TOWARD SMALLER FAMILY SIZE IN YEMEN

Abstract

Broad-based social changes such as fertility decline partly result from modernization in developing countries such as Yemen. The transition to small family norms are often spearheaded by a small group of innovators or change agents called demographic innovators. Demographic innovators often sharply differ from the rest in terms of a number of demographic characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to identify the presence and magnitude of the size of demographic innovators in the Republic of Yemen, a country at the very early stage of demographic transition. This study uses data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), 1991–92 and 1997 conducted in Yemen. Latent class analysis is used to identify the presence and size of the demographic innovator class. About three to four per cent of the sample respondents belong to the demographic innovators class. The members of the demographic innovator group are highly likely to prefer small ideal family size than are the rest. They are also more likely to have ever used modern birth control methods than the rest. We discuss the theoretical as well policy implications of our findings for Yemen, which has one of the highest fertility rates in the world.