Socioeconomic differentials in fertility and family formation

Atwiine Johnson. (Undergraduate Student):
Bachelor of Science in Population Studies, Makerere University
Email. johphia@yahoo.com
Uganda falls within the sub-Saharan Africa region and characteristically as her counterparts still among the poorest Countries in the world. Apart from being among the poorest Counties Uganda has one of the fastest and highest growing Population in the world. In fact Previous and most recent indicators show that fertility has been high and constant for several decades. What is equally important and unique to Uganda is the very fact that the biggest proportion of the country’s population is dominated by children constituting about 52% of the total population which depicts a momentum for further population growth. This study examines the underlying factors responsible for this high fertility and their interrelationships as well as the demographic implications of such trends. The study involves analysis of the 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS, 2011) and with some specific references to previous UDHS data sets especially those of 2006, 2000 and 1995 to depict Uganda’s Fertility trends very well. Preliminary findings show that Uganda’s Total fertility rate (TFR) stands at 6.2 children per woman; General Fertility Rate (GFR) is 217 children per 1000 women and a high Crude Birth Rate

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.

This paper aimed to construct an index which captures transitory wealth, having the ability to explain how fertility shocks affect wealth, while avoiding the well-known issues of using direct expenditures. Data was from the wealth module of the Family Health and Wealth Study 2010, involving six peri-urban sites from 5 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Using principal component analysis, 2 indices were constructed– a fixed asset score (FA) and a “middle-class index” (MCI), assumed to represent transitory wealth. Correlations between the FA and MC indices ranged from 0.177 in Ghana to 0.764 in Malawi. Variable Inflation Factor values were between 1.04 and 2.85, affirming independent measures of permanent and transitory wealth by the 2 indices. The MCI was positively and significantly associated with surplus income in Ethiopia and Nigeria-Ibadan, and positively but not significantly in Malawi and Nigeria-Ife. The MCI was found to be a statistically significant positive predictor of self-rated wealth measure and independent of FA. Results were also robust to controls for father’s education and family size. These findings suggest that the middle-class index is a viable alternative representation of transitory wealth more sensitive in predicting how changes to factors such as family size or health affect economic well-being.

Researchers have intensively demonstrated the socioeconomic inequalities in fertility everywhere in the World. There are however limited researches on the causal effects of distance to facilities on fertility. This paper uses unique longitudinal data collected in three rural districts of Tanzania to test whether enhanced proximity to health services can reduce inequalities in fertility between rich and poor. Data on births, deaths, migrations, SES and geographic data on households and facilities have been recorded every 120 days since 1999 (n≈200,000). We will use multivariate analysis to measure the causal effects of distance to health facilities on fertility and to test interactions between distance to health facilities and maternal education and households’ SES. Initial results indicate that, from 2000 to 2010, TFR remains high around 5.3 births per woman with significant differences between poor (6.4) and rich (3.4) and between educated (2.9) and not educated (5.9). The distance to the closest health facility remained a strong determinant of fertility, even after adjusting for endogeneity biases. The development of community-based primary health care can improve health outcomes and can increase equity by offsetting the detrimental effects of low maternal education, household poverty and distance to health facilities.

Using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), I investigate how a range of socio-economic and demographic variables are related to a high degree of importance to particular achievements before marriage according to never married young adults (ages 17-24) . I then provide in-depth narrative of premarital life-plans drawing on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews conducted with a subsample of NSYR survey respondents.

Modern Contraceptives (MC) are useful for limiting fertility and protection against STIs including HIV/AIDS. MC are not easily accessible in most developing countries where high proportion of the people earns below 1$/day. This study examines the gap in MC use between women in the richest and poorest wealth quintile. It utilized Malawi Demographic and Health Survey dataset, 2010 and examined 5085 and 2290 married women aged 15-49 who met the inclusion criteria set for ever use of modern contraceptives (EUMC) and current use of modern contraceptives (CUMC), respectively. Chi-square and logistic regression were used for the analysis (α=5.0%). Mean CEB of the women in the poorest (3.94±2.7) was higher than their counterparts in the richest (2.82±2.3) wealth quintile (p<0.0001). About 76% of the women EUMC; with 66.8% and 82.4% EUMC in the poorest and richest wealth quintile respectively (p<0.0001). The prevalence of CUMC was 53.8% and was significantly higher among richest (58.5%) than the poorest (45.9%). Poorest married women were less likely 0.423(C.I=0.371-0.482) and 0.601(C.I=0.507-0.713) to EUMC and CUMC respectively than their counterparts in the richest wealth quintile. These odd ratios vaguely vary even when other potential confounding variables were used as control.

1. Introduction: Fertility is an important component of population change, and therefore, has attracted interest of scholars and policy makers. Several efforts have been made in order to understand the determinants of fertility and formulate appropriate theories and models such as Davis and Blake (1956); Becker (1960); Bongaarts (1978, 1983, 1993); Easterlin (1975); and Caldwell (1976; 1982) and others. Most of these studies and theoretical frameworks attempt to explain fertility based on economic, social, or anthropological grounds. Since data has been increasingly available to researchers in most developing countries, many of these theoretical frameworks were tested in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, different methods of sampling and data collection used in each study have affected the accuracy and consistency of research findings, leading to some contradictions. In addition, studies used different sets of explanatory variables and varied scales of measurements. This paper attempts to provide a better understanding of correlates of fertility behavior of Egyptian women. Specifically.

2. objectives of this research are:
• To present the levels of fertility in Egypt.
• To examine the most important variables those explain fertility behavior.

3. Hypotheses
S

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.

Education tends to influence every aspect of an individual’s demographic behaviour and outcomes including sex preferences for children. The subject of sex preference has been studied in diverse cultures because of its potential negative social and demographic consequences. This paper investigates the relationship between one’s educational level and sex preferences for children using data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey. Chi-square tests and binary logistic regressions were used to test for significant relationships between characteristics of individuals and preferred sex of a child. Sex preference increases at higher levels of education. Individuals in primary, middle, secondary and higher education had a more likelihood for preference for a sex of a child. Similarly, preference for a son also increases (OR) = 3%, 10.5% and 30%, for middle, secondary and the highly educated but there was less likelihood for a daughter preference among primary and secondary educated individuals (OR = 8.8% and 9.1% times). Education therefore does not necessarily neutralise sex preferences. The expectation that there would be no sex preference did not prove true hence the issue should not be addressed from an educational perspective but rather from a cultural point of view.