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Fertility rates have been declining in most high-income countries. Singapore is at the forefront of developing pronatalist policies to increase birth rates. This study examines perceptions towards pronatalist policies among men and women in Singapore and compares which policies are perceived as the most important contributors to the conduciveness for childbearing. Using data from the Singapore Perceptions of the Marriage and Parenthood Package study (N = 2000), the results from dominance analysis highlight two important findings. First, paternity leave, shared parental leave, and the Baby Bonus are the top three contributors to the conduciveness to have children. Second, the combined positive effect of financial incentives and work–life policies is perceived to be favorable to fertility. The findings suggest that low-fertility countries may wish to consider adopting this basket of policies as they are like to be regarded as supportive of childbearing. Although previous research suggests that pronatalist policies may only have a modest effect on fertility, the findings raise further questions as to whether fertility may decline even further in the absence of these policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is continuing debate on how low China's fertility has reached and whether China has fallen into the "low fertility trap". This paper addresses this debate by revisiting the trends in fertility preferences in the past decades in China based on a meta review. Moreover, the analysis contrasts distinct measurements of fertility preferences to capture different aspects of reproductive decision-making. This papers reviews 152 studies resulting in 137 estimates for the mean of preferred number of children, 104 estimates for the proportions of different numbers of children preferred and 66 estimates for the second-child preferences. We found that after the long-time decline of fertility preferences in the last century, the average family size remained at a low level but started to increase slowly since 2001. This upturn was observed for all three types of measurements of fertility preferences: ideal, desired, and planned family size. The results also indicate a strong two-child preference (more than 50% of respondents) in China, although 30% of people prefer one child and only a small fraction indicating an ideal family size for three or more children. Results on people's preference for a second child were less consistent. We concluded that fertility is unlikely to increase rapidly in China even when the government adopts more relaxed family planning policy. Because the upward trend in fertility preferences was very minimal and the economic constraints will prevent many people to realise their preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rwanda has experienced a dramatic increase in contraceptive use and concomitant fertility decline between 2005 and 2010. The contraceptive prevalence rate has increased from 17 to 52 %. During this period, Rwanda was strongly promoting family planning and making socio-economic progress. This study analyses the shift in contraceptive use by investigating the contribution attributable to the family planning program and that resulting from socio-economic progress. Using data from the 2005 and 2010 Rwanda Demographic and Health Surveys, we apply the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique to separate the increase in contraceptive use due to population composition change, which result mostly from socio-economic and attitudinal developments, from the increase attributable to changes (improvement) in contraceptive behaviour. The contraceptive increase is mainly attributable to contraceptive behavioural change (78 %). Factors that show a significant contribution are women's education, experience of child mortality, and place of residence. The contribution of changes in population composition is limited (12 %). Effects are relatively higher for exposure to family planning messages and husband's desire for children compared to that of his wife's. Contraceptive uptake improved mostly in the low socio-economic stratum of the population, among the rural and less educated population. This finding suggests that a strong family planning program supported by political leaders can remove persistent socio-economic and cultural barriers and enable a massive popular contraceptive uptake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population ageing is the most prominent demographic trend in Europe. It is driven in part by the widespread transition from high fertility to low fertility, which is most pronounced in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe. One of these, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is experiencing a sharp decline in the proportion of younger people and an increase of the elderly as the total fertility rate is falling more rapidly than are mortality rates. This ageing, with a marked decline in fertility, has been accompanied by emigration of the working-age population and reproductive-age adults plus ongoing problems in the aftermath of the civil war that ended in 1995. The analysis presented here uses statistical data from Bosnia's last two population censuses, taken prior to the war, and more recent estimates from official sources. Additional material has been sourced via fieldwork that has included interviews with key informants. Recent demographic trends not only reflect contemporary socio-economic adjustments, but also past demographic characteristics, the war in the early 1990s and other major events associated with post-war political and economic instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of recent fertility trends in the West has been dominated by examinations of Europe. A better perspective on twentieth-century fertility movements can be gained by giving an equal emphasis to trends in the 'Offshoots' (USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). This paper focuses on the periods of rapid fertility decline and to a greater extent on the intervening periods of near-equilibrium. It is suggested that the 'late twentieth century compromise' is more stable than is suggested by reports on its internal strains, and that only massive government intervention could raise fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Egypt comprises thousands of small geographic units. Total fertility rates are reconstructed for the 4905 qism, qarya, medina, markaz and shiyakhat covering non-desert Egypt at the 1960, 1976, 1986 and 1996 censuses. This fine spatial scale reveals that heterogeneity across subdivisions increased during the fertility transition, illustrating the rapidity of change. Spatial patterns appear in the fertility upsurge of 1974-85, which is accompanied by a large but temporary reduction in heterogeneity. Fertility varies greatly between subdivisions and geographic differentials underlie the expected and observed association between fertility, literacy, family transfers and industrialization. Cairo led the decline of fertility, but that decline is counterbalanced by rapid economic growth and persistently high levels of illiteracy. A similar pattern of fertility change is observed for the chief city of the Muhafaza and its surrounding area. Egypt presents an archetype of demographic transition as improved economic and educational status diffuses across the country, moderated by its specific geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical literary sources, tombstone inscriptions and skeletal remains have been used by classicists to show that there was probably a decline in the population of the Roman Empire caused by the deliberate control of family numbers through contraception, infanticide and child exposure. This finding is important as it appears to demonstrate that the fertility transition associated with the modern Industrial Revolution is not unique and may have had predecessors. Although few new classical demographic data have become available, there has been a vast increase in interest in classical demography, reflecting the late twentieth-century focus on population change, especially fertility control, and the associated development of demographic analytical techniques and models. This new classical demography has largely strengthened previous findings on mortality and marriage, but it has suggested that the Roman Empire's population was near-stationary, rather than declining, and exhibited natural fertility. Nevertheless, the literary tradition may be correct in suggesting that the elite faced great problems in preventing the family patrimony from being dispersed by partible inheritance and so resorted to restricting their legitimate family size, largely by child exposure. The parallel may not be the modern fertility transition but the lower sectional fertility achieved by the bourgeoisie of Geneva in the eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Japan’s decline in fertility over the past 50 years. The change in Japan’s postwar fertility is analysed using formal demographic tools such as parity progression ratios and decomposition methods. The analytical results show that before the oil crisis of 1973, the reduction in marital fertility played a dominant role, while the delayed timing of marriage has been a principal factor since the mid-1970s. The delayed timing of first and second births has also played a relatively important role in determining actual fertility levels in the 1990s. The paper examines various socio-economic factors contributing to these demographic shifts over time in postwar Japan. A number of policies and programs implemented over the past decade by the Japanese government to boost fertility are briefly described, together with their limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fertility in Taiwan had declined to replacement level in 1983. In 1986–1997, the total fertility rate dropped to 1.7–1.8, with continuing decreases observed in 1997–2001. Fertility will probably be sustained at the 2001 level of 1.48 or even decline further in the future. If the current fertility and labour-force participation rates persist, the size of the labour force will increase only slightly in the next 15 years and begin to shrink soon after 2015. After 2034, the labour force will fall below the current level and Taiwan will face a labour shortage. Though efficient, the policy option of importing more foreign workers is fraught with political sensitivities, especially given the current economic downturn and rising unemployment. Another policy approach, to increase the participation rates for women and mature men, would lead to growth in the labour supply sometime after 2030 and, combined with a modest increase in fertility, would prevent the labour force from falling below its current size in the next 50 years. Notwithstanding that any increase in fertility will have a delayed effect on labour supply, strong incentives are still required to affect fertility behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some consequences of rapid changes in contraceptive use, fertility and mortality in Indonesia. An examination of demographic trends over four decades reveals a behavioural disjuncture, with implications for diagnoses of social problems arising from changing family structures, and for policy prescriptions to overcome these problems. One important issue not revealed by statistics representing average behaviour is the way in which lower fertility implies a change in the distribution of women between mothers and the childless, and between mothers with very small numbers of children and those who more than reproduce themselves. To the degree that these distributions reflect the emergence of new social roles that are a function of reproductive status, any efforts to prevent fertility from going to the very low levels typical of Europe and many countries of East Asia imply the need to address the core nature of new roles adopted by Indonesian women. Looking to the future of childbearing in Indonesia, the emergence of low fertility seems to be bringing the nation to a crossroads: will increasing numbers of women adopt no-fertility roles that preclude childbearing; or will patterns of near-universal marriage be maintained, with the bulk of women becoming mothers of very small numbers of children? Convincing evidence to answer these questions is likely to emerge only in the next decade, but this paper presents some speculations that suggest the answers may be very surprising to the current generation of policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although 10 countries and two of China’s special administrative areas, totalling 1,528 million people or 44 per cent of Asia’s total population, are now characterized by fertility rates below long-term replacement levels, no such countries are yet found in South Asia. This paper first examines the characteristics of 12 Asian administrations with very low fertility at various stages of their fertility declines and then compares the findings with the present situation in three South Asian countries, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. This allows a prediction of when the South Asian countries will reach replacement fertility in accord with the trends in two key criteria, the percentage of girls in secondary school and the infant mortality rate. These conclusions are then buttressed for each country by the findings of anthropological demographic research programs in which the authors were involved. The predictions are that all three countries will attain a total fertility rate of 2.1 within the next 30 years and that the UN 2000 Revision of the medium population projection is plausible in that regard. However, the authors part company with the UN projection in their assessment that the nature of these societies means that they will all subsequently fall to still lower fertility levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]