Periodic High Risk as a Cause of Fertility Decline in a Changing Rural Environment: Survival Strategies in the 1980-1983 South Indian Drought

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In the attempt to explain persistent high fertility in much of the Third World, attention has been drawn both to current returns from child labor and to the mitigation or avoidance of future risks. The latter can be subdivided into meeting emergencies while the parental generation is still of working age and providing for old age or even safeguarding the transmission of family property on parental death. The problems of old age have recently received most attention, and they may well be of paramount importance in many societies.' Yet, in a research program that we have conducted in rural south India since 1979, the reasons given for demographic behavior have more frequently emphasized the need to plan strategies to meet periodic crisis than to ensure old-age support.2 Nevertheless, one should not underemphasize the latter merely because the problem is predictable and the solutions understood. In the study area, for the great majority of the aged, the support system still worked well.3 In contrast, in our investigations of marriage, fertility control, and education, we repeatedly discovered that a fundamental consideration with regard to parental decisions in these areas was to strengthen the ability of the family to withstand periodic crises.4 By far the most important type of crisis in this dry, drought-prone area was recurrent famines resulting