Social Interactions and Contemporary Fertility Transitions
Title | Social Interactions and Contemporary Fertility Transitions PDF eBook |
Author | John Bongaarts |
Publisher | |
Pages | 80 |
Release | 1996 |
Genre | Demographic transition |
ISBN |
Social Interactions and Fertility Transitions
Title | Social Interactions and Fertility Transitions PDF eBook |
Author | Steven N. Durlauf |
Publisher | |
Pages | 31 |
Release | 1999 |
Genre | |
ISBN |
Diffusion Processes and Fertility Transition
Title | Diffusion Processes and Fertility Transition PDF eBook |
Author | National Research Council |
Publisher | National Academies Press |
Pages | 286 |
Release | 2001-12-15 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 0309076102 |
This volume is part of an effort to review what is known about the determinants of fertility transition in developing countries and to identify lessons that might lead to policies aimed at lowering fertility. It addresses the roles of diffusion processes, ideational change, social networks, and mass communications in changing behavior and values, especially as related to childbearing. A new body of empirical research is currently emerging from studies of social networks in Asia (Thailand, Taiwan, Korea), Latin America (Costa Rica), and Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Malawi, Ghana). Given the potential significance of social interactions to the design of effective family planning programs in high-fertility settings, efforts to synthesize this emerging body of literature are clearly important.
The Role of Diffusion Processes in Fertility Change in Developing Countries
Title | The Role of Diffusion Processes in Fertility Change in Developing Countries PDF eBook |
Author | Committee on Population |
Publisher | National Academies Press |
Pages | 42 |
Release | 1999-04-12 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 0309518881 |
This report summarizes presentations and discussions at the Workshop on the Social Processes Underlying Fertility Change in Developing Countries, organized by the Committee on Population of the National Research Council (NRC) in Washington, D.C., January 29-30, 1998. Fourteen papers were presented at the workshop; they represented both theoretical and empirical perspectives and shed new light on the role that diffusion processes may play in fertility transition. These papers served as the basis for the discussion that is summarized in this report.
Fertility and Social Interaction
Title | Fertility and Social Interaction PDF eBook |
Author | Hans-Peter Kohler |
Publisher | OUP Oxford |
Pages | 234 |
Release | 2001-09-27 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 0191529605 |
Considerable controversy exists among demographers, economists, and sociologists over the causes of fertility change in developing and developed countries. The neoclassical economic approach to fertility is embraced by its supporters because it facilitates the application of sophisticated consumer and household production theory to one of the most private and intimate questions: a couple's reproductive behavior. Despite the theoretical appeal of the economic approach, it has been eschewed by many critics because of its lack of social and institutional context, its neglect of cultural factors, and its requirement of 'rationality'. The integration of social interaction with economic fertility models in this book emerges as a powerful tool to overcome many of these criticisms. First, the analysis provides a formal integration of economic, sociological, and other approaches to fertility, and shows that there is a useful and promising agenda at the intersection of these schools. The second and more important goal is to sharpen the analytic lens with which theorists from different schools investigate fertility. For economists the work shows the advantages of moving beyond individual decision-making and embedding fertility decisions in a 'local environment' with interpersonal information flows, 'atmospheric' or social externalities, norms, and customs. For sociologists the work shows that theorizing about interactions within social networks can be more sophisticated. The implications of social networks depend substantially on the specific contexts and stages of the demographic transition, and these differences can be used to empirically distinguish between social learning and social influence. Thirdly, the findings have important implications for population policy. The analyses in this book indicate when family planning is likely to diffuse and lead to rapid adoption of birth control, and they derive conditions where Pareto-improving policy measures are likely to exist.
Shared Practices
Title | Shared Practices PDF eBook |
Author | Johan Junkka |
Publisher | |
Pages | |
Release | 2018 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9789176018910 |
This thesis studies how social interactions influenced the fertility decline during the Swedish demographic transition between 1850 and 1950. This, to gain insights into how and why norms and values affected married couples' birth control practices, and how this shaped the fertility decline. Social interaction effects are studied in two different networks, voluntary associations and spatial communities using regression-based methods, in four research papers. The relationship between social interactions and fertility, in turn, is studied at different levels of society, on a macro-, meso- and micro-level. The results show that married couples reproductive practices were affected by social interactions during the whole study period. Members of unions, free churches and temperance associations had, in general, lower fertility than others. Additionally, couples living near a union or a free-church was also more inclined to limit their fertility. Finally, the results show significant spatial autocorrelations in fertility of neighbours and couples in adjacent neighbourhoods. These results suggest that increased use of birth control was diffused within social networks through social interaction mechanisms and collective action. However, the most substantial effects are seen during the fertility transition. This was a time of large-scale societal changes, which made the perceived net benefits of childbearing more uncertain. The results of this thesis indicate that couples drew upon the experiences of others to make more informed decisions. Over time, these new shared practices were formed into social norms, connecting ideas of respectability with family limitation, diffused within social networks.
Fertility and Social Interaction
Title | Fertility and Social Interaction PDF eBook |
Author | Hans-Peter Kohler |
Publisher | |
Pages | 424 |
Release | 1997 |
Genre | Demographic transition |
ISBN |