as though they represented a cohort
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? Generational Replacement
a net reproduction rate of one, which indicates that each generation of females has the potential to just replace itself
How High Could Fertility Levels Be? *the Biological Component* Impaired Fecundity
a reduced ability to reproduce, defined as a women who believes that it is impossible for her to have a baby OR a physician has told her not to become pregnant because the pregnancy would pose a health risk for her or her baby OR she has been continuously married for at least 36 months, has not used contraception, and yet has not gotten pregnant also known as subfecundity 12.1% of American women fall into this category
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? Proximate Determinants of Fertility
a renaming of the intermediate variables (defined previously) with an emphasis on age at entry into marriage and proportions married, use of contraception, use of abortion, and prevalence of breast feeding additionally, differences in fertility from one population to the next are largely accounted for by only four of those variables: - proportion married - use of contraceptives - incidence of abortion - involuntary infecundity women's behavior is more heavily emphasized than men's
Case Studies in the Fertility Transition *the United States* Historical Background
average number of children born per woman in colonial America was about 8 - higher than any European population had ever experienced Civil War seems to have been a turning point in marital fertility, and fertility declined unabated from 1870 until the Great Depression of the 1930s, until during which time it bottomed out a low level only recently re-approached WHY?? - almost all voluntary migrants to North America came from Europe where fertility limitation was well known and practiced - US was experiencing secularization - people's lives were increasingly loosened from the control of both the church and state - increasing "spirit of autonomy" lower fertility was accomplished by a rise in the average age at marriage and various means of birth control within marriage Margaret Sanger saw a lot of horrible things working with immigrants and seeing her own mother die from having eleven children and seeing women die from botched abortions, so she immersed herself in finding out all she could about contraception, founded Planned Parenthood in 1939 until 1965, it was technically illegal in the US for even a married couple to use any kind of birth control after WWI, use of condoms spread (not as a contraceptive, but rather as a "prophylactic") and fertility levels were low throughout the Depression - during this time, fertility levels fell to below generational replacement due to economic uncertainty in 1933, the birth rate hit rock bottom because the "tempo" of fertility had slowed end of WWII: *baby boom*
Case Studies in the Fertility Transition *United Kingdom and Other European Nations* Historical Background
beginnings of a fertility decline may have existed even before the Industrial Revolution withdrawal was primarily used to reduce marital fertility suggested that the root cause of France's fertility decline was that after the French Revolution in 1793, the government introduced a change in inheritance from everything going only to the oldest son to a system where property was to be divided among all sons (or daughters, if there were no sons) - the more kids, the smaller the inheritance each kid gets fertility limitation then become widely accepted throughout Europe earliest transition into the Industrial Revolution (called the "Machine Age") - wars = super high inflation + job insecurity = general decline in birth rate during the first half of the nineteenth century after 1850, economic conditions improved, and the first response was a rise in the birth rate, followed by a long-run decline - all of Coale's preconditions for a fertility decline existed at this point in the second half of the nineteenth century, motivation to limit family size came in the form of larger numbers of surviving children combined with aspiration for higher standards of living mortality declines produced changes in the lives of people to which they had to respond; they migrated out and delayed marriage by 1880, all segments of English society were experiencing fertility declines - fertility has continued on a slow downward trend since then (not including the post-war baby boom of the 1960s) current TFR = 2.0 contraceptives + delayed marriage
Case Studies in the Fertility Transition *United Kingdom and Other European Nations* Current Fertility Patterns
below-replacement-level fertility low fertility + increasing life expectancy = lots of old people with not a lot of young people to support them Europeans grow up knowing that they and any children they have will almost certainly survive to a rather old age they also know that highly effective contraceptives are available; European women are in almost total control over the supply of children typically, two children are wanted however, women are still expected to be the primary caregiver for the husband, the two children, and her and her husband's aging parents - suffers substantial opportunity costs from delayed careers and lost wages demand for children has dropped to what we might think of as female replacement demographers suggest that a rise in the status of women in terms of the family and household is needed is fertility is to be brought back up to replacement level
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Cohort Measures of Fertility* Cumulated Cohort Fertility Rate (CCFR)/Children Ever Born (CEB)
births to date for a particular cohort of women at a particular point in time
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Involuntary Infecundity from Breastfeeding*
breastfeeding prolongs the period of postpartum amenorrhea and suppresses ovulation, thus producing most women the effect of temporarily impaired fecundity breastfeeding mothers don't begin menstruating again anywhere from 10-21 months, depending on the frequency of breastfeeding non-breastfeeding mothers begin menstruating again after about two months breastfeeding is the best form of providing nutrition for an infant, so bottle-feeding tends to raise infant mortality usually, better educated women tend to advocate for breastfeeding over bottle-feeding
Geographic Variability in the Fertility Transition
by the early part of the twenty-first century, there is no region of the world that has not experienced at least the early stages of the fertility transition *Europe* - in 1950, Europe had the lowest fertility levels in the world, following by "overseas European" regions - now dropped to below replacement level *Latin America and Asia* - most dramatic declines in fertility - when from six children (1950) to replacement level (2015) *North Africa* - experienced a substantial decline in fertility - well above replacement level *sub-Saharan Africa* - much slower in its transition - projected to have by far the highest fertility levels in the world - desired family size remains very high (6 or more children)
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Fertility Intentions*
data on what the women who are presently of childbearing age say they intend to do in the future in terms of having children originally inspired by demographers who had failed to forecast the baby boom after WWII period rates are prone to this problem of being influenced by the timing or tempo or births, which may distort the underlying quantum of births - data on lifetime births expected by women can provide a clue to the number of births that will eventually be produced, even if the time cannot be well predicted
Notes of Various Regions and Fertility
every region has been experiencing declines in levels of childbearing the greatest declines since the late 1960s have occurred in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean however, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean still have higher TFR than MDRs women in Africa have the highest number of children: on average, about five children each, compared with nearly seven children 30 years ago women in more developed countries have the fewest children, with an average birth rate of 1.6 now compared with 2.4 in the late 1960s - this low level of childbearing, combined with an older population, accounts for population declines in many European countries
Why Was Fertility High for Most of Human History? *Lower Status of Women in Traditional Societies*
in many societies around the world, desired social goals can be achieved only by the birth and survival of a son most families would continue to have children until they would finally birth a son (and maybe another to ensure at least one survives) India is country where this is very prominent because Hindu religion says that parents must be buried by their son, and that their male descendants keep them immortal (or something like that) also happens, in Japan, Korea, China, and Vietnam but the drop in fertility has been rapid - this is because female fetuses have been aborted rather than actually born --- "missing females" in China rural Chinese couples want sons because sons are the ones who take care of the parents in their old age, and the daughters marry and go and take care of their husband's parents male preference was also an indelible part of European patterns of primogeniture, which were designed to maintain a family's wealth by passing it on only to the oldest son for most women in most of human history, it was easier to have several children than to one or two, regardless of the level of motivation - thus, the fertility transition was by no means automatically assured just because mortality declined
How Can Fertility Be Controlled?
in most societies, families are trying to have the number of surviving children that will be most beneficial to them but people for most of human history have lived close to the subsistence level and in the shadow of high death rates therefore, it's not surprising that couples are unlikely to have a preference for a specific number of children human beings have been very clever at dealing with family size by controlling the family, rather than by controlling fertility *child control*
the Preconditions for Decline in Fertility Coale's Third Precondition
knowledge and mastery of effective means of fertility control - birth control availability of birth control materials education and the use of birth control status of women and the use of birth control part of the decision about what method of fertility regulation to use is based on the individual's cost-benefit calculation about the "costs of fertility regulation"
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Proximate Determinants of Fertility* Intermediate Variables
means for regulating fertility the variables through which any social factors influencing the level of fertility must operate three phases to fertility: intercourse, conception, gestation 11 immediate variables
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* Tubal Ligation
method of female sterilization (surgical contraception) in which the fallopian tubes are "tied" off with rings or by some other method most common
How High Could Fertility Levels Be? *the Social Component* the Hutterites
modern medical science + prosperous agricultural community = world's most famous high-fertility group: the Hutterites (Anabaptists who lived in the northern plains states of the US) in the span of 100 years they doubled their population more than seven times average woman gave birth to 11 kids each Hutterite farming colony typically grows to a size of about 130 people, then branches off and needs more land Canada passed a law limiting the amount of land they were able to buy at the same time, new technological changes in farming methods (which the Hutterites tend to keep up with) have changed the pattern of work in the colonies these social dynamics have apparently had the effect of raising Hutterite women's average age at marriage by as many as four or five years furthermore, access to modern health care led women at the end of their reproductive years to agree to sterilization fertility levels have been significantly dropping, and the increasing scarcity of land doesn't help
Economic Costs of Having Children
money time lifestyle
the Preconditions for Decline in Fertility Coale's Second Precondition
more is required than just the belief that you can control your reproduction; you must have some reason to want to limit fertility what kinds of changes might motivate people to want fewer children? - economic and social opportunities that would make it advantageous to have fewer children *supply and demand theory* - supply: number of survived children - demand: desired number of children
Why Was Fertility High for Most of Human History?
mortality was very high societies that did survive probably did not take for granted that people would have enough children to keep the population going - they instituted multiple inducements--pronatalist pressures--to encourage the appropriate level of reproduction: high enough to maintain society, but not so high as to threaten its existence it is the undoing of those social pressures to have children, and the replacing of them with different kinds of pressures to keep fertility low, that we have to understand if we are to explain the fertility transition
Case Studies in the Fertility Transition *the United States* the Baby Bust, Baby Boomlet, and Beyond
social and economic factors in the late 1960s suggested that fertility might continue to decline for a while; the rate of economic growth had slackened off, and there was no longer a labor shortage the baby burst troughed in the mid-1970s and was followed by a baby boomlet ups and downs and ups for the past 20 years reasons for this great deal of complexity in American fertility: - rise in out-of-wedlock births (teens, young women) - increasing variability in family size - increase in the proportion of births to racial/ethnic minority groups, especially Hispanics at the same time that teenage birth rates are going down, the rates for women 30 and older have been going up, shifting the average age at motherhood into the late 20s one of the important underlying causes of this increasing variability in birth patterns is the increasing diversity of the American population, and almost every group experienced a fertility decline once coming into the US
Motivations for Lower Fertility Levels *the Innovation/Diffusion and "Cultural" Perspective* the Importance of "Influential Couples"
sometimes ignored by North Americans who prefer the ideal of a classless society two enduring theories of social stratification have strong implications for fertility behavior: - cultural innovation typically takes place in higher social strata as a result of privilege, education, and concentration of resources, whereas lower social strata adopt new preferences through imitation - rigid social stratification or closure or caste inhibits such downward cultural innovation
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
sometimes known as female circumcision, which typically involves removing a woman's clitoris, thus lessening her enjoyment of sexual intercourse
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? *Use of Contraceptives* List of Contraceptives
surgical contraception - tubal ligation - vasectomy oral contraceptive male condom intrauterine device (IUD) calendar rhythm method emergency contraception abortion
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? Mean Length of Generation
the average age at child-bearing
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? Infanticide
the deliberate killing or abandonment of an infant a method of "family control" in many premodern and some modern societies known to have been practiced in much of Asia
Case Studies in the Fertility Transition *the United States* Baby Boom
the dramatic rise in the birth rate following WWII in the US, it refers to people born between 1946 and 1964 - most dramatic demographic phenomena in North American history families and lovers reunited and the birth rates went up not temporarily, but for several years after the war to make up for lost time 1940: 2.19 1957: 3.58 peaked in 1957 also: - after the war, women started marrying earlier and having their children sooner after marriage - older women were having babies at older-than-usual ages (probably because of the postponed births during the Depression and the war) - economy was booming - a woman's main occupation was being a mother because the job market was largely biased against married women, AND it made it much easier for men to find jobs in 1958, age-specific birth rates and the total fertility rate in the US registered clear declines, a downward change that carried into the late 1970s
Here Are the Reasons
the existence of the three pre-conditions depends on: - the type of economy - the level of education - culture and social norms - women's status
How High Could Fertility Levels Be? *the Biological Component* Fecundity
the physical capacity to reproduce most estimates of fecundity are actually based on levels of fertility couples who have tried unsuccessfully for at least 12 months to conceive a child are usually called infertile or infecund - 6% of American couples are infecund for most, it's not an all-or-none proposition and varies according to age *(menarche to menopause)*
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? Orphanage
the practice of abandoning children such a way that they are likely to be cared for by strangers
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? Child Control
the practice of controlling family size after the birth of children (postnatally), through the mechanisms of infanticide, fosterage, and orphanage three ways of dealing with a child who is not wanted or cannot be cared for: *- infanticide* *- fosterage* *- orphanage*
How Can Fertility Be Controlled? Fosterage
the practice of placing an "excess" child in someone else's home a relatively common practice is sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, and not uncommon in pre-transition Europe
How Is the Fertility Transition Accomplished? Parity Progression Ratios
the proportion of women with a given number of children (parity refers to how many children have already been born) who "progress" to having another child usually leads to a "compression" of reproductive years
What is the Fertility Transition?
the shift from "natural" fertility (high levels of fertility) to fertility limitation (low levels of fertility) going from only minimal individual deliberate control, to fertility being entirely under a couple's control from family building by fate to family building by design almost always involves a delay in childbearing to older ages and also an earlier end to childbearing to control fertility does not necessarily mean to limit it why, when, and how does fertility decline from high to low levels?
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Synthetic Cohort Measures of Fertility* Gross Reproduction Rate (GRR)
the total fertility rate multiplied by the proportion fo all births that are girls it is generally interpreted as the number of female children that a female just born may expect to have in her lifetime, assuming that birth rates stay the same and ignoring her chances of survival through her reproductive years calculate age-specific birth rates using only female babies, and then the calculation of the TFR for females represents the GRR
How Do We Measure Changes in Fertility? *Period Measures of Fertility* General Fertility Rate (GFR)
the total number of births in a year divided by the total midyear of women of childbearing age uses information about the age and sex structure of a population to be more specific about who actually has been at risk of having the births recorded in a given year (b / F(age interval)) x 1000 tends to be equal to about 4.5 times the CBR
Macro-Level Variables in Shaping Individual Fertility Pattern
the type of economy the level of education culture and social norms women's status availability of birth control the role of public policy and family planning programs
