Low fertility: theories and empirical evidence

Postponement of parenthood contributed heavily to the emergence of subreplacement fertility in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. Recuperation of fertility has gained importance in determining period fertility levels and is associated with policies that reduce the opportunity costs of fertility and support dual earners in combining work and family. We use data from the European Social Survey to assess the impact of economic and policy contexts on first birth hazards of men and women in 14 EU countries between 1970 and 2005. Using multilevel discrete-time hazard models, we focus on differential effects of these contextual factors by age, gender and socio-economic position. Results show that adverse economic conditions significantly reduce first birth hazards of both men and women below age 30, with effect being more pronounced among the higher educated. After age 30, family policies contribute to the recuperation of fertility but the effects vary by socio-economic groups.

The fertility curve has traditionally shown a bell-shaped pattern common in all human populations and all time periods. However recently, the fertility pattern of some developed populations exhibits a clear transition from its classical shape to a more complicated one in terms of a distortion in early ages. This heterogeneity might be associated to some extent to marital and non-marital fertility. Additionally in the USA this heterogeneity might be attributed to ethnic differences in fertility behavior. In this work a flexible parametric model adequate for describing both the old and the new shape of the fertility curve is fitted to the age-specific fertility rates of the total population of the UK and the USA for each single year during the last twenty year period. Then in order to examine the development of the fertility curve through time, the evolution of the parameter values is each population is considered. Finally in order to examine the hypothesis of racial heterogeneity of fertility behavior, the model is fitted to age-specific fertility rates of the USA of the three major ethnic groups and to age-specific fertility rates of the UK of married and unmarried women.

According to Bongaarts low fertility model, gender preferences tend to help increase fertility rate. It is believed that when both children’s gender and number are taken into account in family’s fertility plan and child-bearing behavior, couples would be very likely to bear more kids in attempt to achieve the ideal sex structure, even if their expectation for children in number has been met.

Chinese people show very strong gender preferences especially for sons partly because of its agricultural-dominated life style, which has been indicated by many- years abnormal high sex ratio at birth. Meanwhile, China has seen its fertility rate dropped below replacement level since 1990s. How do gender preferences affect China’s fertility level?

Based on national survey data, this paper explores the relationship between gender preferences and the number of children in China urban families. Results show gender preference does not necessarily mean male preference in contemporary China, but diversifies and no gender preference accounts for the highest percentage among urban married young people with children. Preference for both boys and girls will be likely to increase the number most, no preference to decrease the number most, and female preference tends to increase the number more than boy preference.

In the present study, an attempt has been made to estimate the fertility-inhibiting effects of the four important proximate determinants i.e. marriage, contraception, induced abortion and postpartum infecundability in Vietnam. The study is based on using data obtained from the 1997 and 2002 round of the Vietnam Demographic and Health Survey. Bongaarts model is used to determine the contribution of the proximate determinants in fertility change. The analysis shows that change in proportion of married women, contraceptive use and induced abortion are generally the main factors responsible for fertility change at the national level and rural areas in Vietnam . For urban areas, induced abortion, postpartum infecundability and proportion of marriage are the main factors responsible for fertility change during the same period whereas contraceptive use has marginal effect. The estimated TFR is probably smaller than the actual one and the difference between the two has narrowed down over the period.

Japan, unlike most Western countries, has experienced limited movement in several components of the second demographic transition, including non-marital fertility, use of childcare centers, and, somewhat less so, cohabitation. Yet Japan has experienced many of the structural changes found in Western societies that are related to the second demographic transition, including increased education levels with the increases more marked for women than men, rise of the service economy, urbanization, shift to work settings not conducive to caring for young children, and out-sourcing of labor-intensive manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries. Using longitudinal and cross-sectional data that include information on knowing relatives, friends and co-workers who have engaged in non-traditional fertility and family behavior, this paper examines the extent to which knowing such people has changed over time and longitudinally over the life course. We also examine the extent to which knowing someone engaged in non-traditional behaviors is patterned by such structural variables as birth cohort, sex and education, as well as the connection between knowing someone who has engaged in non-traditional behavior and one’s attitudes toward such behaviors.

Traditionally the relationship between the cost of housing and fertility has been assumed to be negative: high relative house prices deter the moves into home ownership or into larger dwellings deemed necessary by many for raising children. However, recent research from the US challenges this view by emphasizing the wealth effects of increasing home values among owners. This paper examines the relationship between short-run fluctuations in local area house prices and fertility in England and Wales between 1995 and 2008, using individual-level data from a household panel merged to area-level data on house prices. Innovations relative to previous work are a focus on the precise timing of the relationship between housing market conditions and fertility responses and a systematic analysis of the differential effects of house price levels and changes. The results suggest house price effects vary considerably for different groups and point to the importance of the national contexts.

This paper applies a multivariate method to estimate different fertility measures in Iran. The method builds on discrete-time survival models to construct multidimensional life tables of parity progression. The basic dimensions of these life tables are age, parity, and duration in parity.
The application is to Iran’s 2006 Population and Housing Census, %2 sample data. The reconstruction of birth history method is used to build birth histories of women age 15-64. The application includes both period and cohort analyses. The period analysis pertains to four 5-year periods before the census. The cohort analysis pertains to different cohorts of women age 60-64, 55-59, 50-54, 45-49, 40-44, and 35-39.
The results of the analysis show that period total fertility rate declined more than 60 percent between first (1987-91) and last (2002-06) period from 4.2 to 1.6 children per woman. The cumulative fertility rate also declined about 50 percent from 5.7 to 2.8 between cohorts of women age 60-64 and 35-39. The multivariate analysis of the TFR and its components shows a two-stage fertility transition. First, the quantum of fertility declines as women limit childbearing at higher parity transitions and older ages. Then, the tempo of fertility changes as women postpone childbearing.

Macro data approaches analyse fertility with different research designs: They use different country groups, time periods and sets of variables. The results depend strongly on the comprehensiveness of the research design. The change of correlation signs between fertility and some determinants occurring in the 1980ies (Ahn/Mira 2002; Castles 2003) is crucial for understanding paths to low fertility in some OECD-countries. However, the knowledge about this phenomenon is still limited. Recent explanations have stressed advances in development (Myrskylä/Billari/Kohler 2009) or the relation of diffusion and adaptation effects (Bujard 2011). Also, gender-related institutions (McDonald 2002) or cultural change (Lesthaeghe 2011) offer explanations.
This paper aims to shed light on the interaction of cultural, economic, institutional and policy determinants of fertility in a long-term perspective by using cross-sectional and changing rate regressions. Why do correlation signs change for such a large number of fertility determinants, and why so fast? Given several interactions between these factors, what is the hidden hand behind these changing relations? The empirical findings of this study allow for an understanding of long-term fertility development; based on this, an integrated theory of fertility in OECD countries will be developed.

Previous work on the demographic explanation for recent rises in the fertility rates in Europe concluded that the main driver was declining postponement, leading to higher peak rates (Bongaarts and Sobotka, 2012). Using data from 15 countries in the Human Fertility Database, we found that this explanation was insufficient. We then investigated other possible explanations of the rise. An increase in intensity (i.e. rise in peak rates) was seen in some countries, but not all. Increased variability in age at first birth (which adds to the width of the fertility curve) has been increasing across all the countries studied, although this trend was already underway in the 1990s. Two parallel trends have led to a widening of the fertility curve: a slowing in the decline of first births to young (pre-modal age) mothers and a significant growth in older (post-modal age) entry into motherhood. The turning point from declining first birth fertility rates to increase can be explained by the interplay of ongoing increases in the width of the fertility curve (more variable timing) together with a stabilisation or, in some cases, a modest increase, in the peak rate (intensity). This explanation is valid for both Eastern and Western European countries.

While men have always received more education than women in the past, this gender imbalance in education has now turned around. For the first time in European history, there are more highly educated women than men reaching the reproductive ages and looking for a partner. I expect that this will have profound consequences for the demography of reproduction because mating practices have always implied that men are the majority in higher education. These traditional practices are no longer compatible with the new gender distribution in education. The objective of this paper is to formulate hypotheses about the consequences for reproductive behaviour in Europe. I expect the following causal chain between the reversal of the gender imbalance in education (RGIE) and fertility: RGIE creates a new, education specific mating squeeze that affects the process and expected pattern of assortative mating, which in turns affects the timing, probability, and stability of union formation, which eventually is expected to have implications for fertility. Each of the links in this chain are discussed in detail.