Poster session on Fertility (1)

The first decade of this century represented the entry of Brazil in the group of below replacement fertility countries, about 40 years after the onset of the fertility transition in the country. The country's average does not reflect the differentials in reproductive behavior of the Brazilian women. Considering the example of the extremes educational levels (women less than 4 years versus women higher than 10 years of schooling), one can observe that although the differentials decreases over time, they are still considerable. The main objective of this paper is to present fertility scenarios for 2015, 2020 and 2025 based on the projection of the educational level of women. Projecting schooling one may ask: what will happen to fertility if women adopt the reproductive behavior observed in 2010? And if the differentials among different schooling levels women decrease? Will Brazil reach lowest low levels?

Paper addresses question whether decrease in female fecundity (reproductive senescence) during life cycle might have an influence on realization of fertility. Increasing age at first attempt to conceive might translate into lower than planned number of offspring due to divergence between lifecycle of modern females and changes in fecundity over the life course. We use waiting time to pregnancy (WtP) to account for impact of reproductive ageing on conception probability. This retrospective methodology reflects definition of sub-fertility and infecundity as number of months with regular unprotected intercourse ending (or not) in pregnancy. WtP has been implemented in Polish GGS and contains questions about infertility and number of menstrual cycles needed for conception. Analyses reveal significant increase in WtP among women aged 35+, slight increase among females aged 30-35 and no decrease for younger females. Estimates of infertility yields around 6% for females and around 3% for males (as declared by respondents). Taking into account age patterns of fertility in Poland, reproductive senescence might not have a great impact on realization of fertility intentions. However, due to increase in age at first reproduction we expect that share of couples having problems with conception (prolonged WtP) might increase in the future.

The reduction in fertility to below replacement levels in Less Developed Countries (LDC), and to extremely low levels in Europe have been associated to a more equilibrated gender relationships. Faced with low level fertility in Latin America, increasing number of women who desire having a number of children over what they had and the changes in legislation relating to the duties of biological father in Brazil, it becomes extremely important to understand how reproductive motivations of each member of the couple interact to form a joint action in childbearing particularly the influence of partners in planning and reproductive behavior. The aim of this work is to verify the unsatisfied demand for children among formally married or cohabiting women from a gender perspective in Brazil. Data analyzed came from 1996 and 2006 Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in Brazil. The outcomes show that negative discrepant in fertility increased in the period considered and the highest ratio occurred among women with partners who desired fewer children than them. These findings demonstrate the need to study the role of the husbands' opinion in decision-making for children in the presence of discrepant fertility in LDC, particularly, starting with the case of Brazil where fertility is below replacement level.

In Indian society women has secondary status, number of studies proved that the empowered women influence decision making process. Therefore the study tries to find out dose women empowerment influences fertility. The women empowerment encompass various dimensions, such as house hold decision making, mobility related decision making and economic decision making index. It helped to calculate women empowerment in different states. The result shows the effect of women empowerment on fertility in different states of India which gives an idea about how women autonomy and fertility varies with state to state.
Methodology: NFHS-3 collected information from a nationally representative sample of 109,041 households, 124,385 women age 15-49, among these 87925 ever-married women has been interviewed. The NFHS-3 sample covers 99 percent of India’s population living in all 29 states.
The composite indices prepared to calculate women empowerment and mass media awareness by using various indicators. Multivariate and bivariate indicators are used to find out the influence of women empowerment and fertility.
Findings: it has been observed that women empowerment and its dimensions vary with the state to state. Also it has been observed age group plays an important role in women empowerment with the increase in age women autonomy increases

Coupled with the population ageing, the continued trends of low fertility (TFR below 1.2) is seen as one of main causes of social problems associated with economic downturn, unstable employment, labor shortage, and the expansion of welfare spending. Studies found that recently trends in childbearing in Korea are associated with changes in marriage pattern such as delay and avoidance of marriage among young Korean women. However, policies aimed at boosting child-bearing are somewhat fragmented. In this regard, it is urgent and inevitable that policy-makers understand the nature and causes of underlying social problems related to low fertility of Korea. This study aimed at developing a model for estimating fertility rates for Korea under some conditions. Unlike previous studies that were interested in forecasting TFR only, this study’s applied the Generalized log-gamma Distribution Model to predict fertility rate in association with the first marriage in that way, the fertility rate will be estimated with more logical and reasonable accuracy. The model is expected to provide the basic information for establishing and evaluating polices in prompt and adequate response to low fertility and population ageing.

Background: High fertility and persistent unmet need still remain health challenges among women in Uganda. We explore fertility desires, trends in use of family planning (FP) and changing FP preferences among women in a rural resource limited setting.
Methods: Retrospective analysis of non-pregnant sexually active women aged 15-44 yrs enrolled in an open community cohort between 2002 and 2008.
Results: The desire for childbearing significantly increased from 36% to 42% (p<0.0001). However, this significant increase was observed among HIV-ve and not HIV+ve women. Women’s desire for a/another child declined with age and higher parity. Use of modern FP significantly increased from 35% to 42% (p<0.0001). Among women who did not desire a/another child, increased FP use was observed for short term methods (44% to 66% among HIV+ve and 39% to 46% among HIV-ve; p<0.0001) while long term method use significantly declined from 4% to 2% among both groups of women. However, over half of the women who wanted to limit childbearing stated willingness to adopt a permanent FP method, irrespective of parity and HIV status.
Conclusions: Greater attention needs to be paid to women’s intentions to limit childbearing and to provision of long-term and permanent FP in Uganda.

The measurement of unintended fertility in cross-sectional studies relies on questions about children already born and is therefore subject to ex post rationalization which is the propensity to reporting children as wanted when they were originally unwanted. Women may feel that to label a child as unwanted is to stigmatize him. In addition, an originally unwanted child is likely to loved one, hence eventually “wanted”.

Evidences on this issue in developing countries are limited. This study using annual information on couples’ fertility preferences collected both retrospectively and prospectively collected as part of a Demographic Surveilliance System in Northern Malawi will add new empirical evidence in this area. We assess the extent of ambivalence of fertility intention by comparing retrospective and prospective fertility intention of the child over three years.

Drawing data from the Korea Labor and Income Panel Study that are fitted to Cox proportional hazard model, we attempt to uncover causal impacts of female labor force participation on childbirth decision in South Korea. To control for the dynamic processes in which soon-to-be mother choose to get out of labor force to give birth, we evaluate empirical datasets using three different birth-month lag scenarios: no lag, five and eight month lag. We evaluate parity-specific effects even though parities are limited to the first and second child due to small sample size in higher parities. Our preliminary results suggest that regarding the first childbirth decision, female labor force participation does not seem to make a chilling dent in fertility hazards. Female labor force participation, however, appears to affect the second childbirth decision in a negative direction though the impacts are not as great as widely publicized. Combining two parities, we find somewhat negative impacts of female labor force participation on fertility hazards. These results vary by different lag scenarios with biggest impacts detected in no lag scenario and lowest impacts observed in eight month lag scenario. Finally, these patterns do not change by different measures of female labor force participation.

This study aims to examine linkages between development indicators such as demographic factors, socio-economic factors and other factors with preferred family size and family planning practices and these factor’s entire linkages with replacement level of fertility in Nepal.

Secondary analysis of 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey data will be performed to examine the relationship between socio-economic, demographic and other factors with preferences and use of a modern method of contraception among currently married, nonpregnant women between the ages of 15 and 49.

The relationship will further be analyzed to assess whether the fertility decline in Nepal is due to use of modern contraception and fertility preferences and based on this analysis, the conclusion will be drawn whether Nepal is in the path of replacement fertility. Frequencies will be examined; bivariate and multivariate analysis will be undertaken using logistic regression analysis taking survey weight into account. The software STATA12 will be used for data analysis. This kind of relationship between socio-economic, demographic factors with family and their entire relationship with fertility preference, contraceptive practices and actual fertility is necessary to be searched for the family planning policy implications in Nepal.

With increasing incidences of infertility, the surrogate mothers are considered as an alternative which enables childless couples to have a child of their own with the help of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs). Commercial surrogacy has evolved as the most lucrative and unregulated ‘industry’ in India and every actor involved plays its role in a clandestine manner. Though legal, there are no laws governing it in India attracting even large number of foreign customers. Based on a field study in Kolkata city in 2012, it was found that though surrogacy is termed as a ‘generous and kind act’, doctors, agents and surrogate women are earning quick money, despite many health hazards. In a country like India, with high maternal death rate and low status of women, this raises many questions on unethical medical practices and human rights violations of poor illiterate women who choose to be surrogate mothers only for monetary gains.