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Historical trends in U.S. nonmarital fertility have been compiled almost exclusively from vital statistics on births. This paper complements this historical record by providing cohort estimates of nonmarital fertility for cohorts of U.S. women spanning approximately 50 years of cohort experience. Life table estimates using retrospective marital and fertility histories in the June 1980, 1985, 1990, and 1995 Current Population Surveys reveal nonnegligible levels of nonmarital fertility historically. For women born between 1925 and 1929, nearly 1 in 10 had at least one nonmarital birth by age 30. For women born between 1965 and 1969, more than 1 of 4 had one or more nonmarital births by age 30, with roughly 1 of 5 white, 3 of 5 black, and 1 in 3 Hispanic women having at least one nonmarital birth by age 30. Life table estimates reveal a twofold increase between ages 20 and 30 in the percentage of women with at least one child outside o f formal marriage for all cohorts of white and Hispanic women, and an increase of roughly two-thirds for all cohorts of black women. I also document qualitative differences in nonmarital fertility by race/ethnicity, with the percentage of nonmarital births following a divorce or marital separation for white women approximately twice that for black or Hispanic women. Finally, I introduce a new measure, the cohort nonmarital fertility ratio (CNMFR), which provides a cohort complement to the standard period nonmarital fertility ratio. Conservative estimates reveal a roughly threefold increase in the CNMFR for women born from 1925-1929 to 1950-1954for both whites and blacks, despite substantially higher levels of nonmarital fertility among black women. Overall, these findings reveal surprisingly high levels of nonmarital fertility for women born since the 1920s and confirm that nonmarital fertility has become an increasingly substantial component of overall U.S. fertility.

Introduction The Senegal Demographic and Health Survey 2005, or Enquete Ddmographique et de Sante Senegal 2005 (EDS-IV), was conducted by the Centre de Recherche pour le Developpement Humain on behalf [...]

Introduction The Guinea Demographic and Health Survey 2005, or Enquete Demographique et de Sante Guinee (EDSG-III), was conducted by the Direction Nationale de la Statistique, with technical assistance from ORC [...]

Analysis of German Family Survey is done to find out factors in fertility motivation with respect to educational level and value of children. The analysis reveals that there is no support for interrelation between educational level and birth rate of first child as promoted by opportunity cost hypothesis.

The role of natural intentions in the reproductive management based on the demographic consequences is described with the help of a study on African population. The causes of decline in fertility among the African populations are the changing fertility intentions due to the availability of contraceptives and pathological sterility.

This article explores the implications of the recent trends and projections of the ethnic or foreign-origin populations of selected European countries. It suggests that if the composition of these European [...]

We present a new, broadly applicable approach to summarizing the behavior of a cohort as it moves through a variety of statuses (or states). The approach is based on the assumption that all rates of transfer maintain a constant ratio to one another over age. We present closed-form expressions for the size and state composition of the cohort at every age and provide expressions for other useful summary measures. The state trajectories, or life course schematics, depict all the possible size and state configurations that the cohort can exhibit over its life course under the specified pattern of transfer rates. The two living state case and hierarchical multistate models with any number of living states are analyzed in detail. Applying our approach to 1997 U.S. fertility data, we find that observed rates of parity progression are roughly proportional over age. Our proportional transfer rate approach provides trajectories by parity state and facilitates analyses of the implications of changes in parity rate levels and patterns. More women complete childbearing at parity 2 than at any other parity, and parity 2 would be the modal parity in models with total fertility rates (TFRs) of 1.40 to 2.61. Increases in parity progression rates to parities 4 and above have little effect on a cohort's TFR, while changes in childlessness have a substantial impact.

CONTEXT: One of Lesotho's population goals is to achieve replacement-level fertility by 2011, but the contraceptive prevalence rate of 41% is considerably below the target of 70-75%. METHODS: A situation [...]

Nearly half of the world's population in 2000 lived in countries with fertility rates at or below replacement level, and nearly all countries will reach low fertility levels in the next two decades. Concerns about low fertility, fertility that is well below replacement, are widespread. But there are both persistent rationales for having children and institutional adjustments that can make the widespread intentions for two children attainable, even in increasingly individualistic and egalitarian societies.

In this article, I rely on new estimates of nineteenth-century mortality and the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series to construct new estimates of white fertility in the nineteenth-century United States. Unlike previous estimates that showed a long-term decline in overall fertility beginning at or before the turn of the nineteenth century, the new estimates suggest that U.S. fertility did not begin its secular decline until circa 1840. Moreover, new estimates of white marital fertility, based on 'own-children' methods, suggest that the decline in marital fertility did not begin in the nation as a whole until after the Civil War (1861-1865).

The influence of economic factors upon child bearing in the US is discussed.

HIV-related sub-fertility has been reported for those populations in sub-Saharan Africa in which contraceptive use is low. We use data from a retrospective survey in rural Zimbabwe and multivariate logistic regression models to show that recent birth rates and current pregnancy rates are also lower among HIV-positive women than among HIV-negative women in those African populations where contraceptive use is high. The fertility reduction is smaller than where contraceptive use is low because age at first sexual intercourse is later and birth rates at older ages are already low. Nevertheless, total fertility is approximately 8.5 per cent lower and HIV-associated sub-fertility may account for as much as one-quarter of fertility decline in Zimbabwe since the late 1980s. Mechanisms for HIV-associated sub-fertility in rural Zimbabwe include more frequent widowhood and divorce, reduced coital frequency, increased amenorrhoea, and possibly, pelvic inflammatory disease. Miscarriage appears to be a less important factor than elsewhere possibly because syphilis is rare. Keywords: HIV; AIDS; fertility decline; sub-fertility; Zimbabwe; sub-Saharan Africa

Cervical mucus hydration increases during the fertile interval before ovulation. Because sperm can only penetrate mucus having a high water content, cervical secretions provide a reliable marker of the fertile days of the menstrual cycle. This article develops a Bayesian approach for modeling of daily observations of cervical mucus and applies the approach to assess heterogeneity among women and cycles from a given woman with respect to the increase in mucus hydration during the fertile interval. The proposed model relates the mucus observations to an underlying normal mucus hydration score, which varies relative to a peak hydration day. Uncertainty in the timing of the peak is accounted for, and a novel weighted mixture model is used to characterize heterogeneity in distinct features of the underlying mean function. Prior information on the mucus hydration trajectory is incorporated, and a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach is developed. Based on data from a study of daily fecundability, there appears to be s ubstantial heterogeneity among women in detected preovulatory increases in mucus hydration, but only minimal differences among cycles from a given woman. KEY WORDS: Fertility awareness; Growth curve; Hierarchical model; Latent variables; Natural family planning; Ovulation method.

The authors respond to Philip Huang's interpretations of their work on Chinese demographic history. An analysis of mortality statistics, low fertility and kinship adoption rates is presented.

The fertility decline over the last 30 years (see de Vaus elsewhere in this issue) has gone hand in hand with sharp changes in marriage patterns. While marriage and children [...]

The author examines the effect of ambient temperature and latitude in human fertility. Topics also discussed include birth control use, birth rates, and the impact of literacy levels and social controls.

In this paper we study the implications of state pension plan reform on fertility and on growth. We extend the Grossman and Yanagawa endogenous growth framework by incorporating altruism, making fertility endogenous. We investigate the effect on long-run growth of a switch from a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension system to a fully funded system. We show that a PAYG pension system is associated with a lower fertility rate than a fully funded system. This lower fertility in turn increases the rate of growth. Hence, switching from a PAYG system to a fully funded system may be harmful, especially for developing countries in which limited resources are heavily stressed by high fertility rates. In addition, we propose a hypothetical pension system, the saving subsidy programme (SSP), which would yield a higher growth rate than the PAYG system. The SSP consists of a minimum benefit level for each retired and of a subsidy to private savings.

An integrated framework is developed for analyzing infant mortality. Mothers' health, fertility, sanitary and housing conditions, female employment levels, food suppliers are quantified for a large sample of towns, c. 1860-1905. The relationship between family size, fertility, and infant mortality is analyzed. The results suggest that the health of mothers, especially their resistance to disease, played a strong role in the differences in infant mortality across socio-economic groupings and in its decline. The framework developed can account for the large long term trend decline in (non-diarrhoea) infant mortality in textile towns and the modest decline in mining areas, with rural areas coming midway.

This article discusses the demography and population growth of ancient Italy. Topics include an analysis of mortality and fertility rates, migration, war, disease, and family history.

Objective. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Mexican immigrants' fertility relates to duration of residence in the U.S. and compares to U.S.-born women of Mexican origin. I specifically look for evidence of selectivity, disruption, and assimilation effects. Methods. Using the birth and life histories available from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, I present descriptive statistics of the two groups, compare their age-specific fertility rates, and analyze women's transitions to first, second, and third births using proportional hazard methods, with a focus on the effects of five categories of durations of stay in the U.S. (premigration, 0-2 years, 2-7 years, 7-15 years, and 15+). Results. The results lend evidence to all major hypotheses of immigrant fertility. Mexican immigrant women seem selective at the time of migration in ways likely to affect the relationship between immigration and fertility. The hypothesis that women's fertility is depressed in the years immediately following migrati on receives some support, particularly among women in the transition to a third birth. The evidence also lends support to an assimilation perspective, though again important exceptions emerge. Assimilation effects appear in the transitions to first and second births but weakly in the analysis of the third birth, and there is limited evidence of possible 'downward' fertility assimilation among adolescent immigrants. Conclusions. This analysis highlights how the major perspectives on immigrant fertility are not mutually exclusive and indicates that for Mexican immigrants, women's parity conditions the way immigration and fertility interact., Introduction Mexican immigrant women in the U.S. average more children during their lifetime than most other immigrant and native-born groups, and have done so for decades (Bustamente et al., 1998; [...]

For about 30 years North Vietnam has had mortality and fertility rates near the world median, and a per capita income among the world's lowest. Figure 1 shows comparative data [...]

Since 1970 California has been the prime destination of the high numbers of both legal and illegal U.S. entrants. Fertility consequences have been dramatic. Births to U.S.-born women, after the decline in the 1970s and mild rebound in the 1980s, neared the 1970 level of 325,000. Yet total births rose from 360,000 to 600,000 in 1992. White non-Hispanic women bore nearly 70% of births in 1970 but 38% in 1992; Hispanic women, 20% in 1970 and 44% in 1992; others (primarily Asian ancestry), 3% and 10% respectively; and blacks, 9% and 7.5%. In the same period the proportion of births to U.S. natives fell from 89% to 56%; that to Mexican nationals rose from 7% to 27% (a six-fold increase absolutely); and that to women of all other birthplaces rose from 3% to 18%. Filipino women (the second largest category of foreign-born women) have borne 2% of all births since 1980. The increase in Mexican-born mothers was especially sharp after 1985, while the estimated Hispanic TFR rose 30% to 3.5 children per woman. In 1992 California's TFR was 2.42 - 18% above the U.S. average. In 1970 nearly 95% of teen mothers were U.S.-born, and 20% were Hispanic. In 1992, 61% of teen mothers were U.S. nationals; 60% were Hispanic, over half of them Mexican-born. The large increase in births in the 1980s, especially those to cultures supporting early childbearing, presages a sharp increase in births beginning in 2000. Meanwhile, the 5 years' median schooling of Mexican migrants has resulted in a parallel decline in parental education. Given the positive correlation of parental education and school achievement and attainment, California can expect a decline in the latter and hence lower labor productivity, incomes, and tax revenues by the young adults of the twenty-first century.

This paper provides new information about the decline in southern fertility that occurred between 1910 and 1940. Two objectives guide the investigation. The first is to determine the contribution of shifting marriage patterns and altered marital childbearing to the overall change in fertility that occurred between 1910 and 1940. The second is to estimate the influence of a variety of structural changes on shifts in marriage patterns and marital fertility. Methods. Unlike most previous studies this analysis focuses specifically on fertility change, rather than static cross-sectional differences across geographic areas. Fertility change and structural change are measured for state economic areas (SEAs) within the South. Results. The findings show that southern fertility fell mainly because of a reduced pace of childbearing by married couples, rather than less exposure to marital fertility. Further, marital fertility decline was sharper in areas that experienced larger reductions in the number of farms per capita, and greater increases in education and manufacturing activity. Marriage became less common in SEAs that saw growth in manufacturing opportunities. Conclusions. Support for demand theories of fertility decline is inferred from the findings. However, the possible contribution of nonstructural forces to southern fertility decline is also acknowledged.

Data from the 1980, 1985, and 1990 Current Population Surveys for fertility trends show overall levels of stability in American fertility patterns and delayed childbearing. Women with low levels of education continue to have children at young ages, while those with college degrees bear children after 30 years of age. These changes are associated with changes in childrearing behavior, and occupational and educational expectations and achievements of women. The trend extends to all groups, irrespective of their racial, parity or marital status.

India has entered a demographic transition, its fertility and mortality rates decreasing, due to improved health care, urbanization, industrialization, improved education and status of women, later marriage, use of contraceptives, and the improved economy. In spite of these decreases, India's population will rise above one billion by 2001, which indicates the importance of reconstructing the family planning strategy. Migration is increasing, especially among the educated who cannot find jobs, but it will not slow the population increase.

This study attempts to determine the extent to which several hypotheses are able to account for the illegitimate fertility decline in England in the second half of the nineteenth century. The results of a pooled time-series analysis are consistent with the hypothesis that a rise in working-class prosperity accounts for much of the decline. Additional reasons for the decline, which cannot be ruled out with the data used in the analysis, include the diffusion of knowledge and the acceptability of contraceptive methods and a decline in agricultural employment., At about the same time as marital fertility declined, illegitimate fertility also declined in much of nineteenth-century Europe. However, in comparison with the marital fertility decline, there are relatively few [...]

A key question in population control is whether high fertility is culturally mandatory or the result of insufficient availability of family planning services. This question is discussed using Kenya, one of the few African countries where fertility has gone down. Results are inconclusive. While the Kenyan situation may provide some reason for confidence in the future of population control, most Kenyan women have more than five children during their lives. Whether Kenyan women will lower their fertility when children provide security during old age is an open question.

There are grounds for reconsidering the United Nations' population projections for Peru. These projections assume that fertility will continue to decline after 1990 in a smooth and uninterrupted manner, but they ignore several factors related to recovery from the economic and political crises of the 1980s that could significantly alter the pace of decline. The alternative projections we present consider the possibility that Peru's fertility decline will temporarily slow. This alternative hypothesis is conservative in the sense that increases in birth rates are not anticipated, but substantial differences in population size and age structure materialize nonetheless. Moreover, these differences have important implications for future planning in terms of the number of children needing primary health care and education and the number of young adults seeking first-time employment.

Analysis of the fertility decline in Bulgaria shows that the perception of Bulgaria as an 'anomaly' in terms of its demographic development is based on a conservative interpretation of the demographic transition theory. The features that distinguish Bulgaria from the western European countries (faster decline, persistence of early and universal marriages, etc.) are generally accounted for by the specific social, economic, cultural, and political conditions. These findings suggest that the speed of the fertility decline and the means through which it is achieved are affected by a complex interaction between cultural and economic factors that are often difficult to distinguish in terms of primacy., Bulgaria has long been perceived as a peculiar case in terms of its demographic development. In the second volume of The Balance of Births and Deaths, Robert Kuczynski noted that [...]