Fertility and Development

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Fertility and Development

• Aravinda Guntupalli

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Measures of Fertility (1)

• Birth rate (or crude birth rate) The number of
  live births per 1,000 population in a given year.
  
• Growth rate The number of persons added to (or
  subtracted from) a population in a year due to
  natural increase and net migration

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Measures of Fertility (2)

• General Fertility Rate
• GFR (B / FP15-44) 1,000
• FP15-44 female population aged 15-44
• Age specific fertility rates
• Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
• Child-Woman Ratio (CWR)
• CWR0-4 (P0-4 / FP15-44)
• CWR5-9 (P5-9 / FP20-49)

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TFR and replacement fertility

• TFR explores replacement fertility levels
• A population with replacement fertility will stop
  growing
• In country like US with low mortality rate 2.1
  TFR is produces replacement level fertility where
  as for Sierra Leone TFR should be greater than 3

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TFR in Europe and the USA
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Fertility rates in Asia
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TFR decline in some European countries
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Evolution of fertility rates
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European Fertility Rates - 2001
____________________ Source GAD
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Fertility decline by age groups
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ICPD conference

• Cairo 1994
• Many governments pursued demographic policies
  that time to decrease their population
• The number of developing countries that view
  their population growth as too high or too low
  has declined
• Developed countries are worried about declining
  fertility and population aging

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Situation of growth in developed countries

• Fall in death rates was relatively gradual due to
  trail and error of innovation
• Technology for improving production, sanitary
  methods and medical advances has to be discovered
  or invented
• Due to norms of late marriage birth rates never
  increased dramatically
• Population growth was not a violent explosion

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The decline in fertility rates in the EU

• Women (and families) are deciding to have less
  children than ever before
• Total fertility rates in the EU are the lowest in
  the world, bar some countries in Eastern Europe
  and Japan
• Fertility decline started in the mid 1960s
• Early declines in the North (Denmark, Finland,
  Germany, Luxembourg and Sweden) Demographic
  core/periphery divide
• Subsequent and more dramatic decline in the
  Mediterranean countries (Italy and Spain now with
  some of the lowest TFR in the world)
• Short-lived rebound of fertility rates in Sweden
  and other Scandinavian countries in the early
  1990s

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The decline in birth rates in Europe

• Lower number of marriages and marriages later in
  life
• Unstable marriages and growing divorce rates
• Increase in cohabitation
• Increasing age at marriage
• Participation of women in the labour market

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Situation of birth and death rates in the
developing countries

• The decline in mortality was widespread and
  sudden
• Medical technology was already available
• Insecticides such as DDT provided cheap way for
  bringing down malaria
• Infant mortality rates also declined considerably
• decline in death rates and increase in birth
  rates were faster

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Fertility and missing markets

• Children are substitutes for various missing
  markets especially social security in the old age
• Developed countries Social security fund or
  employer subsidized retirement plan along with
  medical insurance
• In developing countries, many of these
  institutions are totally missing and the
  available institutions are only for formally
  employed (not for agricultural and urban informal
  sectors)

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Mortality and fertility

• Infant mortality is 150-200 per 1000 births in
  some developing countries
• Added to this after this barrier childhood
  diseases are preponderant
• Also there is a possibility that a child might
  not be an adequate income earner
• Lastly a child might not look after the parents
  in their old age
• All these situations compel parents for more
  children to overcome all these barriers

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Gender bias and fertility

• Son preference forces couples to have more
  children for the need for more sons
• Culturally and economically sons are beneficial
  for parents in many Asian countries which compels
  them to increase their number of children till
  they achieve the desired number of sons
• Study in Bangladesh shows that widows can hold in
  to land if they have able-bodied sons ( Cain)
• Also for agricultural families more sons means
  more labor (North and South India Tim Dyson)

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Costs of Children in the poor countries

• Because children are an investment rather than
  a consumption good the expected return of the
  investment is given by child labor and financial
  support for parents in old age
• Parents have children up to the point at which
  their marginal economic benefit is equal to
  marginal cost

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Why Children are beneficial in Developing
Countries ?

• In sum
• Infant/child mortality remains high
• Sources of child labor remittance income later
  on
• Social security/safety net for elderly poor
• Low child-rearing cost, esp. low opportunity cost
  of womens time

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Impact of high fertility in developing countries
????

• Mutual causation means that rapid population
  growth with its usual accompaniments of early
  first births, large families, high child-adult
  ratios and near spacing of siblings may be not
  only a cause of poverty through the above
  mechanisms, but also a consequence of poverty
  probably due largely to constraints on, and
  rational behavior by, the poor. - Eastwood and
  Lipton

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Household theory of fertility

• Family size is a decision taken at the
  microeconomic level by households based on a
  rational economic decision on demand for
  children
• Income effect Higher income allows for larger
  family size
• Substitution effect Higher cost of children
  implies smaller family size
• Other theories

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Stage of Demographic Transition and population
requirement

• Population growth may be good in the beginning
• Besides population growth factors like political
  stability, cultural resources, and economic
  efficiency may be much more important ???

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Response of different countries

• Africa Namibia, Tanzania and the Sudan
  officially inaugurated policies to reduce
  population growth
• Most of the Asian governments are satisfied about
  their growth rates (especially China and Korea)
• Europe Portugal, Romania, and Italy are
  concerned about low population growth and Croatia
  inaugurated policy to increase fertility
• In Latin America many countries consider their
  population growth rates to be satisfactory.
  (exceptions densely populated areas of the
  Caribbean and Central America
• North America US and Canada, Australia and New
  Zealand are satisfied with their population
  growth rates

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Did family policies work?

• Some claim that the impact has been weak
  (Gauthier Hoem)
• Others suggest that family policies have had an
  impact
• The actual evidence is inconclusive
• Lack of adequate family policies may have
  contributed to the decline in fertility in
  southern Europe
• Some countries with more generous family policies
  (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, France, the UK) tend
  to have slightly higher fertility rates
• But countries with similar family policy regimes
  differ in their fertility rates

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• Thank you