The changing patterns of marriage and partnerships and their effects on fertility

Calcutta in West Bengal currently has the lowest TFR (1.2) in India. Our paper explores the reasons for this.
We are particularly interested in the recency of the phenomenon. Could this this extremely low fertility be the continuation and accentuation of a trend that has more historical roots?
We use a variety of direct and indirect methods to ask if certain groups in urban West Bengal had low fertility well before the advent of either an aggressive population policy or the socioeconomic changes that possibly explain the currently low fertility of younger women. If so, who are these low fertility women from the past? Preliminary analysis suggests that they belong to the highest socioeconomic groups. Secondly, we draw some conclusions from the unusually high levels of traditional contraception use in the state. Thirdly, we speculate about the motivations for the early fertility decline in these socioeconomic groups. We focus especially on the special status of Calcutta as the seat of colonial power. This encouraged the spread of western style education and propagated a new ideology of marriage in which women of the upper classes were to be seen as wives and companions rather than as housewives and mothers.

An attempt is made to study the levels and differentials of permanent childlessness and also to examine the role of childlessness in explaining the fertility differentials in India. The analysis has been done using third round of National Family Health Survey. The contribution of childlessness in determining the prevailing fertility of the India is further analyzed by computing average number of children ever born separately for all women and only women with at least one child. Results shows that level of childlessness is higher in urban women. The uneducated women and women educated but below secondary level (3.0 percent) reported relatively lower level of childlessness compared to women having secondary and higher level of education (4.0 percent). The non-rich women reported relatively lower (2.7 percent) level of childlessness compared to rich (3.2) women. Further, it is found that Southern region have a higher difference in mean CEB between the women with at least one child and all women as a whole than the Northern region. From the estimated figures, it can be concluded that higher levels of childlessness in the Southern region is virtually influencing the prevailing fertility levels. Thus, there is North–South dichotomy in the prevailing fertility levels because of the differential level of childlessness rates.

Polish society represents traditional family values with marriage remaining constantly the dominant form of a relationship. During last 30 years the number of marriages decreased which was accompanied by postponement of marriage, decreasing stability of relationships, enormous increase in the number of divorces and extra-marital births. Those signs provoke the discussion about reasons for such a change. Assuming that not only the objective determinants shape the process of union formation but the subjective attitudes as well, the goal of the study is to develop a set of distinctive perceptions of marriage characterized by the individual values associated with formal relationship. The explanatory method of latent class analysis was applied to distinguish attitudes towards marriage based on the subjective evaluation of incentives and socio-cultural norms attributed to marriage. The study was extended to test the expected changes in time as well as the influence of life’s experience i.e., experiencing formal relationship, having children, opinion on cohabitation, religiosity. As hypothesized, a map of distinct perceptions of marriage was created, including various traditional, modern and destandardized approaches. Expected age and life’s experience effects were confirmed, counter to expectations opposite effect of time was revealed

Urbanisation is occurring rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa and with it comes significant social change. Towns and cities are places where there are a myriad of social values and expectations placed upon relationships and childbearing; in this rapidly changing environment conjugal relationships become increasingly unstable, which is thought to increase women’s uncertainty about having children. Current evidence shows that reproductive uncertainty is associated with ambiguous fertility intentions and lengthening birth intervals. Using data from six focus group discussions conducted in two informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya, this research aims to explore the nature of relationships in an urban environment and how they impact upon the timing of births and the number of children women desire. Early results show that relationships are influenced by the environment of the informal settlement, in particular the high levels of financial insecurity. Changing gender roles, specifically increased economic participation amongst women, are altering the perceived costs of bearing children and leading to smaller desired family sizes and to longer birth intervals. In addition, there is pervasive relationship instability and lack of trust between partners which is having a significant influence over the timing of births within these communities

Western Africa is the second most populous region in Africa after Eastern Africa. Population Reference Bureau projects that by mid-2050 the population of Western Africa will increase from its current 313 million to 792 million. The region’s high population is associated with persistent high and stalling fertility. In contrast with other African regions, more than half of countries in Western Africa have Total Fertility Rate (TFR) above 5 children per woman. Many previous studies on fertility transition in Western Africa concentrated attention on access and use of contraceptives. This study presents preliminary results of investigation on trend and patterns of singlehood among women and its implication for fertility decline in Western Africa. The study proposed that as the rate of singlehood among women rises, with or without any significant increase in contraceptive use, fertility levels in West African countries will decline. Singlehood in this study is limited to never married women age 30 and above. Data were derived from Demographic and Health Surveys and Population Reference Bureau Data Sheet. Preliminary result of the investigation shows that countries with increased singlehood also have TFR that declined. Where singlehood fluctuated, TFR also fluctuated.

In this paper an attempt has been made to explore the impact of age, education and caste difference between spouse on the fertility and fertility intention. The dataset of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-III, 2005-2006) has been used for the present study. As a measure of fertility we have used children ever born and for the fertility intention we have used ideal family size and desire for additional child. Both bi-variate and multivariate techniques have been used for the analysis. This study reveals that age difference has negative effect on children ever born whereas education difference has a positive effect on children ever born. As compared to the couple who marry in same caste, children ever born are high in the couple with inter-caste marriage. Odds of having ideal family size upto 2 are increases with the age difference. Likelihood of reporting ideal family size upto 2 is 14 percent high in the couple where wife is from lower caste and 23 percent high in the couple where wife is from higher caste as compared to the couple where both are from same caste. Odds of desiring additional child are decreases with the increase in age difference. Educational difference between couple has positive effect on desire for additional child.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the transition of adolescent girls to first sexual intercourse is increasingly occurring before marriage. Yet sexual initiation and union formation continue to be analyzed separately, even though it is well-established that social and economic changes have simultaneously affected the timing of marriage and the context of sexual initiation in this region. In addition, most of the existing studies are plagued by the limitations of non-representative cross-sectional data, the only ones generally available. This paper fills this gap by using rich cross-sectional, retrospective data from nationally-representative surveys of adolescents. We analyze simultaneously the factors associated with sexual initiation before and within the first union for adolescent girls age 12-19 in four sub-Saharan African countries: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda. Within the framework of event history analysis, we describe the different patterns of sexual behavior among adolescent girls in these countries. We then analyze the factors that shape adolescents’ life-courses during their transition to adulthood by modeling sexual initiation before and within the first union in a competing risks framework. Findings show that parental control has the straightforward effect of delaying sexual initiation before the first union.

In Sri Lanka, during the past century, the female age at marriage increased almost by seven years from 18.3 years in 1901 to 25.5 years in 1993. Since then age at marriage of females demonstrated a significant decline - to low as 23.6 years in 2006-07. Along with the decline among the females age at marriage of males also shows a decline. The main objective of this paper is to explore the impact of this unexpected decline in age at marriage of both sexes, particularly females, on fertility change and implications in Sri Lanka. The study analyses data primarily from the Population Censuses and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHSs). The Bongaarts’s Decomposition Technique has been applied to investigate the impact of age at marriage on fertility increase. The analysis found that proportion of women married has significantly impact on the increase of fertility in Sri Lanka during the period of 2000 and 2006-07. The paper further discusses the relevant policy implications by emphasizing the importance of improving the knowledge of contraceptive use among youth and effectively implementing the existing law relating to age at marriage.

Entry into marriage and motherhood are subsequent important and natural trajectories of women’s life cycle. Early marriage for female and early childbirth is very widespread in Bangladesh but total fertility shows a decreasing pattern. Changes of age at first marriage (delayed) and age at first birth (at later ages) may be considered as important component of development process. Bangladesh has made slight progress in improving maternal and child health and also in lowering TFR but trends of age at marriage and age at first birth are not well documented. Understanding the trends of those ages and their variations would be helpful for explaining fertility and women’s status. Using data from BDHS-2007, this study uses univariate and bivariate analysis for four cohorts. Mean age at first marriage shows an increasing pattern. Age at first birth increased for women in cohort 1960 compare to women in cohort 1950 but it has been started to decrease for women in consecutive cohorts. For boosting overall age at marriage for female and age at birth in Bangladesh, it should be necessary to promote policies emphasizing women in rural areas and women with lower household wealth status and to support continuation of female’s education.

Marriage is an important social institution associated with the transition into adulthood and childbearing in many societies. Childbearing and marriage are inseparable yet, particularly in East Asia, and aging of childbearing is closely related to the postponement of marriage in this area. A body of literature suggests that women’s educational attainment plays an important role in the timing of first marriage and marriage rate. Despite widespread interest in low fertility, research on the postponement and recuperation of first marriage in low fertility context remains unexplored. The sustained increase in age at first marriage without much change in the proportion of never-married among older women implies that considerable proportion of delayed marriage is recuperated later in East Asia. With a series of Korean Census samples data, this study investigates the postponement and recuperation of first marriage in South Korea, one of the lowest-low fertility countries, and also examines how it differs across women’s educational levels. The result of this study provides evidence that the pattern of family formation is diverged by women’s educational levels in South Korea.