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Chapter 5: Birth & Fertility (Common Period Measures (Crude Birth rate…
Chapter 5: Birth & Fertility
Measuring Fertility
A women's fertility refers to the number of live births she has actually experienced at a specific point in her life.
Three major sources for the analysis of fertility are: vital statistics, censuses, and sample surveys.
Birth and fertility can be measured in two alternative ways: by period or cohort.
Common Period Measures
Crude Birth rate: a period measure that employs both vital registration and census or survey data. It is defined by the total number of births to mothers of all ages that occur during a year.
Age Specific Fertility Rates: defined as the number of births per year by women of a specified age, such as 15-19, 35-39, and so on.
Total Fertility Rate: calculated from Age Specific Fertility Rates. It is weighted sum obtained by adding together the ASFR's for each cohort.
General Fertility Rates: the number of births that occur in a population during a year per 1,000 women of child bearing ages alive at mid year.
Gross Reproduction Rate: only female births are considered here. The rate can be calculated directly by summing the age-specific female birth rates and dividing by 1,000 to obtain a ratio.
Net Reproduction Rate: based on calculations that reduce the size of the GRR in accord with known mortality experiences of women in their reproductive ages.
Cohort Measures
account for the fertility experience over time of a birth or marital cohort; that is, an aggregate of women born during the same year or five-year interval or who were married on approx. the same date.
Economic, Structural, & Cultural Theories
Quality of Children: as family income increased, the number of children was also likely to increase.
Relative Income: the effect of income on family size depends on how couples view their current income with respect to their demand for child quality.
The Role of Values & Custom: This work opposes economic explanations in suggesting that small family size norms might simply have diffused among social groups that had other cultural traits in common
Wealth Flow Theory: focuses on the role of non demographic causes, such as acquisition of a western education and the assimilation of western values in the presence of opportunities for socioeconomic mobility.
Fertility In The U.S.
Following the World War II, the U.S. experienced very rapid economic growth, a baby boom, in sharp contrast to the prewar period.
U.S. fertility levels during the post war period were dominated by two important trends: the first is the boom of the late 1940s that lasted through the 1950s, second is the drop in birth and fertility rates that began in the late 1950's and has continued, in the rather uneven manner noted, to the present.