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Fertility Behavior (fertility + behavior)
Selected AbstractsReassessing the Insurance Effect: A Qualitative Analysis of Fertility Behavior in Senegal and ZimbabwePOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2003Thomas LeGrand A number of prominent demographers have recently reiterated the argument that a lasting mortality decline is a key determinant of the fertility transition. Of the main hypothesized pathways linking fertility to mortality, the one least studied is the insurance hypothesis: the notion that, in high-mortality contexts, people decide to have more children in order to anticipate possible future child deaths and lessen the risks of having too few surviving offspring. In-depth interviews and focus groups from Zimbabwe and Senegal are used to examine this hypothesis and to extend it into a broader theory of reproductive decision making under uncertainty. Whereas insurance strategies are frequent in Zimbabwe and occur in urban Senegal, in the higher-mortality settings,the rural Senegalese site and the recent past described by respondents in Zimbabwe and urban Senegal,deliberate fertility-limitation strategies are rare. The data depict fundamental changes in attitudes, strategies, and behaviors concerning family size over time and, in Senegal, over space. Important reproductive goals and risks extend far beyond numbers of children and mortality. Parents seek to have healthy, successful children for many reasons including companionship, descendants, and old-age support. Diverse investments in child quality (their education, health, etc.) and quantity (numbers of births) are the main means to attain these goals and, less recognized by demographers, are also important ways for parents to manage uncertainty in family-building outcomes; the "classic" insurance mechanism is only one, often minor, aspect of the quantity option. [source] Partnership and Parenthood in Post-transitional Societies: Will Specters Be Exorcised?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF JAPANESE SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Nobutaka Fukuda Abstract: The purpose of this article is to reconsider partnership and parenthood in post-transitional societies from the viewpoint of sociology. As is well known, after the end of the Baby Boom, albeit with variations in the tempo and the level, a considerable decline in fertility has occurred in industrialized countries. Furthermore, this decline has occurred in tandem with the transformation of partnership such as an increase in the number of cohabited couples. The causes and effects of this decline in fertility have hitherto been studied by social scientists such as economists and demographers. Although the family has been one of the main research interests for sociologists for a long while, the changes in partnership and fertility behavior in developed countries have not been sufficiently argued from the perspective of sociological theory on family. In this article, we will initially compare and contrast two changes in fertility patterns: the first of these is the fertility decline that occurred around the latter half of the nineteenth century; the second is the change that has been observed in industrialized countries since the second half of the 1960s. We will then discuss the difference between economic and ideational approaches in the explanation of partnership and fertility changes. Finally, we will examine the convergence and the divergence theories on family change. This article will conclude with an emphasis on the importance of the middle-range theories. [source] Fertility and Economic Growth: Do Immigrant Maids Play a Role?PACIFIC ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2002Sucharita Ghosh A significant source of child-care services in East and South-East Asia are provided by immigrant maids. Using a modified version of the model used in Galor and Weil (1996), the present paper analyses the impact of this source of child-care services on women's labor market participation, fertility behavior and the household purchase of child-care services. The results show that a lower price for the maid service leads to a lower savings rate, a higher demand for children and less time being spent with children. We also find that hiring immigrant maids leads to lower economic growth in the long run. [source] Demographic consequences of unpredictability in fertility outcomesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2002Paul Leslie Child survival is probabilistic, but the unpredictability in family formation and completed family size has been neglected in the fertility literature. In many societies, ending the family cycle with too few or too many surviving offspring entails serious social, economic, or fitness consequences. A model of risk- (or variance-) sensitive adaptive behavior that addresses long-term fertility outcomes is presented. The model shows that under conditions likely to be common, optimal, risk-sensitive reproductive strategies deviate systematically from the completed family size that would be expected if reproductive outcome is were predictable. This is termed the "variance compensation hypothesis." Variance compensation may be either positive or negative, resulting in augmented or diminished fertility. Which outcome obtained is a function of identifiable social, economic, and environmental factors. Through its effect on fertility behavior, variance compensation has a direct bearing on birth spacing and completed fertility, and thereby on problems in demography and human population biology ranging from demographic transitions to maternal depletion and child health. Risk-sensitive models will be a necessary component of a general theory of fertility. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 14:168,183, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Contradictions in Nigeria's Fertility Transition: The Burdens and Benefits of Having PeoplePOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 2 2004Daniel Jordan Smith Nigeria appears to be experiencing a transition to lower fertility. Based on ethnographic research, this article shows how Nigerians navigate a paradoxical political-economic and cultural context, wherein they face powerful pressures both to limit their fertility and to have relatively large families. The main argument advanced here is that Nigerians' fertility behavior must be understood in the context of the ways that parenthood, children, family, and kinship are inextricably intertwined with how people survive in a political economy organized around patron-clientism. Despite the fact that fertility transition is widely associated with broad processes of modernization and development, ordinary Nigerians experience the pressures to limit fertility in terms of a failed economy, development disappointments, and personal hardship,even while they see relatively smaller families as essential if they are to educate their children properly and adapt to a changing society. [source] When Does Religion Influence Fertility?POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 1 2004Kevin McQuillan Religious affiliation as a determinant of demographic behavior is receiving renewed attention in demography. Interest in the role of cultural factors in affecting fertility and a specific concern with the role of Islam in many developing countries have helped re-invigorate research on the role of religion. This article reviews theoretical and empirical work on that relationship, with special attention to a number of cases in which religion has been identified as an important determinant of fertility patterns. The article concludes that religion plays an influential role when three conditions are satisfied: first, the religion articulates behavioral norms with a bearing on fertility behavior; second, the religion holds the means to communicate these values and promote compliance; and, third, religion forms a central component of the social identity of its followers. [source] | ||||||||||