Fertility Flashcards
How did pre-transitional fertility look like?
- Assumption: high fertility BUT also considerable evidence of systematic variation
1) fertility higher in agricultural societies than in hunting and gathering societies –> Reasons unclear, but could be related to problems of caring for too many infants and small children in migratory populations + earlier weaning of infants in settled agricultural populations
2) European marriage pattern in Middle Ages:
a- high age of people at marriage
b- the high proportion of people who never married
Consequence: pretransition fertility in Europe was at moderate levels (4-5 births per woman) relative to “high fertility” levels elsewhere (ca. 6-8 births per women)
When/where was the 1st “modern” fertility transition?
Began in early 19th century France & UK, rest of Europe followed about a half-century later (ca. 1870) on this trend, largely completed by the 1930s
What was the outcome of the 1st “modern” fertility transition?
In contrast to the fluctuations in fertility in earlier centuries, these modern fertility transitions were permanent reductions (consisted almost entirely of declines in marital fertility)
there were “Baby booms” during the 1950s (esp. in US) but only temporary and no return to pretransition fertility levels
How is the world fertility regime divided?
Threefolded:
(i) industrial societies, that have experienced long-term fertility declines beginning end 1800/early 1900 and that currently have fertility at or below the replacement level
(ii) developing societies, that have experienced significant fertility declines over the last 10 to 25 years and where current total fertility rates are between 2.5 and 4 births per woman
(iii) less developed countries, that have yet to experience significant fertility re- ductions and where average childbearing levels exceed 5 births per woman
Why is the global population increasing when fertility is declining?
Because mortality has decreased more drastically than fertility + the age structure of the populations of many developing countries has a disproportionate number of persons in the childbearing ages (this is a byproduct of high fertility in prior years)
What is the TFR?
“Total Fertility Fate” (TFR)
- Important indicator/ the index of fertility
- “The total fertility rate in a specific year is defined as the total number of children that would be born to each woman if she were to live to the end of her child-bearing years (50) and give birth to children in alignment with the prevailing age-specific fertility rates.”
–> So, basically, an estimate of the average number of children per woman over her lifetime
How is the TFR calculated?
by totalling the age-specific fertility rates as defined over five-year intervals.
–> makes measure sensitive to changes in fertility timing! Bc based on current birth trends (i.e. age 15-49)
Why is the TFR useful?
allows to predict into the future
Assuming no net migration and unchanged mortality, a total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman (replacement level fertility) ensures a broadly stable population –> If below or above we can make predictions about future population
What is the CCF/CFR?
(how is it also called?)
“Completed Cohort Fertility”
Definition: average number of children born to a woman belonging to a certain cohort
Also, children-ever-born (more common term for a cohort fertility measure)
What are the advantages/disadvantages of the CCF?
advantage over the total fertility rate: represents the number of births a woman has actually had by the end of her childbearing years
disadvantages
- available only after a time lag as can only be calculated for cohorts that have completed their childbearing years (essentially means birth cohorts that were born at least 50 years ago) fails to adequately capture what is happening to fertility at present
- Computation of CCF data requires considerably more demographic information than computation of the TFR
When was fertility for the first time below sub-replacement level?
Fertility of cohort born 1880 falls below replacement level to maintain population size (child mortality was also higher)
What were the birth lows in Germany?
two long-lasting downward trends
- first demographic transition from 1870s on
- second demographic transition 1960s on
four event-based birth lows
- WW1
- world economic crisis
- WW2
- East-Germany after re-unification
What is meant by changes in fertiliy timing & quantum?
+ interpretation
Not only reduction in quantity, also postponement in time: 1979 the average age for 1st child was 26 –> 10 years later it was 31
interpretation: If you have children later, interest in sth else, otherwise high preference for family and more children
What does DTT describe?
the change that populations undergo from high rates of births and death to low rates of births and deaths
How does DTT explain lowered fertility and mortality?
Follow, after some lag period, from socioeconomic and technical development (i.e. effective programs of public health and curative medicine, mass communications, and related social changes)
Root: Warren Thompson (1929) who stated that social and economic forces are the basic causes of lowered fertility
What are the different stages of the DTT?
- For a long time throughout history: High birth rates as people got a lot of children, but also high death rates bc life expectancy wasn’t too great (due to hunger, disease, war..), so population size stayed relatively low - didn’t grow significantly, if at all
- Then death rates started to decrease as socio-economic conditions (e.g. nutrition, hygiene, health care) improved + birth rates remained quite high as families still felt the economic need to have more kids to help work or take of them later on subsequently, populations started to grow substantially
- Fertility declines as not so many children necessary or wanted anymore population still increases at decreasing fertility and mortality rates as still big gap between fertility and mortality rates but population increase is mellowed
- Birth and death rates are low - almost 0 population growth but life expectancy highest of all time
- Post-industrial countries: ‘Post-transition’ societies were supposed to reach a new equilibrium at an overall lower level of population turnover. It turned out, however, that when fertility fell to very low levels, it tended to stay there, resulting in population decline and population aging –> Dis-equilibrium where population have less young people and a lot of old people
2 examples of empirical evidence for the DTT
1) Germany
image
2) Finland
Stage 1 (increase: 0,6%)
* BR: 38/1000
* MR: 32/1000
Stage 2 (increase: 1,4%) substantial population growth
* BR: 38/1000 as fertility remains high
* MR: 24/1000 while mortality rate dropped
Stage 3 (increase: 1,2%) still increasing but not as dramatically
* BR: 29/1000 bc fertility has gotten down
* MR: 17/1000 but so has mortality
Stage 4 (increase: 0,2%) population stagnation
* BR: 11/1000 bc low fertility
* MR: 9/1000 and low mortality
Critique of DTT
1) Not a real theory:
- DTT (Notestein, 1945) “states that societies that experience modernization [autonomy & independence; (female) education; net costs of children] progress from a pre-modern regime of high fertility and high mortality to a post-modern one in which both are low.” (Kirk, 1996: 361)
BUT the term ‘modernization’ is not defined, nor does DTT include crucial questions about causation (Kirk, 1996: 361) - “For some, transition theory lies at the centre of modern scientific demography. […] To others it is a non-theory to be dismissed as an unproven generalization unworthy of much discussion.” (Kirk, 1996: 361)
2) high level socio-economic –> low fertility?:
- Empirical investigations of historical Europe and contemporary less developed countries showed (a) that countries were at quite different
levels of socio-economic development when the transition began and (b) found only few of the expected associations between socio-economic
indicators (exception: female education, GDP not so much) and fertility => Not one singular factor (also: role of cultural setting and diffusion in spread of fertility control)
+ cannot explain Golden Age of Marriage
3) new data does not fit old pattern anymore
- Experiences of the various European countries (which are the base of the model) were not uniform => new research revealed sequences of the stages as described in the statement of the theory were not the same. In Spain i.e. fertility decline occurred even when mortality was very high.
- “Broad empirical generalizations and theory construction were perhaps simpler tasks in an age with little empirical data. Over the past few decades, intensive research on demographic change […] has revealed complex patterns that do not fit neatly into earlier theoretical schema.” (Hirschman, 1994: 204)
- The fact that fertility transitions in many developing countries are still “in process” adds more uncertainty to the search for explanations
4) base of data
- Many limitations stem from the fact that the DTM is based on data from Western Europe and the U.S. leading up to the 1920s
Counter argument to causation problem:
Does not include crucial questions about causation (Kirk, 1996: 361)
–> missed the central point: DTT has broad theoretical framework & room for every causal variable (Hirschman, 1994: 211), e.g.:
- Davis (1963): High levels of household economic strain were the motivating factor that caused individuals (and families) to postpone marriage,
never marry, migrate, use abortion, practice infanticide, and restrict marital fertility by contraception - Freedman (1963): ‘norms for family size’; was pointing to the central role of norms for family size
- Coale (1973): In contrast to Davis’s broadening of the range of demographic responses, Coale focused on the reasons for declines in marital fertility alone. He identified three necessary conditions for the decline of marital fertility:
(i) a setting that allowed for fertility planning to be part of the calculus of conscious choice (not God’s choice)
(ii) the availability of effective information about the means to control fertility, and
(iii) clear economic advantages of fertility control –> standard link to the traditional thesis of demographic transition theory (DTT)
What does the SDT describe? (3)
- Decline in fertility from somewhat above the ‘replacement’ level of 2.1 births per woman (golden age of marriage) …to a level well below replacement.” (approx. 1,3 children)
- states that cyclical fertility theory (Easterlin) would no longer hold and that subreplacement fertility was to become a structural, long-term feature in Western populations
- sees no equilibrium as the end point, populations will face declining sizes if not complemented by new migrants (i.e., “replacement migration”), and they will also be much older than envisaged by the FDT as a result of lower fertility and considerable additional gains in longevity.
What was the driving force behind SDT?
The driving force behind this transition: ideational factors (dramatic shift from altruistic to individualistic norms and attitudes) and cultural shifts (rise of Maslow’s “higher order” needs, secularization, etc.)
Basic features of SDT (5)
- The weakening of marriage as the only type of family structure, resulting from high divorce rates and a rise in cohabitation
- Uniform family (the conjugal family) giving way to more pluralistic forms of families
- Postponement of union/family formation as well as a rise of living arrangements other than marriage (esp. cohabitation) and non-marital fertility
- A shift from preventive contraception to self-fulfilling contraception
- Also, shift in family relations from ‘king-child with parents’ to ‘king-couple with child’ adult dyadic relationship gains in importance + no children needed to maintain parents = primary motivation for parenthood is individual self-realization (‘post-materialism’; Inglehart)
What is the FDT?
- 1st demographic transition
- refers to 1) the historical declines in mortality and fertility, as 2) witnessed from the 18th century onward in 3) several European populations and continuing at present in 4) most developing countries
Genetic influences on fertility?
- Cohort changes in genetic and shared environmental influences on early fertility in female Danish twins:
- Study compared 2 birth cohorts (1945 vs 1961), later one was already influences by 2nd demographic transition
- Why?
Very restrictive norms guided women in first cohort while in the 2nd cohort genetic effect were able to come through
Over the course of the SDT, behavioral norms (‘shared environment’) have lost, whereas (shared) genes have gained in importance.
