Post-Soviet economic crisis and fertility decline: parity-specific trends in Tajikistan

1. Post-Soviet economic crisis and fertility decline: parity-specific trends in Tajikistan David Clifford Supervisors: Andrew Hinde and Jane Falkingham

2. Outline • Background: Tajikistan • Motivations for study focus • Approach • Data – birth histories from surveys • Results • Final thoughts

3. Background: Tajikistan

4. Background: Tajikistan • Demographically: • Highest fertility of Soviet Republics at time of independence • early and universal marriage, swift progression to childbearing • Non-marital childbearing very rare • Independent from the Soviet Union in Sept. 1991 • Poorest of former Republics at time of independence....and experienced most severe economic crisis since

5. Economic crisis exacerbated by civil war • May 1992 onwards, concentrated in Southern Tajikistan • Worst fighting second half of 1992 • Followed by period of civil unrest until 1997 • Casualties estimated at between 20,000 and 100,000 • Estimated 70,000 refugees; 600,000+ IDPs

6. Economic crisis in Tajikistan

7. Motivation • Collapse of socialism in C and E Europe and FSU • These countries offer ‘potentially rich’ material for an examination of the effects of dramatic sociopolitical and economic transformations on marital and fertility behaviour (Agadjanian 1999) • Key word: ‘potentially’… • E Europe under researched (Caldwell and Schindlmayr 2003).. • post-Soviet Central Asia even more so.. • least known of all about Tajikistan (Gentile 2005)

8. What work has been done on post-socialist change has shown.. • E Europe now the lowest fertility region in the world, after precipitous fertility decline in 1990s • Even larger absolute fertility declines in countries of Central Asia But for Tajikistan.. • whether there has been a decline in fertility has not been formally established

9. Problem of under-registration of births • Increase in births at home • Introduction of registration fee • <50% of newborns officially registered in first six months (2000) • Hence TFRs ‘are probably much higher than most statistics would suggest’ (Gentile 2005) • TFRs based on vital registration data do show a fertility decline.. • ..but is this simply an artefact of reduced registration?

10. Fertility trends in Central Asia

11. Focus • To establish whether total fertility in Tajikistan has declined since end of Soviet Union, and to quantify extent of decline • TFR and ASFRs over time • Jackknife methods to calculate standard errors and CIs

12. Focus • To explore the ‘pattern’ of fertility change in post-Soviet Tajikistan - using parity specific fertility rates • Evidence from other FSU countries: • dramatic reduction in higher-order birth rates • attributed to severe decline in living standards • robust first birth rates, despite overall fertility decline • In some cases, an increase in early first births • Particularly in first half of 1990s • Marriage and childbearing as ‘strategy’ for coping with uncertainty? (Friedman et al. 1994)

13. Approach • Fertility change in period framework • Using survey birth history data. • Fertility rates unaffected by under-registration • Not using a regression approach • Often studies relate demographic variables to individual-level covariates (region, education..) • Here focus is on macro-level explanators (economic crisis, civil war..) - which aren’t included in the survey • and explaining temporal change – no time-varying covariates in the survey • Descriptive interpretation of trends: Ní Bhrolcháin and Dyson (2007)

14. Birth history data • Tajikistan Living Standards Survey (2003) • 6,196 women 15-49 • Calculated fertility rates for 15 years before the survey.. • so to look at changes in fertility over time, have to examine TFR 15-34

15. Age-Specific Fertility Rates: Vital Registration and Survey

16. Results • Fertility has declined in post-Soviet Tajikistan • Vital registration (VR) does underestimate fertility • but fertility decline in VR data not simply reflection of decreased registration • Consistent and significant declines in fertility since independence:

17. Parity Specific Fertility Rates

18. 1st half of the 1990s • Significant declines in fertility at higher orders • Spatially pervasive – so not just effect of civil war • Timing and scale of decline suggest response to economic crisis • Achieved without widespread access to modern contraception?

19. 1st half of the 1990s • First birth rates robust – and increase in early births • Related to increase in marriage (esp. early marriage) in early post-independence period • A strategy for coping with economic crisis and uncertainty? • women become members of their husband’s household after marriage (Harris 2004) • Shemyakina (WP:13) in times of economic crisis accentuated by conflict ‘girls may be… married off to lift the [economic] burden from their families’

20. From mid-1990s • Higher order fertility quite robust • Earlier declines a one-off response to economic crisis, not prolongued transition? • Significant declines in first birth rates • Associated with significant declines in marriage rates (60% decrease from 1995-2004)

21. Final thoughts • Survey data provides evidence of post-Soviet fertility decline • Interesting case of decline • Not context of modernisation • Decrease in living standards, educational enrollment, health • Further work needed on the impact of migration on nuptiality and fertility

22. First Marriage and First Birth Rates

23. Next Step.. What caused decline in marriage rates? • One theory: labour migration has led to shortage of men to marry (estimated 1m international migrants) • Examining data on migration: survey has info. on migrant members of the household, and when they first moved away • Temporal trends in migration • Relate it to trend in marriage rates • Cross-sectional • Are the migrant workers primarily single? • Are the areas with large numbers of single male migrants also those showing declines in marriage?

24. e-mail: dmc104@soton.ac.uk