Beyond Six Billion Forecasting the World's Population (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Transitional Fertility
Transitional Fertility
Pages 53-82
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From page 53... ...
We then outline what can be anticipated in the coming decades and attempt to specify the considerations that should inform future projections. FERTILITY CHANGE IN DEVELOPING REGIONS In 1950, the average woman in the developing regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America gave birth to six children.
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From page 54... ...
With these declines, total fertility in 1990-1995 stood at 3.3 children in all developing countries combined, a fall of nearly 50 percent from midcenturv levels. Across regions, the variation is large, from 1.9 in East too 90 80 70 60 Q Ct 50 40 20 10 _ o 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Latin America/ Caribbean / / / / , / , / / / / ' / , / ,Mideast/ North Africa G-/, ~ , / ,/ , Sub-Saharan ,, A I;_ ^, ,/ / I' {I TrlC;d ,' _ _ _ _ — _ _ _ _ ~ FIGURE 3-1 Percentage of countries that have started fertility decline by a given date, by region.
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From page 55... ...
An intraregional divide is apparent. In East and Southern Africa, couples are choosing to reduce their numbers of children, and serious HIV epidemics are acting as an additional fertility depressant (Zaba and Gregson, 1998~.
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From page 56... ...
The rise in contraceptive use has been facilitated by a massive international effort to implement family planning 2In this regard, the experience of developing countries is quite different from the earlier European and North American transitions, which occurred without the benefit of highly effective modern methods and often in a context of religious, medical, and political opposition to contraception.
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From page 57... ...
Although overshadowed by the impact of contraception, induced abortion has also played an appreciable role in fertility reduction. A recent estimate is that 35.5 million abortions took place in 1995 in developing regions (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1999)
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From page 58... ...
Thus in a myriad of ways, children are transformed 3While this pattern of relative stable family-size desires in the early phases of fertility transition appears to characterize most Asian and Latin American countries for which relevant data are available, it does not apply in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this region, desired family sizes are much higher than elsewhere, and they fall prior to, or at the same time as, declines in childbearing.
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From page 59... ...
. In some East African countries, by contrast, fertility transition has persisted in an era of deteriorating standards of living and falling school enrollments.
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From page 60... ...
Several strands in the aggregate evidence support this interpretation: the prevalence of unwanted childbearing, which suggests that the means rather than the motives are critical; the fact that cultural factors, such as religion or language, appear to be strongly linked to reproductive change (e.g., Leete, 1988~; the speed with which birth limitation can spread within societies from urban, educated strata to rural, less-privileged sectors (Rodriguez and Aravena, 1991~; and the evidence that governments, and other elites, can influence the timing and speed of change by their at6The inadequacy of narrowly economic theories to provide a totally convincing explanation of fertility trends no doubt partly reflects the difficulty of taking into account preferences and tastes.
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From page 61... ...
, although they clearly help reduce unwanted childbearing (Bongaarts, 1997~. More problematic and possibly unresolvable is the argument about whether successful family planning programs are instituted and can only become effective when fertility decline is already imminent (Demeny, 1992; Rosenzweig and Wolpin, 1986; see also Gertler and Molyneaux, 1994~.
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From page 62... ...
A comprehensive, predictive theory that incorporates such findings still eludes researchers. 1960-1964 1965-1969 o o .~ (a $ o o ILL 1970-1974 1975-1979 1980-1984 1985-1989 1990-1994 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Percent literate FIGURE 3-3 Percentage of population literate in countries starting fertility transition, by period of transition onset.
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From page 63... ...
To determine the pace of future declines, projections generally seek to take into account the variety of behavioral mechanisms and determinants already discussed, including contraception and family planning, abortion, marriage delay, socioeconomic levels and changes, cultural, ethnic, and religious tendencies, and trends in mortality.
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From page 64... ...
projections are small, at least until replacement level is approached. If World Bank projections were used instead to illustrate future fertility trends in Figure 3-2, the figure would look essentially the same except toward the end, when differences in assumed stable levels come into play.
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From page 65... ...
As Appendix C shows, many of the causal factors in fertility levels in fact add little predictive value when past fertility trends are taken into account. Some complex simultaneous equation models do incorporate trends (see, e.g., McDonald, 1981; Sanderson, 1999)
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From page 67... ...
... · , ~ >,., -a- · (accelerated dec - ~: 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 FIGURE 3-4 Trend in total fertility for developing regions and earlier projected trends from U.N.
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From page 68... ...
Considerable potential to improve fertility projections, to a large degree by improving current fertility estimates, clearly exists. The variability in past error could be used to define a prediction interval for projected fertility rates, if one assumes that the error in current projections will resemble error in past projections.
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From page 69... ...
Most governments in the region are giving increasing support to family planning programs, but perhaps even more significant is the pressure on household budgets due to slow or even negative economic growth. Educational aspirations tend to be high in this subregion, and hopes for a better material life are presumably correspondingly high; at the same time, standards of living are falling in many countries.
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From page 70... ...
These late-starting countries may be selected for relative imperviousness to radical reproductive change. This may be illustrated with two countries that are actually more advanced than most others in the region, having just started or being on the verge of starting fertility transition.
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From page 71... ...
Much is at stake. Fully 80 countries, comprising 44 percent of the world's population, have total fertility rates in the range of 2.5 to 4.5 births (Casterline, 2000~.
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From page 72... ...
Fertility change was then regressed on a range of predictors, including change in the previous period, the initial fertility level, the calendar date, and several socioeconomic variables measured at the start of each period level of infant mortality, gross female secondary school enrollment, and percentage of the population urban. The pace of change in the previous 5-year period is strongly related to pace in the following period.
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From page 73... ...
Some impetus has come from international donors, but, more important, national attitudes toward rapid population growth and to mass provision of family planning services have genuinely changed. Except perhaps in countries with particularly severe HIV epidemics, it is likely that developing-country policies will remain broadly sympathetic to further fertility decline.
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From page 74... ...
The willingness of bilateral and multilateral donors to increase their financial support for developing-country family planning programs is in considerable doubt. There is a sense in the international aid community that the "problem of rapid population growth" is no longer an urgent priority.
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From page 75... ...
Barriers to radical reproductive change economic, social, cultural that once seemed almost insurmountable have proven temporary impediments. Fertility decline has taken root in poor, largely illiterate, agrarian populations to a degree that, 30 years ago, most experts would have thought almost impossible.
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From page 76... ...
Civil strife, and in some cases armed conflict, may further postpone a sustained movement to lower fertility. Other factors that may perhaps act to slow the pace of future reproductive change include an end to long-standing trends toward marriage postponement and a decline in funds available to support family planning programs.
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From page 77... ...
Possible changes in the factors affecting the course of fertility, such as the apparent diminution of support for family planning services, are of problematic and similarly unpredictable import, and might produce merely hiccups in continued decline or could have more lasting, and essentially incalculable, effects. Research Priorities Focused research could clarify many of these issues.
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From page 78... ...
Bongaarts, J 1997 The role of family planning programmer in contemporary fertility transitions.
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From page 79... ...
Wilson 1987 Demand theories of the fertility transition: An iconoclastic view. Population Stud ies 41~1~:5-30.
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From page 80... ...
Gertler, P.J., and J.W. Molyneaux 1994 How economic development and family planning programs combined to reduce Indonesian fertility.
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From page 81... ...
Chakraborty 1988 The determinants of reproductive change in a traditional society: Evidence from Matlab, Bangladesh. Studies in Family Planning 19~6~:313-334.
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From page 82... ...
82 BEYOND SIX BILLION U.S. Census Bureau n.d.
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