Abstract
In the course of demographic transitions (DTs), two large-scale trends become apparent: (i) the broadly positive association between wealth, status and fertility tends to reverse, and (ii) wealth inequalities increase and then temporarily decrease. We argue that these two broad patterns are linked, through a diversification of reproductive strategies that subsequently converge as populations consume more, become less self-sufficient and increasingly depend on education as a route to socio-economic status. We examine these links using data from 22 mid-transition communities in rural Poland. We identify changing relationships between fertility and multiple measures of wealth, status and inequality. Wealth and status generally have opposing effects on fertility, but these associations vary by community. Where farming remains a viable livelihood, reproductive strategies typical of both pre- and post-DT populations coexist. Fertility is lower and less variable in communities with lower wealth inequality, and macro-level patterns in inequality are generally reproduced at the community level. Our results provide a detailed insight into the changing dynamics of wealth, status and inequality that accompany DTs at the community level where peoples' social and economic interactions typically take place. We find no evidence to suggest that women with the most educational capital gain wealth advantages from reducing fertility, nor that higher educational capital delays the onset of childbearing in this population. Rather, these patterns reflect changing reproductive preferences during a period of profound economic and social change, with implications for our understanding of reproductive and socio-economic inequalities in transitioning populations.
Highlights
The dramatic fertility declines that accompany transitions from subsistence farming to a market economy are typified by two important large-scale patterns: (i) an apparent reversal or dampening of the broadly positive association between wealth, status and fertility [1,2,3]; and (ii) a short-term reversal in trends in inequality [4,5,6,7,8]
We argue that as subsistence farmers transition to a market economy, wealth and status become decoupled in their effects on fertility, allowing variation in reproductive strategies to emerge alongside new forms of status stratification
Demographic transitions can be conceptualized as transitions in the nature and effects of wealth and status
Summary
The dramatic fertility declines that accompany transitions from subsistence farming to a market economy are typified by two important large-scale patterns: (i) an apparent reversal or dampening of the broadly positive association between wealth, status and fertility [1,2,3]; and (ii) a short-term reversal in trends in inequality [4,5,6,7,8]. Because market-integrated couples may not need (or want) large families, resources are diluted among fewer people This mirrors a macro-level pattern whereby fertility declines temporarily change the age-structure of a population, allowing for periods of rapid economic growth [41,52]. Farmers who diversify their income sources by having family members in the labour market may still need (or want) more children, so they experience greater dilution of their market-related resources. We allow both the slopes and intercepts of our wealth and status measures to vary by community, constituting a conservative test of the hypothesis that they are associated with fertility overall (electronic supplementary material). All analyses were carried out in R v. 14.2 (electronic supplementary material)
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