Status Enhancement and Fertility: Reproductive Responses to Social Mobility and Educational Opportunity

Abstract

This book synthesizes conceptual frameworks around which research on the determinants of fertility have been organized. Elaborating underlying causal dynamics it specifies how both traditional and more modern status attainment processes affect fertility. Emphasis is given to the potent role education plays in developing modern sex-role orientations among women and in providing them with the means to pursue rewarding alternatives to bearing large families. Womens education enlightenment social options and knowledge to control their reproductive destinies are intricately related. The books contents are organized around 2 general processes: social mobility and educational attainment. The 1st half of the book assesses what is known about the relationship between social mobility and fertility and advances this knowledge through theoretical synthesis. A literature review of what has been done in social mobility-fertility studies is included. A fundamental problem repeatedly emerging in analytical approaches to the social mobility-fertility question is the male-oriented focus on the research. Rather than comparing the situation of women with that of men this book compares women with each other in terms of labor force participation and age at 1st birth. How education serves as an independent status enhancement mechanism for women by influencing these factors and how this influence affects fertility is also explored. The fundamental conclusion drawn from the assessment of social mobility-fertility research is that a shift is required from a predominantly male-dependent status orientation to a more female-oriented focus. Thus the 2nd half of the book examines mechanisms through which women achieve status by their own initiatives and how this achievement is reflected in reproductive behavior. While each book section overviews empirical associations reported to date apropos status enhancement and fertility the main thrust is to elaborate causal processes proposed to explain observed associations.