Preface List of Tables List of Figures List of Maps CHAPTER 1. Introduction 2. Methodology 3. The Study Aera and its People 4. Demographic Description and Fertility Differentials 5. Family Type and its Relationship with Fertility 6. The Family Planning Programme in the Research Area 7. Fertility and Family Planning Decision-Making: Dimensions and Supports. 8. Acceptors and Non-Acceptors of Family Planning, and the Decision-Making Process 9. Value of Children and Education 10. Conclusion and Overview of Findings Further Readings Appendix Index Page

This volume brings together 13 well-researched and original essays which describe and analyse the trajectory of fertility decline in the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Documenting the fact that the fertility decline occurred in regions with vast differences in development indicators, the contributors argue that this transition must be understood as a cumulative result of several factors including family planning policies, socio-economic transformation, and changes in social perceptions towards fertility, contraception, marriage, family and child rearing. Combining various qualitative and quantitative techniques with field studies and historical analysis, the contributors go beyond the formal tools of demography and develop an original Geographical Information System (GIS), a spatialized database encompassing south Indian districts.

Nederlandse samenvatting: Een kind als hoop.

This compendium of nineteen chapters, written by South Asia scholars and international authorities in the field of population, provides an overview of a range of issues surrounding fertility change in South Asia over the past decade.

Observers of the Third World have been surprised in recent years by the dramatic declines in both birth and death rates in many developing countries. These phenomena have occurred on a vast scale in India. Although demographers are familiar with the broad outlines of what has happened there, they still know very little of the causes of these changes. Now, John C. Caldwell, P. H. Reddy, and Pat Caldwell present the results of their long investigation in rural South India, revealing critical social and political changes that will be of interest and value to all demographers, sociologists, planners, and other social scientists. The investigation, centering around the changes that the rural population is effecting in order to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by a global economy and society, has broad and profound implications for all Third World peoples and societies.

Fertility, Biology, and Behavior: An Analysis of the Proximate Determinants presents the proximate determinants of natural fertility. This book discusses the biological and behavioral dimensions of human fertility that are linked to intermediate fertility variables. Organized into nine chapters, this book begins with an overview of the mechanisms through which socioeconomic variables influence fertility. This text then examines the absolute and relative age-specific marital fertility rates of selected populations. Other chapters consider the trends in total fertility rates of selected countries, including Colombia, Kenya, Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, France, and United States. This book discusses as well the effects of deliberate marital fertility control through contraception and induced abortion. The final chapter deals with the management of sex composition and implications for birth spacing. This book is a valuable resource for reproductive physiologists, social scientists, demographers, statisticians, biologists, and graduate students with an interest in the biological and behavioral control of human fertility.