This document discusses factors associated with decreased fertility rates, including rising income, value and attitude changes, education, female labor force participation, population control programs, and age. Six main factors are described in more detail: 1) Rising income is generally associated with lower fertility, though rates may rise again at high levels of development. 2) Cultural changes toward autonomy and independence also correlate with lower fertility. 3) Higher education often means delayed childbearing for women who pursue careers. 4) Strict population control policies, as in China and India, have significantly reduced birth rates. 5) Increased female participation in the workforce is linked to fewer births. 6) Both male and female fertility declines with age, though more sharply for women.
This document discusses factors associated with decreased fertility rates, including rising income, value and attitude changes, education, female labor force participation, population control programs, and age. Six main factors are described in more detail: 1) Rising income is generally associated with lower fertility, though rates may rise again at high levels of development. 2) Cultural changes toward autonomy and independence also correlate with lower fertility. 3) Higher education often means delayed childbearing for women who pursue careers. 4) Strict population control policies, as in China and India, have significantly reduced birth rates. 5) Increased female participation in the workforce is linked to fewer births. 6) Both male and female fertility declines with age, though more sharply for women.
This document discusses factors associated with decreased fertility rates, including rising income, value and attitude changes, education, female labor force participation, population control programs, and age. Six main factors are described in more detail: 1) Rising income is generally associated with lower fertility, though rates may rise again at high levels of development. 2) Cultural changes toward autonomy and independence also correlate with lower fertility. 3) Higher education often means delayed childbearing for women who pursue careers. 4) Strict population control policies, as in China and India, have significantly reduced birth rates. 5) Increased female participation in the workforce is linked to fewer births. 6) Both male and female fertility declines with age, though more sharply for women.
This document discusses factors associated with decreased fertility rates, including rising income, value and attitude changes, education, female labor force participation, population control programs, and age. Six main factors are described in more detail: 1) Rising income is generally associated with lower fertility, though rates may rise again at high levels of development. 2) Cultural changes toward autonomy and independence also correlate with lower fertility. 3) Higher education often means delayed childbearing for women who pursue careers. 4) Strict population control policies, as in China and India, have significantly reduced birth rates. 5) Increased female participation in the workforce is linked to fewer births. 6) Both male and female fertility declines with age, though more sharply for women.
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- fertility, mortality and migration.
Fertility factors are determinants of the number of children that an individual is likely to
have. Fertility factors are mostly positive or negative correlations without certain causations.Factors generally associated with decreased fertility include rising income, value and attitude changes, education, female labor participation, population control, age, contraception(Balbo et al, 2013), partner reluctance to having children(Balbo et al, 2013), less affordable housing markets, very low level of gender equality(Balbo et al, 2013), [1] infertility, [15] pollution,[16] and obesity,[17]Fertility is declining in advanced societies because couples are having fewer children or none at all, or they are delaying childbirth beyond the woman's most fertile years. The factors that lead to this trend are complex and probably vary from country to country (ESHRE Capri Workshop Group, 2010).
Factors associated with decreased fertility
1. Rising income
Increased income and human development are generally associated with decreased fertility
rates(Rai et al,2013). Economic theories about declining fertility postulate that people earning more have a higher economic loss if they focus on childbirth and parenting rather than continuing their careers, that women who can economically sustain themselves have less incentive to become married, and that higher income parents value quality over quantity and so spend their resources on fewer children.
On the other hand, there is some evidence that with rising economic development, fertility rates drop at first, but then begin to rise again as the level of social and economic development increases, while still remaining below the replacement rate.(Myrskylä et al, 2009).[38][39]
2. Value and attitude changes
While some researchers cite economic factors as the main driver of fertility decline, socio- cultural theories focus on changes in values and attitudes toward children as being primarily responsible. For example, the Second Demographic Transition reflects changes in personal goals, religious preferences, relationships, and perhaps most important, family formations. Also, Preference Theory attempts to explain how women's choices regarding work versus family have changed and how the expansion of options and the freedom to choose the option that seems best for them are the keys to recent declines in Total Fertility Rate (TFR)(ESHRE Capri Workshop Group,2010).[9]
A comparative study in Europe found that family-oriented women had the most children, work-oriented women had fewer or no children, and that among other factors, and preferences play a major role in deciding to remain childless (Balbo et al, 2013).[1]
Another example of this can be found in Europe and in post-Soviet states, where values of increased autonomy and independence have been associated with decreased fertility (Balbo et al, 2013).[1]
3. Education Results from research which attempts to find causality between education and fertility is mixed(Balbo et al, 2013).[1] One theory holds that higher educated women are more likely to become career women. Also, for higher educated women, there is a higher economic lossin bearing children. Both would lead higher educated women to postpone marriage and births(Balbo et al, 2013).[1] However, other studies suggest that, although higher educated women may postpone marriage and births, they can recuperate at a later age so that the impact of higher education is negligible(Balbo et al, 2013).[1]
In the United States, a large survey found that women with a bachelor's degree or higher had an average of 1.1 children, while those with no high school diploma or equivalent had an average of 2.5 children(Martinez et al, 2012). For men with the same levels of education, the number of children was 1.0 and 1.7, respectively.
In Europe, on the other hand, women who are more educated eventually have about as many children as do the less educated, but that education results in having children at an older age (Balbo et al, 2013).[1] Likewise, a study in Norway found that better-educated males have a decreased probability of remaining childless, although they generally became fathers at an older age(Rindfuss&Kravdal, 2008).[40]
Catholic education at the university level and, to a lesser degree, at the secondary school level, is associated with higher fertility, even when accounting for the confounding effect that higher religiosity among Catholics leads to a higher probability of attending a religiously affiliated school(Westoff& Potter, 1963).[23] The level of a country's development often determines the level of women's education required to affect fertility. Countries with lower levels of development and gender equivalence are likely to find that a higher level of women's education, greater than secondary level, is required to affect fertility. Studies suggest that in many sub-Saharan African countries fertility decline is linked to female education (Kebede et al, 2019; Pradhan,2015-11-24).[41][42] Having said this, fertility in undeveloped countries can still be significantly reduced in the absence of any improvement in the general level of formal education. For example, during the period 1997-2002 (15 years), fertility in Bangladesh fell by almost 40 per cent, despite the fact that literacy rates (especially those of women) did not increase significantly. This reduction has been attributed to that country's family planning program, which could be called a form of informal education(Akmam W,2002).[43]
4. Population control China and India have the oldest and the largest human population control programs in the world(Ahmad, 2013).[44] In China, a one-child policy was introduced between 1978 and 1980 (Zhu, 2003),[45] and began to be formally phased out in 2015 in favour of a two-child policy (Heskethet al,2015). [46] The fertility rate in China fell from 2.8 births per woman in 1979 to 1.5 in 2010 (Feng, 2012).[12] However, the efficacy of the one-child policy itself is not clear, since there was already a sharp reduction from more than five births per woman in the early 1970s, before the introduction of the one-child policy (Feng, 2012). [12] It has thereby been suggested that a decline in fertility rate would have continued even without the strict anti- natalist policy(Gilbert,2005).[47] As of 2015, China has ended its decade long one child policy allowing couples to have two children. This was a result of China having a large dependency ratio with its ageing population and working force.[48]
Extensive efforts have been put into family planning in India. The fertility rate has dropped from 5.7 in 1966 to 2.4 in 2016. (Ramu,2006; CIA, The World Fact Book, India, 7/24/2017") [49][50] Still, India's family planning program has been regarded as only partially successful in controlling fertility rates.(Murthy, 2010)[51]
5. Female labor force participation
Increased participation of women in the workforce is associated with decreased fertility. A
multi-country panel study found this effect to be strongest among women aged 20–39, with a less strong but persistent effect among older women as well (Bloom et al, 2009). [11] International United Nations data suggests that women who work because of economic necessity have higher fertility than those who work because they want to do so(Lim,2009).
However, for countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development area, increased female labour participation has been associated with increased fertility(Ahn& Mira, 2002).[53]Causality analyses indicate that fertility rate influences female labour participation, not the other way around (Balbo et al, 2013).[1]
Women who work in nurturing professions such as teaching and health generally have children at an earlier age.[1] It is theorized that women often self-select themselves into jobs with a favourable work–life balance in order to pursue both motherhood and employment(Balbo et al, 2013).[1]
6. Age
Regarding age and female fertility, fertility starts at onset of menses, typically around age 12- 13 (Anderson et al, 2003; Al-Sahabet al, 2010; Hamilton-Fairley, 2004).[54][55][56] Most women become sub-fertile during the early 30s, and during the early 40s most women become sterile ( Velde & Pearson, 2002).[13]
Regarding age and male fertility, men have decreased pregnancy rates, increased time to pregnancy, and increased infertility as they age, although the correlation is not as substantial as in women.[57] When controlling for the age of the female partner, comparisons between men under 30
What Went Wrong With The Achievement of Replacement Fertility in Bangladesh and Its Consequences On The Demographic Dividend The Role of Proximate Determinants
What Went Wrong With The Achievement of Replacement Fertility in Bangladesh and Its Consequences On The Demographic Dividend The Role of Proximate Determinants
