Fertility intentions over time

Mothering in Japanese society is very important. Mothers are expected to raise and educate children in a society valuing harmony and regularities. They tend to see themselves more as mothers than individuals once they have a child, which is said to contribute to lower labor force participation rates. This paper examines the meaning and significance of mothering in Japan and explores how mothering is internalized. In particular, it focuses on the practice of parent-child co-sleeping, which is common in the child-centered Japanese family. The practice is so instilled that it is unquestioned and, hence, has rarely received academic attention. However, in light of current demographic conditions that promote higher female labor force participation, this sleeping arrangement should be critically examined. Data for this paper were collected via focus group discussions involving 36 participants (both males and females) living in Tokyo. Findings show that participants value mothering because it is how they were raised. The high mothering standard is, in part, deterring women not only from continuing to work, but also ironically, from deciding to become a mother or have multiple children.

In the U.S., most research on unintended fertility tends to address differences by family background and the sociodemographic contexts in which unintended births occur. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which family background is associated with unintended childbearing. In this study, we propose childhood disadvantage as a key mediating factor that explains the family background gradient on unintended fertility. Drawing upon the life course and human capital formation literature, we identify four dimensions of childhood disadvantage: economic resources, family structure, parenting quality, and self-regulation. Using data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and event history models, this study examines the relative role that each dimension of childhood disadvantage plays in linking family background to unintended fertility.

Despite extensive research, dissimilarities remain regarding the prior stated fertility preferences and subsequent fertility behavior, especially in case of developing country like Bangladesh; where third stage of demographic transition begun as a result of continuous assessment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the differentials of fertility preference as well as the possible timing of the next parity progression of those Bangladeshi couples having positive intentions for more children. BDHS-2007 data is used to estimate a series of discrete time event history models of fertility preference and possible timing for next parity progression considering the dynamic nature of fertility preferences, and controlling for changing reproductive life cycle factors and socioeconomic background predictors of fertility. Findings suggest that; though death of last child play a vital role, there is a complex structure to the decision-making around fertility along with gender preference, abortions, couples educational level, mother’s participation on labor force.

The concept of family in India has been changed with the increase in urbanization, industrialization and technological development. Initially the structure of family was created to preserve the common culture among the family members. Generally it is observed that fertility level and behavior of women is strongly shaped by the structure of family. Based on such a hypothesis present study is trying to examine the effect of family structure on reproductive behavior and health status of currently married women. Various studies have tried to analyze the fertility differential by type of family and concluded that higher number of children ever born in joint family. But the present study, which used the data from third round of National Family Health Survey, 2005-06, proved that although the use of fertility control method is high in nuclear family but fertility rate is still high. Study also reveals that women of joint family get benefited in terms of receiving health care services and assistance. Thus there is a need for in depth study to see the impact of family structure on women’s reproductive behavior and health status and to examine whether all families have homogeneous characteristics or this similarity is due to program implementation.

Egypt has experienced a remarkable decline in its TFR from 5.3 children per woman to 3 in 2008. Since late 1990s, however, fertility is stalled. Recent data, EDHS 2008, show that for women of every age group the mean ideal number of children is persistently above two children. This article focuses on identifying the plausible factors that are likely to influence women's ability to achieve their desire of two children using multivariate logistic models and estimating their net impact. Furthermore, it examines the level of consistency among women who have, contrary to the average norm, desired two children and studies the profile of those who succeeded in fulfilling their desires. The study provides evidence that Expanding educational opportunities is necessary to reduce fertility level from its high level. However, our study have found that expanding women's educational opportunities is not enough to achieve further reduction during this transitional stage, it should be coupled with the following three important factors; 1) rising age at marriage, 2) increasing women’s participation in the formal labor market by which the costs of motherhood will be high, and 3) improving quality of health services to rise chances for child survival by which families are in no need to have extra children to compensate for child loss.

The present research proposes to provide a conceptual framework linking the antecedent variables that affect reproductive intentions, which in turn, ultimately affect fertility through its proximate determinants (intermediate variables). Such an exercise would help to answer questions like how people construct their family size preferences and intentions to have ( or not have) a child, how strongly it affects fertility behaviour at the micro and macro level, is there a significant gap between intended and realized fertility, etc. The study also aims to examine the impact of macro-level factors on micro level decision making and behaviour, so as to understand the implications for policy. The proposed conceptualization has been tested at the macro and micro level, in a developing country like India, which has witnessed a substantial fall in fertility, despite strong traditional values like son preference, during the last two decades. The availability of data from three rounds of National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) conducted during 1992-93, 1998-99 and 2005-06 across all the states in India provides a unique opportunity to undertake this exercise over time.

The objective of this paper is to understand the extent to which longer intervals between births of order two and three are indicators of failure to implement reproductive preferences in a context of declining fertility among less developed countries, mainly to Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia, where women with intermediate parity (three children) present, in the 2000s, a significantly higher birth intervals (BI) between orders two and three than between the first and second child, and the former is quite close to the BI of women who had only two children. This difference may help to understand issues such as efficient use of contraception, unwanted fertility and implementation of reproductive preferences in the region, since the ideal number of children oscillates around 2.0. The focus are women 35 years and older in these three countries in the 2000s, segmented by household area and schooling. For this purpose, we will make a descriptive analysis of the variables related to unwanted fertility using data from the DHS alike surveys. With the obtained results, we intended to show that women who suffer from unwanted fertility are not so much those with high parity and who live on the edge of society, but even those with low parity (three children) and are socially privileged.

A total of 1041 reproductive histories were collected amongst peasant women from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico to determine if the adoption of commercial agriculture or increased dependence on salaried work in the city generated deviations from natural fertility. We analyzed the Age Specific Fertility Rates (ASFR) by cohort using the Coale and Trussell (1974, 1978) method, SMAM (Hajnal, 1953 ) and the probability of achieving pregnancy i (ao, a, ... ai) for women grouped in the 1940-1944, 1945-1949 and 1950-1954 birth cohorts. Women from households practicing subsistence agriculture and those combining it with salaried work in the cities showed a natural fertility pattern. Women from households focusing on commercial agriculture deviated significantly from natural fertility and stopped reproducing some times as early as age 25. We discuss household level changes that may have generated deviations from natural fertility amongst commercial agriculturalists yet leaving the reproductive strategy of households involved in salaried labor in the cities untouched.

Brazil has experienced a sharp drop in fertility levels in a very small period of time. Today the TFR is 1.8 (2010 CENSUS). However, previous studies have shown that there are women living with fertility rates similar to those found in the 60s, i.e. 6 children per woman. Although the proportion is small, it represents a large number of women. Many studies describe them as black, low educated, and living in poor areas.
In order to better understand the Brazilian women with high parity, we assume that this may not be a homogeneous group. It may, on the contrary, be constituted of multiple sub-groups with different profiles and therefore with different reasons for maintaining high parity. Thus, we use the cluster analysis and data from the 2000 Brazilian Census to create subgroups of high parity women. For cluster analysis we considered all women at childbearing age, with more than 4 children and the following variables: race/color, religion, home situation, living with partner and years of study. From cluster analysis, emerged 9 groups. Some results confirmed what had already been described in previous works; however, some clusters were different from the image previously conceived about these women.

Sri Lanka evidences in achieving replacement fertility in the late twentieth century which was faster than other South Asian countries. Women’s fertility desires and decisions play a significant role in determining the level of fertility of a country. Both desires and decisions are determined by a number of socioeconomic and cultural factors. Previous studies focused on fertility desires and its determinants by ignoring women’s fertility decisions. Therefore, this study explores the factors affecting both fertility desires and decisions of married women in Sri Lanka. The data for this study is obtained from the 2006/2007 Sri Lanka Demographic and Health Survey. The present study sample included 14,692 ever-married women, aged 15-49 years. The survey collected data on nuptiality, fertility, fertility regulation, fertility preferences, infant and child mortality, and health. Both descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analyses are used. Ideal number of children is taken as the dependent variable. The findings indicate that women’s education and the community level characteristics (residential sector and ethnicity) and economic status are vital parameters in determining both fertility desires and decisions. It is evident that education and poverty have negatively associated with decision for having an additional child