Application of survey techniques to fertility studies

Abstract

INTEREST in fertility levels, differentials, and trends has grown during the past two decades, and this interest has quickened during the past decade. But curiously, there has been a rather slow response in the field of fertility studies to the forces growing out of two revolutions that have taken place since World War II: a revolution in mortality which has seen declines in death rates 3-5 times as rapidly as before the war; and a revolution in the hopes and aspirations of man that is highlighted in the creation of new nations and in the popularization of new phrases such as 5-year plans, development economics and economic take-off. Birth rates in the developing countries now average 4045 per 1000 population per year. To bring these down to the European level of 17 or 18 per 1000 would mean a drop of some 25 points in the birth rate. Given a population of more than 2 billion people in the developing areas, this implies a reduction of some 50 million births per annum, if the reduction were accomplished at this time. If the reduction is postponed until the end of the century, the figures will have doubled, and a reduction of 100 million births per year will be needed. The decline of the birth rate in Europe took 60-70 years-from 1880, when reductions in the birth rate became general in Western Europe, until the 1940s when moderate levels of fertility were to be found throughout most of Europe. For some countries the shift from moderately high to low birth rates took longer. Birth rates are higher in the developing areas now than they were in Europe just before the major declines that brought fertility rates to their current lows. It is clear that the tempo of the European demographic transition is too slow if Asia and Africa and Latin America are to realize their hopes and aspirations, at least if this is to be done during the 20th century. This is an era in which it is generally acknowledged that the world has a population problem and that something must be done about it. There is still a sizeable body of intellectuals and moralists who feel that economic development is the key to the problem and that fertility declines will follow economic advancement. They reason that economic advancement brings with it increased education, increased vertical mobility, increased urbanization, and all those unspecified processes that are assumed automatically to trigger fertility declines. There was considerable institutional opposition in Europe and America to family planning and such opposition may have retarded declines in fertility. Today governments are taking action in the field of population in advance of the people themselves, and perhaps this new climate of opinion can speed