Development Context, Regional Differences among Young Women, and Fertility: The Ecuadorean Amazon

Abstract

This study examined the impact of individual and contextual factors and their interaction on fertility behavior in Ecuador. It is hypothesized that development changes the impact of higher education paid employment dominant ethnicity and marital status on fertility. Some attributes of development may reduce the fertility-reducing effects of womens social positions. Other attributes such as migration and the greater presence of the state may enhance womens status related to lower fertility. Data were obtained from the 1990 Census of Population for Ecuador on single age cohorts for women aged 20 and 24 years (470835 women). Descriptive profiles revealed the variation in development level and womens population composition. Principal component analysis was used to select factors that could describe all cantons in a single dimension. Findings in the proportional odds logistic models indicate how returns to womens individual statuses vary by context. They also indicate the extent to which individual relationships are modified by the presence or absence of a family-based economy and by differences between Amazonian and national development patterns. Findings indicate that the family-based Amazonian economy lowered the fertility-reducing effects of womens education and employment. In regions with a predominant family-based economy women with higher education enrolled in school or employed in wage work had higher fertility than women in a less-prevalent family-based region. In the family-based economy model the demographic regime model and the migration models contextual variables had small but direct effects on fertility. Interactions revealed that contexts enhanced fertility decline for education employment migration and student status. Affiliation with the dominant ethnic group increased fertility decline fourfold under a high migration context and fivefold where state employment presence was high.