Poster session on Fertility (1)

One of the emerging demographic phenomenon in urban India – the single child families- is addressed here. As compared to all other cities in India, the prevalence of single child families is quite substantial in Kolkata city (13 percent). To examine this phenomenon, 330 single child mothers have been interviewed in 2012 in Kolkata city. Around forty-two percent of the respondents think that due to low family income and high cost of living, they have opted for single child. Proper care of the child and health problems are the second most important reason cited by respondents. Among the entire respondents, 83 percent believe that their decision to have single child was right and have no regrets. However, 13 percent now feel it would have been better if they had one more child. Nine out of ten respondents stated that single child families have no negative consequences on parents or the child. These urban single child couples are emerging as ‘harbingers’ of low fertility behaviour in India.

Much has been said the ‘’exceptionally’’ high Palestinian fertility. Even though the fertility transition is well under way it is clear that the classical theory of demographic transition cannot explain the continued strong demand for children in the modern yet conflicting context of Gaza or the differences with the West Bank. Several hypotheses have indeed been brought up to explain the factors surrounding the ever-high Palestinian fertility. This paper thus aims to better understand the mechanisms of fertility change in both regions by estimating trends in annual marital conception probabilities with a discrete-time logistic regression model. We argue that the economic downturn has a bigger impact on the conception probabilities than the state of belligerence and the increase in the age at marriage does not affect overall fertility because birth intervals decrease among older age groups.

ABSTRACT: Ghana is among the few African countries that began to experience fertility decline in the late 1980’s. The fertility decline was drastic between 1988 and 1998 when the TFR dropped from 6.4 to 4.6. The rate of fertility decline however slowed down since then, the TFR having dropped from 4.6 in 1998 to 4.4 in 2003 and then to 4.0 in 2008. The study examines trends in the proximate determinants of fertility (sexual activity, contraception, and postpartum infecundability) in Ghana over a decade (from 1998 to 2008), with a view to finding out their contributions to fertility decline. The findings show that the fertility suppressing effects of sexual activity are more important than the effects of postpartum infecundability and contraception in explaining fertility levels and trends in Ghana.The study further shows that the effect of abortion contributed significantly in the fertility transition. It is recommended that the existing family planning programme should be strengthened and expanded through the provision of family planning clinics to areas with no such facilities

Over the past few decades, South Korea has received considerable attention for its lowest fertility rate. Korea’s fertility has been steadily decreasing since the early 1960s; and in 2009, its fertility rate of 1.14 was recoded as the world’s lowest fertility rate. This remarkable fertility decline in Korea is especially notable in that there was a considerable lag in adopting effective policy in order to inhibit the fertility decline in Korea. That is, while there is strong evidence that the steep decline of fertility level below the replacement level within two and half decades is largely due to government policies and family planning programs to reduce family size (Cho, 2000); these types of policies were not repelled until the mid-1990s. As direct cash payment and indirect transfer policies to promote higher fertility has been largely ineffective, how improving work-family compatibility would affect women's fertility intention has important implications. Using the Korea Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (KLoWF), we investigate the effect of work-family compatibility on women's fertility intention. Preliminary results suggest that while some policies are effective, some are not; and further investigation of which policy works is called for.

The role of urbanization in fertility decline has been the object of much academic discussion. Earlier studies had almost unanimously agreed that since urban fertility rates were systematically lower than rural fertility rates, then there must be something about urban areas in general that induces lower fertility. Thus, urbanization was considered a key process through which development accelerated fertility decline. Later, in a significant departure from the generalized assumptions made by earlier demographers, critics have tended to neglect the role of urbanization in fertility decline, or else to deny its influence altogether. Given the uncertainties present in the literature about the relationship of urbanization and fertility decline, and the lack of suitable and timely data to measure these relationships properly on a worldwide scale, the objective of this paper is to apply a statistical model that assumes a structure where urbanization has direct and indirect effects on TFR decline. Despite the enormous variety of situations found, the results of a structured model at country level suggest that urbanization does have a significant and large influence on both fertility and on other factors that affect fertility decline. An analysis of a case study on the Brazilian data is also presented.

Based on the survey data that the Beijing population research Institute conducted in 2008 and 2011 in Beijing, this study made a comparative research on fertility intention between floating population and local residents, with regard to ideal number of children, gender preference and influence factors. The research results show that both of floating population and local residents show low intentions in ideal number of children, low probability on having a second child and no son preference. Meanwhile, the study demonstrated that it is social-economic factor not family planning policy more influential on the childbearing behavior. And more and more families voluntarily choose bearing one-child. Based on the findings, this paper draws the conclusion that with rapid modernization and urbanization in China, the fertility intension has been greatly weakened and Chinese

With the process of fertility decline in the whole country, the islands in China have witnessed below-replacement fertility since more than two decades ago, and are in the lowest-low level of TFR by now. Taking Shengsi Island as a case, the paper analyzes how socioeconomic and cultural factors lead to lowest-low fertility in Shengsi Island. GWR model analysis and the correlation matrix of all variable will be applied in the analysis. Seven socioeconomic variables and three cultural variables, which measure the differences in the strength of religious, political-ideological and linguistic sub-cultures in the regions, will be used. Expected findings: First, cultural factors may have larger impact on the lowest-low fertility in Shengsi Island than that of socioeconomic factors. Second, one of the most significant cultural factors may be the great influence of Shanghai’s culture caused by the vicinity to Shanghai and the shared language with Shanghai. Religious belief and party participation might also affect the lowest-low fertility. Moreover, though the direct influence of socioeconomic variables on fertility is possibly less than that of cultural variables, such socioeconomic variables as fishing production and education may have appreciable impact on the lowest-low fertility and the formation of new fertility culture.

Background: Men's support is key in improving the uptake of their partners’ sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, hence contributing to efforts aimed at achieving Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6. The study’s objective was to explore men’s perceptions on and uptake of SRH services in Kenya.
Methods: Data were derived from qualitative interviews conducted with 60 men from communities neighboring facilities that were part of a larger study that assessed the relative benefits of different models of integrated SRH/HIV service provision over separately provided services. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, translated and analyzed thematically.
Findings: Generally, men felt comfortable seeking SRH services together with their partners. Most services sought together were HIV counseling/ testing and family planning services. Other services, but minimally were HIV care/treatment, antenatal, postnatal, sexually transmitted infections screening/treatment, and condoms provision. Waiting times and service scheduling at facility were some of the barriers that hindered men’s uptake of services.
Conclusions: Study demonstrates that men are receptive to seeking services together with their partners. However, existing barriers need to be addressed in order to increase men’s uptake of SRH services.

Most of the demographic researches on fertility, reproductive health and contraception focus on females of particular age group especially who are in their reproductive period. Important demographic indicators like fertility, contraception and mortality etc. are estimated on the basis of reporting of the eligible female respondent. But how reliable is the reporting of the wife regarding estimating such demographic parameters? Recently the focus of demographic and health surveys has shifted from being woman centric to couple centric where the couple is taken as a sing unit. The available literature on the subject is also scanty. Hence, this particular study makes an attempt in exploring the matching and mismatch among couples in reporting of the ideal family size. The present study analyses the couples information by using a nationally representative sample size of the third round of National Family Health Survey(NFHS-3, 2005-06). Information regarding ideal family size is collected both from the husband as well as wife separately. In India the mismatch between the husband and the wife in reporting of ideal family size is almost 43 percent.

Though all contraceptive methods are promoted through 'Cafeteria Approach' female sterilization continues to be the most preferred method. Despite widespread availability and ubiquitous, knowledge, other contraceptive methods are often not used regularly or effectively. Therefore, the factors determine fertility choices and adoption of contraceptive need to be studied to develop appropriate strategies for fertility decline. This paper analyses the role of men as impediments or facilitators of fertility control. Qualitative data collected in two villages in South Udaipur in 2006 and 2008 demonstrate that men’s attitudes to use of modern contraception are highly dependent on having at least one boy child and achieving ideal family size. Discussions during interviews show that young couple are living in environment in which they are in familial pressure of proving their fertility. Pregnancy follows soon after marriage and occurs mostly during adolescence. Sex of the first child decides about planning their future fertility. Couples needs to be empowered with knowledge about negative consequences of early pregnancy and motivate to cope up with the familial and societal pressure for early pregnancy by taking fertility related decisions to plan their actual fertility.