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The article comments on a previous article related to fertility crisis in modern societies that appeared in the March 2004 issue of the journal Population Studies. Social researchers Francesco Billari, Tomas Frejka, John Hobcraft, Miloslav Macura and Dirk J. van de Kaa broadly endorse authors' paper, while adding valuable supplementary and complementary material. Authors concur with most of the regional and technical elaborations they propose. However, authors take issue with some of the points raised by van de Kaa and Hobcraft, most of which refer to authors' article. Authors assume that no one regards the Western demographic transition over the last century or two as being independent of the Industrial Revolution, as being something that would have happened if incomes had stayed at eighteenth-century levels. If the world passes, in little more than two centuries, from being one of high fertility with a potential for rapid growth as mortality falls, to one where global population is declining then researchers who do not seek overarching explanations may be little heeded.

This paper addresses the emerging interest in the relationship between homeostatic models and demographic transition theory. Firstly, it considers the nature of fertility measurement and concepts. The paper then goes on to examine evidence from pre-transitional societies in which demographic regimes have been most thoroughly studied, summarizing what is known about their character. The nature and current status of homeostatic theories in demography and the institutional supports of pre-transitional regimes are considered. The implications of the findings on pre-transitional populations for transition theory are then discussed. The paper concludes with suggestions for ways in which studies of transition within a framework of homeostatic regimes could be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception in 1974, the South African family planning programme has been widely believed to be linked with white fears of growing black numbers. The programme has been repeatedly attacked by detractors as a programme of social and political control. Yet, in spite of the hostile environment, black women's use of services has steadily increased. Using historical and anthropological evidence, this paper delineates the links between the social and political context of racial domination and individual fertility behaviour. It is argued that the quantitative success of the family planning programme is rooted in social and economic shifts conditioning reproductive authority and fertility decision-making. State policies of racial segregation and influx control, ethnic 'homeland' politics, and labour migration of men transformed opportunities and constraints for black women and men, and altered local and household expectations of childbearing. Women came to manage their own fertility as they increasingly found themselves in precarious social and economic circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the demographic transition upon the potential supply of, and demand for, family support for the aged in Australia. Using census and survey information on population cohorts entering old age, comparisons are drawn concerning their surviving issue, household composition and family membership. Long-term changes in fertility are shown to have had only a small impact upon the supply of potential carers among relatives and, although the demographic transition has led to a more universal inclusion of old people in family networks, there have not been major changes through time in the proportions living in extended family households. Short-term changes, however, such as low fertility during the 1930s, have caused disordered cohort flow, with the result that current generations of the elderly are members of deprived cohorts in terms of their access to family support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the reply of the author and co-authors to an article about the analysis of differences in the fertility patterns between national populations and over time. In their comments to our paper Osona and Kohler make a number of interesting and potentially helpful points. While their comments do not, in general, appear to be in conflict with our opinions, we are concerned that they have misunderstood one specific point. In their first section, on the analytical relationship between Hadwiger parameters and demographic measures, the authors re-present some known results. Those results, of course, were not the essential point of our paper, which was concerned primarily with the analysis of differences in fertility patterns. The functions were fitted in order to gain understanding of the differences in the patterns between countries and periods. The correspondences between variables to which they refer were used in order to investigate the effects of departures from the models in cases of distorted distributions. In their section dealing with reparameterization the authors propose an alternative to our presentation of the Hadwiger mixture model. Their explicit interpretation of the Hadwiger parameters as the total fertility, the mean age at childbearing, and the variance of the fertility schedule is possibly a step forward for the use of the model in demography.

Between 1920 and 1940, fertility dropped below replacement level in many Western countries. In today's scholarly literature, the drop is usually explained as a temporary reaction to the exceptional conditions of the inter-war period. This paper confronts that interpretation with the interpretations offered by scholars writing between the wars. According to leading demographers of the time, low fertility was due not to war or economic crisis, but rather to processes that now tend to be associated with the Second Demographic Transition, including secularization, individualization, rising consumerism, and women's emancipation. Since these were seen as structural features of modernization, most inter-war scholars argued that subreplacement fertility would remain an obstinate feature of modern society for an extended period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inadequate data and apartheid policies have meant that, until recently, most demographers have not had the opportunity to investigate the level of, and trend in, the fertility of South African women. The 1996 South Africa Census and the 1998 Demographic and Health Survey provide the first widely available and nationally representative demographic data on South Africa since 1970. Using these data, this paper describes the South African fertility decline from 1955 to 1996. Having identified and adjusted for several errors in the 1996 Census data, the paper argues that total fertility at that time was 3.2 children per woman nationally, and 3.5 children per woman for African South Africans. These levels are lower than in any other sub-Saharan African country. We show also that fertility in South Africa has been falling since the 1960s. Thus, fertility transition predates the establishment of a family planning programme in the country in 1974. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, Albania had the highest fertility in Europe with an average of more than six live births per woman. However when Albania emerged from behind the 'olive curtain' in 1990, fertility had fallen to three children per woman, despite a pro-natalist environment and in the virtual 'absence of Contraception and abortion. Nevertheless, after five decades, Albania's position at the top of the European fertility league remains unchanged. This paper documents the fertility transition in Albania during the period 1950-90 and places the demographic results in the context of recent socioeconomic and cultural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews and interprets recent demographic trends and prospects in the two Irelands, North and South. We discuss both the influence of religion on demographic behaviour, and the impact of demographic trends on the distribution by religion. In the Republic of Ireland, we show that the long-standing gap in marital fertility between Catholics and others had virtually disappeared by the 1980s. In Northern Ireland the gap is still there in the 1990s, though considerably reduced. However, estimates of its size hinge on how the significant proportion of non-respondents to the census question on religion are allocated. We identify some peculiarities of the non-respondent population which imply that it was more `Catholic' in 1991 than first reports suggested. The Catholic share of Northern Ireland's population may accordingly be larger -42 to 43 per cent - than previously thought. In both communities, the future of the Catholic share depends less on fertility than on migration patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the development of the population of the Gourma in Northern Mali from the beginning of this century to the present. As part of Northern Sahel, the area has been hard-hit by at least four droughts this century and is among the least developed in Mali. The data used include the available population censuses, colonial records and recent survey research. The droughts of 1973 and 1984 may have increased child mortality, but the most important effects may have been short-term reductions in fertility, as well as increased migration. While approximately 30 per cent of adult men are absent, the overall picture of migration is much more complex than simply one of emigration, as migration into the Gourma and internal redistribution of population also play an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper growth rates, marriage patterns, fertility, mortality, population composition and urbanization in England and her American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are compared. The purpose is to see whether the colonists perpetuated English demographic patterns in the New World, or whether new environments led to new behaviour. The results are derived from numerous local studies, often based on family reconstitution. Taking into account regional variations in America, colonial demographic patterns were quite different from those in the mother country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the widely held and influential view that the fertility transition is largely the consequence of changing parental demand for children brought about by changes in the economic costs and benefits entailed in childbearing. Using evidence from both historical and contemporary populations we argue that demand theories do not offer a plausible explanation of the fertility transition. Instead, we propose that ideational, rather than structural, economic change lies at the heart of the transition. In particular, we suggest that attitudes to birth control, broadly defined, play a crucial role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stable population theory has recently been used to analyse the effects of changes in fertility and mortality on economic variables such as income per head. In this paper more general results are derived to describe the effects of changing vital rates on the variance and higher moments of the distribution of some age-dependent variable. Simple analytical expressions are derived which decompose the effects of changes in age structure into the effects on inter-cohort and intra-cohort variance. The results are easily applied to standard measures of the distribution of income. By combining the analytical results with actual age profiles of income and income variance from the United States and Brazil it is observed that both the magnitude and direction of the effects of population growth on measured inequality are sensitive to the specific age profiles used. The most surprising result is that the Brazilian age profiles suggest that higher growth rates may actually reduce measured inequality, although the effect is relatively small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because the types and quantities of goods and services consumed vary by age anti because a transition to a stationary population signifies for most countries a marked shift in age structure, it is commonly believed that a trend toward a stationary population would affect the pattern of consumer demand. Analysing time series data from the United States from 1929 to 1970 anti then Projecting consumption patterns to the year 2020 on the basis of two alternative fertility assumptions (an average of two children versus three children per family), this paper finds little difference in the allocation of consumer purchases between the two projections. While the more Slowly growing population is an older population. it is at the same time wealthier: and those goods and services that an older population would tend to acquire relatively more of are essentially the same as those on which a wealthier population would spend proportionately less, and vica versa. These two effects are largely offsetting. Only eleven categories of consumption expenditure are examined, and it is possible that a more detailed analysis would disclose changes that are hidden by the current level of aggregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population momentum is the ratio of a population's ultimate size after a demographic transition to its initial size before the transition. For an instantaneous drop to replacement fertility, Nathan Keyfitz found a simple expression MK for the momentum. However, as Keyfitz pointed out, 'no one thinks that any country will drop immediately to stationary reproduction patterns'. We present results concerning the momentum of a population whose demographic transition is completed within a finite time. First, we provide an exact analytical formula for such a population's momentum. Second, for rapid fertility transitions, we obtain a simple exact expression for momentum that reduces to Keyfitz's MK if the transition is instantaneous. We show, by example, that our simpler formulae are accurate approximations to population momentum for transitions that take as long as 100 years. Finally, we show that the speed of fertility decline makes a substantial difference to population momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A population's growth potential is significantly underestimated by conventional calculations of population momentum which assume an immediate drop to replacement level fertility. Here we assume that the growth rate of births linearly declines to zero over a specified time interval, and find simple and intuitively meaningful expressions for the size of the ultimate birth cohort and the resultant population momentum. In particular, we find that the increase in the number of births over the transition is equal to growth at the initial rate for half the time needed to attain a constant birth level. Thus our formula readily calculates the growth potential of a population under a gradual approach to stationarity without the need for a numerical projection. Calculations for actual and hypothetical populations are presented to show the demographic impact of such gradual approaches to zero growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The population decline of the Parsis of India has been the subject of a number of demographic studies. While descriptive statistical accounts provide some clues about the causes of the decline, they fail to assess systematically the cultural and historical factors that are basic for the decline. This paper identifies the relative roles of low nuptiality, low fertility, emigration, and intermarriage in that decline, and the particular aspects of Parsi cultural values and historical experiences that account for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the importance of the effect of an individual's web of informal relationships with family and peers on the intention to have a second or third child. Drawing on sociological theories of social capital (help with childcare, emotional support) and social pressure, the study extends existing research by evaluating cross-national differences (between France, Germany, and Bulgaria) in the impact of personal network and institutional circumstances. It tests a non-linear relationship between social capital and fertility intentions. Social pressure and social capital are highly institutionally filtered, with the impact of personal network stronger where institutions are less family-supportive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative research on the preferred sex of children in Western societies has generally focused on women only and ignored the role of gender equity and the need for children's economic support in old age. A multilevel analysis extends existing research by examining, for both men and women and across 24 European countries, the effect of the preferred sex-composition of offspring on whether parents have or intend to have a third child. Using the European Social Survey (2004/5), a multilevel (random coefficient) ordered logit regression of that intention (N=3,323) and a binary logistic multilevel model of the transition to a third child (N=6,502) demonstrate the presence of a mixed-sex preference. In countries with a high risk of poverty in old age, a preference for sons is found, particularly for men. In societies where there is lower gender equity, both men and women have a significant preference for boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standardized rate of third births declined by over 50 percent in Austria between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s. The third birth was also postponed gradually over the years until 1991-92, after which the tempo of childbearing suddenly increased in response to a change in the parental-leave policy. This new policy inadvertently favoured women who had their second or subsequent child shortly after their previous one. We cannot find any indication that the general decline in third births can be seen as a consequence of women's increasing independence from their husbands at the stage in life we study. Furthermore, it still seems to be more difficult to combine motherhood and labour-force participation in Austria than in Sweden, which is a leader in reducing this incompatibility. These developments reflect the tension between advancing gender equality and the dominance of traditional norms in Austria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the demographic transition in Thailand, fertility was high, but not uniformly so. As in other pre-transition settings, Thai fertility responded to pressures and opportunities created by socioeconomic structure and land availability. Drawing upon provincial data from the 1947 and 1960 censuses of Thailand, we find a strong 'frontier effect' on Thai fertility in the 1950s. Fertility was higher in sparsely settled frontier provinces and lower in provinces with higher population density relative to cultivatable land. This finding is robust and holds up with controls for agricultural employment, land quality, and the sex ratio (an indicator of sex-selective migration). The effect of population pressure lowers the likelihood of marriage and of marital fertility. The findings from Thailand are consistent with the research of Easterlin on the nineteenth century United States and with other pre-transition societies. We suggest how demographic transition theory might be broadened to include fertility dynamics in pre-transition societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inadequate nutrition of both the mother and her offspring at each stage of its development - before pregnancy, in the womb, in infancy and during early childhood - played an important role in the patterns of subfertility and infant mortality in a saturated, marginal, preindustrial community. It is suggested that the three social classes had different diets but all were deficient in some essential constituents. Differences in nursing practices in the social groups contributed to differential exogenous mortality and to malnourishment and maternal depletion in the subsistence and (paradoxically) in the elite classes, producing an interacting web of effects and generating a vicious circle from which they could not escape for 150 years. Although the population apparently preferred daughters, the persistent generation effect of low birthweight girls bearing low birthweight daughters probably contributed to the steady-state conditions in this compromised community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I argue that pre-transitional natural fertility was sometimes controlled through birth-spacing, and that coitus interruptus was probably an important means of such control. First, the motivation for spacing was often strong, although not necessarily associated with a desire for family limitation; and control throughout much harder to detect than a parity-dependent deceleration of the role of only bearable has been identified unequivocally in some pre-transitional and transitional populations. Secondly, coitus interruptus is reasonably effective and harmonizes with ancient and persistent notions of reproductive physiology: and evidence for its use comes both from statements of criticism and advocacy, and from a rich set of metaphors and empiricisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the article "Birth Intervals, Gestational Age, and Low Birth Weight. Are the Relationships Confounded?" by James Gribble published in the March 1993 issue of this journal. Gribble found no evidence in his analysis that gestation affected the relationship between birth intervals and low birthweight of the Mexican data, and from this he concluded that while confounding by prematurity may affect developed countries, it may not be relevant in less developed countries. Regression analysis of the Swedish and Hungarian data showed that this definitional excess of pre-term births may be responsible for between 65 and 90 per cent of the excess early neonatal mortality observed among children born within 12 months of a sibling and 40 to 50 per cent when birth intervals of less than 24 months are grouped together. Collection of data on gestation length is widely recognized to be problematic, even when ante-natal care is obtained early in pregnancy by the majority of women in the population studied. A pregnancy is conventionally assumed to begin at the date of the woman's last normal menstrual period.

This report describes a study of the fertility experience of an Amazon Indian tribe that has shown evidence of having the highest documented fertility of any human group. The Shipibo, who live in the upper Peruvian Amazon, are experiencing rapid cultural change, including a decline in the prevalence of polygyny. This study tests the specific hypotheses that polygyny limits individual female and community fertility through the mechanism of post partum sexual abstinence and longer birth intervals. Total population counts in eight villages and reproductive histories of all females age 13 + show that mean birth interval lengths of polygynous women are four months longer than those of monogamous women. Fertility of polygynous women was lower, with 1.3 fewer term-births per reproductive span than that of monogamous women. The community general fertility rate is negatively associated with the proportion of polygynous birth intervals in the community. In this study, cultural change is strongly associated with higher fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to demonstrate the dependence of fertility decline in the Third World on radical change have often depended on simplistic statistical analyses. Here some of the data used to explore the relationship between fertility, and land size and ownership, are re-examined. It is concluded that the land-fertility hypotheses of Stokes and Schutjer are not supported by the evidence, but that such analyses are inherently inconclusive and ambiguous. Instead, an understanding of the wider institutional context is called for. The Population Establishment - foreign and international donors supporting population programmes and research - recruits an intelligentsia to validate its activities. The philosophy of this intelligentsia is examined and rejected through an analysis of ideas it derives from the World Fertility Survey and the Matlab family planning project. It is concluded that the Establishment perpetuates rapid population growth by legitimizing unpopular and elitist governments, and by misleading them to believe that fertility decline can, indeed, occur in a political economy of inequality and injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the trends of human fertility rates in migrants and non-migrants in Thailand. The rising levels of urbanization and increasing concentration of population in big cities due to migration from rural areas has imparted effect on fertility patterns. Thailand had experienced highest growth rate of population with rapidly changing demographic situation. But it experienced a decline in fertility by 1970s. The fertility was found to be lower for migrants than for non-migrants, and it was particularly the feature of migrants to Bangkok. The reasons for lower rate of childbirth in migrants are found in acculturation to life in a new environment and the stress of adaptation.

A model for forecasting fertility is proposed in which an attempt is made to represent the cyclical fluctuations in fertility typical of developed societies. R. A. Easterlin has put forward the hypothesis that relative affluence, i.e. tension between material aspirations and resources, is an important determinant of fertility behaviour. Relative cohort size in turn affects relative affluence, because the size of a cohort influences its competitive position in the labour market. However, predictions based on relative cohort size alone neglect other sources of periodic fluctuations in fertility, such as those arising from generational cycles. A periodic component which expresses fertility variations as a direct function of time is, therefore, included in this model. A time series of age-specific fertility rates and population estimates for England and Wales and for Greater London is used to assess the relationship between fertility, relative cohort size, and the periodic time function. There is evidence of significant cyclic effects and some support for the Easterlin hypothesis in that the fertility of younger age groups is inversely related to the relative size of older cohorts. Projections are made of the future trend in total fertility assuming. a continuation of the observed relationship. Use of different assumed periodicities permits the generation of variant projections of fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]