Any prospects of fertility recovery in low-fertility societies?

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.

Fertility has declined dramatically over the last 50 years in Brazil, from 5.7 children per woman in 1970 to 1.9 children per woman in 2010. Historically Brazilian fertility has always shown a young profile. Census data has shown a concentration of fertility at younger ages along the 1991-2000 decade. A reversal of this trend has become evident as the new century began, however. Both reduction of adolescent fertility and a relative increase of fertility at higher ages were responsible for changing Brazilian fertility pattern. The current debate revolves around the determinants of these changes and the possible differences between social groups. One of the hypotheses to be explored in the present scenario is whether motherhood tends to turn into an experience limited to women who share certain characteristics. The objective of this paper is to evaluate changes in the quantum of fertility as well as parity differences among women thirty years old and over. Factors such as per capita household income, participation in the labor market (working and not working in a paid job), and education level (lowest and highest levels) will be taken into account. Data from Brazilian censuses of 1970, 1991 and 2010 will be used.

Although Korea has successfully experienced a demographic transition, its super-low fertility (1.08 in 2005) has become its serious public issue. To encourage couples to have additional children, since 2003 district-level local governments have begun providing financial incentives (FIN) to the parents who have registered the birth of their child with their local government, with FIN generally higher for children of second or higher order births. The objective of this study is to assess the effects of these FIN programs on the household decision to have an additional child. We used four datasets: 1) data for FIN programs of local governments for the birth registration; 2) birth registry data over 1999-2009; 3) district-level resident registration statistics; and 4) Census data for 2005. The method of this study is panel time-series analysis. Having any FIN increases the crude rate of 2nd-order births by 2.92% (p<0.01) and 3rd-order births by 8.45% (p<0.01). A FIN of one million Korean Won (US$887) is significantly associated with a 3.0% (p<0.01) increase in crude rate of second or higher order births, and is also associated with 2.3% (p<0.01) increase in crude rate of third or higher order births. This study suggests that FIN programs for the birth registration was effective in encouraging parents who have a second or more child.

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.

South Korea has experienced rapid fertility decline and an equally striking expansion in women's education in the late twentieth century. This study aims to understand how educational differentials in fertility have evolved through the fertility transition and whether an improvement in women’s education was the main driver for fertility decline in South Korea. Using census sample data for the period 1970 - 2010, I analyze completed cohort fertility for 1926-1970 birth cohorts. This study finds that educational differences in fertility have almost disappeared over the last 40 years of birth cohorts. Despite its remarkable change, expansion in women’s educational attainment accounts for just a fifth of fertility decline during the transition. The extraordinary fertility decline in South Korea was mainly due to falling fertility in all social groups, until the cohorts reached the replacement level of fertility. This study discusses possible explanations for variation in the evolution of educational differentials during the transition.

This paper analyses fertility patterns among various subgroups of Ghana’s population since 1998 using data from the last three Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys (GDHS) of 1998, 2003 and 2008. The impacts of sexual activity, contraceptive use, abortion, postpartum infecundability and sterility on fertility in each population subgroup are quantified using the model of the proximate determinants of fertility reformulated by John Stover. The Northern regions had the highest percentage reduction due to the index of postpartum infecundability (Ci). The Greater Accra and Ashanti regions had the highest percentage reduction in fertility due to abortion. The inhibition effect of abortion is relatively high in the Greater Accra and the Ashanti regions; it is probably due to their higher rates of urbanization and associated abandonment of cultural practices that are frown upon in the rural areas. Different policy approaches are needed to manage fertility decline among the different subgroups of the population

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

Systematic anomalous case analysis (SACA) is a form of mixed-method research in which existing data are used to identify and conduct subsequent examination of cases that do not exhibit the expected behavior, for the purpose of refining social theories and measurement strategies. Using intergenerational longitudinal cohort data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) in the Philippines, we used social contextual variables (household, peer, family, and young adults’ demographics and sexual attitudes) from adolescents who participated in the 1998 survey to predict the number of living children they reported by 2009 (ages 25-26). We then calculate Pearson’s residuals to identify statistical outliers (anomalous cases) from the multivariate, gender-disaggregated models. In the next phase of this study to be conducted in Spring 2013, we will conduct in-depth interviews with a subsample of these anomalous cases, as well as normative cases, to identify ways in which subsequent investigations and data collection instruments may better theorize and measure fertility among young adults in this and other settings.

Paper analyses patterns of male and female fertility over the first (FDT) and second demographic transition (SDT). Main hypothesis claims that both transitions led to unification of male and female fertility with respect to quantum although differences in tempo of reproduction remained unchanged. Hypothesis originates from biological and social perspective on human reproduction which predicts that males should enjoy higher reproductive outcome than females due to multiple and sequential mating and lower costs of reproduction. Thus, quantum of reproduction for males should be higher than for females in high fertility and high mortality settings. Differences in tempo of reproduction (age at parenthood) are attributed to better access to resources among older males which affects female mate choice. The difference in quantum of fertility should disappear as a result of transitions due to decrease in number of children per family, improvement in mortality conditions and contraception. Paper uses data form population which underwent FDT (reconstitution of parish registers from Bejsce in Poland, 1740-1968) and data from registration of births in Poland for period 1985-2011 (SDT). Hypotheses are tested with use of standard period measures: total fertility rate, age specific fertility rates and age at birth of child for all parties.

Recent research by Myrskyla, Kohler, and Billari (2009) and Luci and Thevenon (2010) have determined that, at the country level, the relationship between development and fertility becomes positive when development is very high. This project examines this finding at the regional level for 337 regions across 21 European countries. Investigating this association at the regional level will show whether this change occurs only at the national level, or at the regional level as well. In addition, it allows the specification of a country-by-year fixed effects model, thereby controlling for all country level, time-varying effects that so often confound estimates from normal fixed effects frameworks. Estimates indicate that the relationship between fertility and income is also convex at the regional level, with the turnaround occurring at about $32,000 year 2000 U.S. dollars. These estimates also suggest that it takes extremely high levels of per capita income to reach replacement level fertility.