Women's Labor, Fertility, and the Introduction of Modern Technology in a Rural Maya Village

The introduction of mechanized technology into a rural Maya agricultural community in the mid 1970s markedly increased the technology with which maize could be ground and water collected, which in turn introduced a possible savings in the time spent working. This study investigated the response of female fertility to the introduction of this labor-saving technology. Using two proximate determinants of female fertility, the association between the advent of modern technology and changes in the age at which women give birth to their first child and the length of mothers' birth intervals was examined. Analyses showed that women begin their reproductive careers at a younger age after the laborsaving technology was introduced. Estimate of the median age at first birth from the distribution function dropped from 21.2 years before the introduction to 19.5 years after the introduction of the technology. In addition, modeling results show that the probability of a woman giving birth to her first child doubles for any age after the introduction of laborsaving technology. However, changes in birth intervals are less conclusive since the differences of smoothed probability distributions are not significant. Moreover, findings indicate that women who initiate reproduction at a younger age can potentially have longer reproductive careers and larger families.