Conclusions

Abstract

Abstract How values are constructed and maintained, and how they influence behaviour, has long been a central concern of social scientists. Demography is commonly viewed as among the least reflective and most coldly numerical of the social science disciplines, and therefore most social scientists assume that values figure in theory and discourse in demography in only a minor way. In fact assertions about values and the larger cultural systems in which they are embedded appear in most of the influential treatises on fertility change, from the early statements by Notestein and his contemporaries (Notestein 1953; Davis 1955) to the present (Caldwell 1982; Lesthaeghe 1983; Preston 1986; Cleland and Wilson 1987). Hence it would be inaccurate to accuse demographers of ignoring values altogether. Most demographic theory, however, assigns a much weaker causal contribution to cultural systems than other major societal structures (especially social and economic structures).