L5: Fertility Transitions and Drivers

**[L5: Fertility transitions and drivers]** - Key driver of demographic transitions (pop size, age structure) - Total Fertility Rate (TFR): average number of children each women would have (if those women conformed to the age-specific fertility rates) - Children Ever Born (CEB): wom...

**[L5: Fertility transitions and drivers]** - Key driver of demographic transitions (pop size, age structure) - Total Fertility Rate (TFR): average number of children each women would have (if those women conformed to the age-specific fertility rates) - Children Ever Born (CEB): women asked their age and no. of live births they've ever had (incl. those who have died since birth) - Strong correlation between fertility and contraceptive use (increased contraceptives = less children) - What drives fertility changes: - Non-contraceptive proximate determinants - Ideological change - Economic factors - The value of children - Intergenerational wealth flows - Bongaart's Proximate Determinants (1978): - Indirect determinants - Socio-economic - Cultural - Health - Environmental - Direct (proximate) determinants - Marriage/union patterns - Contraceptive use and effectiveness - Postpartum infecundability - Induced abortion - Frequency of sexual intercourse - Sterility - Coale's Preconditions to Fertility Decline (1973): - Precondition to fertility decline: people must be ready, willing and able - Ready: new fertility behaviour is advantageous - Willing: new behaviour is ethically acceptable - Able: effective techniques are available - Caldwell's Intergenerational Wealth Flows Theory (1976): - Fertility is high if children are economically useful to paretns and low when they are not - When wealth flows change, so does direction of fertility - Lesthaeghe's "Ideational Shift" (1983): - Shift from welfare of the collective to welfare of the individual - Welfare of nuclear family before welfare of extended family - Quality of children over quantity of children - Socio-economic factors which have reduced TFR: - Increased female education - Postponement of marriage and maternity - Empowerment - Adoption of western life-style/desire for fewer children - Modern contraception -- understanding and effectiveness - Well-schooled couples - Emphasis on educate children - Cultural factors that enforce increased TFR: - Preservation of lineage - Reincarnation of ancestors - Parental expectations and power - Marriage patterns - Early marriage - Polygyny - Unequal power in sexual relationships