Understanding Fertility Trends: High vs Low | Impact of Societal Factors on Birth Rates

1. The Human Population:Patterns, Processes, and ProblematicsLecture #9: Ch6: The Fertility Transition Paul Sutton psutton@du.edu Department of Geography University of Denver

2. Chapter 6 Outline • 1) Explanations for High Fertility • 2) Explanations for Low Fertility • 3) Some High Fertility Countries • 4) Some Low Fertility Countries

3. Bertrand Russel Quote (1959): “I am inclined to think that the most important of Western values is the habit of a low birth-rate. If this can be spread throughout the world, the rest of what is good in Western life can also be spread. There can be not only prosperity, but peace. But if the West continues to monopolize the benefits of low birth-rate(s), war, pestilence, and famine must continue, and our brief emergence from those ancient evils must be swallowed in a new flood of ignorance, destitution, and war.” Does anyone else hear echoes of Malthus?

4. Explanations for High Fertility • Need to replenish society • Children as security and labor • Desire for sons • Family control vs. Fertility control

5. Global Map of Total Fertility Rate (TFR) Spatial pattern the same as when Bertrand Russel made his 1949 statement but actual levels are lower

6. The Evolutionary Result:The Breeders win (need to replenish society) • For 99% of human history mortality was high • Only High Fertility insured survival • Pro-Natalist ‘cults of Fertility’ are an appropriate adaptation for survival.

7. Need to Replenish Society • Fact: 2 children/woman must survive to reproduce (on average) • Only those societies that developed social institutions that encouraged child bearing and rewarded parenthood survived.

8. Kgatla people of South Africa “A woman with many children is honored. Married couples acquire new dignity after the birth of their first child. Since the Kgatla have a patrilineal descent system (inheritance passes through the sons), the birth of a son makes the father the founder of a line that will perpetuate his name and memory… [the mother’s] kin are pleased because the birth saves them from shame”

9. Yoruba People of West Nigeria • Less than 4 children a family tragedy • Personally desired fertility of 5.6 • ‘Socially’ desired fertility 3 or less • Actual fertility in between these value because of involuntary infecundity

10. Social Encouragement of High Fertility • “We often find for example that the permissive enjoyment of sexual intercourse, the ownership of land, the admission to certain offices, the claim to respect, and the attainment of blessedness are made contingent upon marriage. Marriage accomplished, the more specific encouragements to fertility apply. In familistic societies where kinship forms the chief basis of social organization, reproduction is a necessary means to nearly every major goal in life. The salvation of the soul, the security of old age, the production of goods, the protection of the hearth, and the assurance of affection may depend upon the presence, help, and comfort of progeny….[T]his articulation of the parental status with the rest of one’s statuses is the supreme encouragement to fertility.”

11. Societal disconnect between infant and child mortality and fertility ‘Pro-natalist pressure encourages family members to bring power and prestige to themselves and to their group by having children; and, this may have no particular relationship to the level of mortality within a family’ Any problems with this reasoning?

12. Children as Security & Labor • In Pre-Modern Societies human beings are the primary economic resource • Even young children can produce more than they consume and support sick and elderly Note: Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel notes that elderly make key informational contributions to Pre-Modern societies. In fact, our life expectancy reaching a certain critical point may have been key to development of complex civilization (This observation may be from other book ‘The Third Chimpanzee’)

13. Esther Boserup Quote (1981) “In most of Africa, a large share of the agricultural work was and is done by women and the children, even very young ones, perform numerous tasks in rural areas. A man with many children can have his land cleared for long-fallow cultivation by young sons, and all, or nearly all, other agricultural work done by women and smaller children. He need not pay for hired labor or fear for lack of support in old age. A large family is an economic advantage--a provider of social security, and of prestige in the local community. Therefore, the large family is the universally agreed on ideal in most African communities.”

14. What is the perception as to:How do more children help? • Human Lottery Tickets (one may get rich) • Help with crops etc. • Migrate elsewhere and send money home

15. What is the Reality as to:How do children help? • Parents usually die before it is an issue • In Pre-Modern society quantity more important than quality of children • Studies show only a weak link between fertility and percieved need for old-age security

16. Desire for Sons • Most Human Societies are Male Dominated (exception: Minoan Crete and Navajo Nation?) • In societies seeking “An heir and a spare” The TFR can almost be predicted by what TFR is needed for 2 male children In Pakistan 5.6 in Angola 6.8 • When Daughters marry Daughter’s Family provides Dowry to New Bride and Groom. This is a serious economic disincentive for daughters.

17. Desire for Sons in India • Hindu Religion requires parents to be buried by their son. (BTW mom’s supposed to burn herself On dad’s grave (Sati)) “A son obtains victory over all people. A grandson provides immortality. A great grandson vaults one to the solar abode” • Needles to say this kind of belief system does encourage high fertility.

18. Desire for Sons continued…. • Malaysia: Low desire for sons in both Malay (Muslim) and Indian (Hindu) populations • China: High desire for sons • Korea: High desire for sons • Viet Nam: High desire for sons

19. Desire for Sons and Dropping Fertility (How can that work?) • Infanticide (not as common as previously thought) • Sex-Selective Abortion (very common) • Result: More boys than girls in countries with high desire for sons. How big a social problem this will manifest as is an interesting question

20. Desire for Sons:The European Version (Primogeniture) • Definition: Primogeniture • 1) The state of being the firstborn of the children of the same parents • 2) The exclusive right of inheritance belonging to the eldest son • The male children: 1)The Heir 2) The Soldier 3) The Priest Primogeniture waned with gender equity and the ideal family in Europe is now 1 boy and 1 girl

21. Family Control & Fertility Control • Natural Fertility rarely as high as Maximum Fertility • Families Maximize benefit of Children • Net Reproduction is how many survive • Post-Natal Control methods • Infanticide • Fosterage • Orphanage Note: Post-Natal control is NOT fertility control

22. Keeping Women Down • Making women have a lot of children is a great way to prevent them from doing a lot of other things. (How is it accomplished?) • Child bearing & rearing as Female purpose/role/identity • No outside work or work for money • No social mobility • Family and Social Pressure to be a mother

23. Explanations for the Fertility Transition • 1) Rational Response to Supply-Demand framework (children as neo-classical economic goods) • 2) Socio-cultural influences adopted or created “Innovation/diffusion” perspective

24. Two Primary Forces of the Demographic Transition 1) Mortality Decline Exogenous 2) Fertility Decline Endogenous Thus: “The New Home Economics” aka The Supply-Demand Framework

25. Richard Easterlin’s “New Home Economics” (Neo-Classical Economic Perspective) • Household is the unit of analysis • High Fertility may avoid risk in LDCs with weak institutions and children may increase income flow • Children as commodities • Parents as ‘rational’ consumers

26. In “Supply-Demand” paradigm… • Fertility drops when supply of children exceeds demand • Cause 1: reduced infant mortality • Cause 2: increased opportunity costs • Decision about having children is a complex Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA)

27. Gary Becker (1960) takes Easterlin’s New Home Economics/Supply-Demand farther • Children as commodities with different individuals having different ‘utility’ functions associated with 1st, 2nd, 3rd child • Children as consumer goods which cost both time and money to acquire • Trade-off between Quality & Quantity of children with wealthy opting for Quality and poor for Quantity.

28. Why do people in the U.S. have any children if there are no economic benefits for having them? • Psychological Satisfaction • Proof of adulthood • Integration into family and community • Establish social networks • Contribute to drama of evolution

29. Easterlin & Becker’s REALexplanation for Fertility Decline“It’s the economy stupid.” • Other things in life compete with children • Other sources of income than children • Other ways to spend time and money than on children • Availability of contraception not enough. • Desire for fewer children a necessary pre-cursor

30. Early Times: Power -> High Fertility • See Gorillas, Sea Lions, etc. in Natural World • Modern Times: Power -> Low Fertility • Is there something ‘unnatural’ going on here?” “The rich get richer and the poor have children.” To what extent does this inhibit the rich from being open to broader redistribution of wealth?

31. Education & Fertility • Mass Education is Relatively New (Renaissance) • Education is correlated with Secularization • Education is best SES variable for predicting attitudes about reproduction • Educated people are the ‘Agents of Change’ of Fertility in “cultural” innovation/diffusion perspective

32. FemaleEducationis criticalin FertilityDecline

33. The “Innovation/Diffusion” or “Cultural” perspective “Not all social scientists agree that human behavior is described by rational neo-classical economic theory. Sociologists, Anthropologists, & Cultural Geographers argue that many changes in society are the result of diffusion of innovation” Examples anyone?

34. How important are great individuals in bringing about social and political change? • Ghandi and India’s Independence? • Reagan and the Soviet Union’s collapse? • Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood? If lower fertility is brought about by innovation and or diffusion of a ‘cultural’ value …. Could Fertility Decline be brought about by a cultural ‘innoculation’?

35. Margaret Sanger(1879-1966)Mother of Planned Parenthood • Margaret Sanger's work as a visiting nurse focused her interest in sex education and women's health. In 1912 she began writing a column on sex education for the New York Call entitled "What Every Girl Should Know." This experience led to her first battle with censors, who suppressed her column on venereal disease, deeming it obscene. Increasingly, it was the issue of family limitation that attracted Sanger's attention as she worked in New York's Lower East Side with poor women suffering the pain of frequent childbirth, miscarriage and abortion. Influenced by the ideas of anarchist Emma Goldman, Sanger began to argue for the need for family limitation as a tool by which working-class women would liberate themselves from the economic burden of unwanted pregnancy. • Shocked by the inability of most women to obtain accurate and effective birth control, which she believed was fundamental to securing freedom and independence for working women, Sanger began challenging the 1873 federal Comstock law and the various "little Comstock" state laws that banned the dissemination of contraceptive information. In March 1914, Sanger published the first issue of The Woman Rebel, a radical feminist monthly that advocated militant feminism, including the right to practice birth control. For advocating the use of contraception, three issues of The Woman Rebel were banned, and in August 1914 Sanger was eventually indicted for violating postal obscenity laws. Unwilling to risk a lengthy imprisonment for breaking federal laws, Sanger jumped bail in October and, using the alias "Bertha Watson," set sail for England. En route, she ordered friends to release 100,000 copies of Family Limitation, a 16-page pamphlet which provided explicit instructions on the use of a variety of contraceptive methods. • On arrival in England, Margaret Sanger contacted a number of British radicals, feminists, and neo-Malthusians whose social and economic theories helped Sanger develop broader justifications for the use of birth control. She was also deeply influenced by psychologist Havelock Ellis and his theories on the importance of female sexuality. Sanger broadened her arguments for birth control claiming it would fulfill a critical psychological need by enabling women to fully enjoy sexual relations, free from the fear of pregnancy. • In 1915 William Sanger was jailed for 30 days for distributing a copy of Family Limitation to an undercover postal agent. Shortly after, in October of that year, Margaret Sanger, keen to focus media attention on her trial and generate favorable public support, returned to New York to face The Woman Rebel charges. When her only daughter, five-year old Peggy, died suddenly in November, sympathetic publicity convinced the government to drop Sanger's prosecution. Denied the forum of a public trial, Sanger embarked on a nationwide tour to promote birth control. Arrested in several cities, her confrontational style attracted even greater publicity for herself and the cause of birth control.

36. 3 Conditions for Fertility Decline • 1) Acceptance of Calculated Choice as a valid element in marital fertility • 2) Perception of Advantages from reduced fertility • 3) Knowledge, Mastery, and Availability of effective techniques of fertility control

37. Leon Tabah’s 1980 Quote: “Motivations for childbearing cannot in themselves explain behavior without reference to the social environment. Thus, American sociologists and demographers have for many years observed that changes in the social climate of the United States at the time of the Great Depression and equally during the postwar baby boom had more influence on fertility than the so-called personal variables (education, income, religion of the individual). Through this reasoning, one comes to appeal to the ‘collective conscience’, that overr-riding force that operates on our lives at the same time that we believe we are controlling them ourselves.”

38. The Role of Public Policy in Fertility Decline • 1) Is more or less appealing to have children? (tax laws, education expectations, etc.) • 2) Is easier or more difficult to control fertility? (Is abortion legal, are contraceptives available and affordable)

39. Government Poverty & Fertility • U.S and British Policy to limit Public’s access to information about birth control (Why Margaret Sanger is my heroine) • 1920’s Russia repealed anti-abortion laws & made divorce easier. Result: Birth Rates dropped to much for their tast and re-outlawed abortion in the 1930’s • Cuban Revolution in 1959 CBR jumped from 27 to 37. Ironic Malthusian response to improved economic opportunities • Egypt made unsuccessful attempts at fertility control but economic policies had more influence on fertility

40. What does Fertility Decline look like? • Evolution from children having children to women having children. (increased age of women having first child) • Smaller completed family size (stopping at four instead of 6 or 2 instead of 4) • Age specific Fertility Rates drop across all ages but much more markedly at very young and very old ages. (women concentrate their births in the 20-34 year old range) • Parity Progression Ratios change (e.g. what are the odds of having n+1 babies given the fact that a woman has had n babies)

41. Changesto AgeSpecificFertilityRates inFourSelectedCountries

42. Next up a look at actual conditions in some countries today……. • High Fertility: • Jordan, India, Mexico • Low Fertility: • England, Japan, Canada, and the United States