Reconstructing historical fertility change in Mongolia

Abstract

1. IntroductionThe increasing number of population censuses and sample surveys significantly improve our knowledge of recent demographic changes in statistically less-developed countries. The availability of large survey programs and the recommended inclusion of specific questions in census questionnaires have improved the estimation of child mortality and fertility levels and trends. In the statistically less-developed countries, demographic changes since the 1980s are now somewhat better documented, but deriving demographic estimates for earlier periods still remains a challenging task. The limited number of available demographic data sources constitutes one of the main difficulties facing demographers. In addition, this early fragmentary demographic evidence often has important data quality limitations. Yet the increasing number of population data sources also allows for a renewed comparison and cross-validation of demographic estimates, and a better understanding of past population processes.Thanks to consistent population statistics, the demographic development of Mongolia is well documented from the 1970s to the present (Gereltuya 2008; Neupert 1992, 1996; Mungunsarnai and Spoorenberg 2012; Spoorenberg 2009, 2014a). However, much less is known about the earlier decades of the 20th century. Thus most of the studies of fertility change in Mongolia have focused on the fertility decline that started in the country in the mid-1970s (Gereltuya 2008; Neupert 1992, 1994; Spoorenberg 2009). So far the political factor has received most consideration when explaining fertility change in the country (Gereltuya 2008). The very high fertility levels of the 1960s until the mid-1970s are understood as the result of the pro-natalist policies adopted by the socialist government, consisting in generous benefits to families having children. Therefore the onset of the fertility decline in the mid-1970s is explained by the changes made in these pro-natalist policies. While the policy factor certainly contributes to explaining the fertility levels and trends in Mongolia, giving primacy to this factor in the explanation of the fertility change in Mongolia is short-sighted.2The objective of this paper is to reconstruct fertility levels and trends in Mongolia before 1960 in order to offer an alternative view of historical fertility change in the country. The paper opens with an overview of the development of Mongolia's population during the 20th century. It shows that population growth was very low until the late 1940s as a result of a combination of high mortality levels and fertility levels that were well below the historical peak of the 1960s and 1970s. The data used and the methods applied to reconstruct fertility change in the country are then introduced. Mobilizing a large set of data from different sources and applying diverse estimation techniques, a consistent reconstruction of nearly a century of fertility change in Mongolia is conducted. The third section presents the fertility estimates. Their quality is assessed through 1) cross-comparison, and 2) prospective reconstruction of Mongolia's population between the 1918 and 1956 censuses, using three fertility variants. The comparison of different fertility estimates returns a very consistent picture of historical fertility change in Mongolia, indicating that total fertility stagnated until the late 1940s before embarking on an impressive increase of around 2.5 children per woman within 15 years, followed by a plateau until the mid-1970s, and thereafter a rapid decline. The prospective population reconstruction shows that the population enumerated in the 1956 census can be consistently reproduced assuming almost constant fertility levels and trends between 1918 and 1956, thus validating the quality of the new fertility estimates introduced in this analysis. The factors behind the pre-decline fertility rise in the country are then discussed. It is shown that the impressive pre-decline fertility rise is primarily the result of improvements in health and living standards leading to a reduction in infertility. …