Population An Introduction to Concepts And Issues 12th Edition By John R. Weeks - Test Bank

Population An Introduction to Concepts And Issues 12th Edition By John R. Weeks – Test Bank

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CHAPTER SIX

THE FERTILITY TRANSITION

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understand what is meant by the fertility transition.

2. Become familiar with how high fertility could be and why fertility was high for most of human history.

3. Understand the preconditions for a decline in fertility, including ideational changes, motivational changes, and changes in the availability of methods of fertility control.

4. Become familiar with the major ways by which fertility levels are measured.

5. Understand how the fertility transition takes place.

6. Understand the current geographic variability in the fertility transition.

MAIN POINTS

1. The fertility transition represents the shift from “natural fertility” to more deliberate fertility limitation, and is associated with a drop in fertility at all ages, but especially at the older ages (beyond the 30s) and younger ages (under 20).
2. Fertility refers to the number of children born to women (or fathered by men), whereas fecundity refers to the biological capacity to produce children.
3. For most of human history, high mortality meant that societies were more concerned with maintaining reasonably high fertility levels, rather than contemplating a decline in fertility—surviving children, not children ever born, was the goal.
4. Ansley Coale’s three preconditions for a fertility decline include: (1) acceptance of calculated choice in reproductive decision making (“ready”); (2) motivations to limit fertility (“willing”); and (3) the availability of means by which fertility can be regulated (“able”).
5. The supply-demand perspective on the fertility transition suggests that couples strive to maintain a balance between the potential supply of children and the demand (desired number of surviving children), given the cost of fertility regulation.
6. The innovation-diffusion model of fertility draws on sociological and anthropological evidence that much of human behavior is driven by the diffusion of new innovations—both technological and attitudinal—that may have little to do with a rational calculus of costs and benefits.
7. Fertility is measured in a variety of ways using period data (crude birth rate, general fertility rate, child-woman ratio, age-specific birth rates), synthetic cohorts (total fertility rate, gross reproduction rate, net reproduction rate), and cohort data (children ever born and birth intentions).
8. The fertility transition is typically accomplished through a later age at marriage, through older women deciding not to have that additional child, and through women in their prime reproductive years using effective means of fertility control, including especially contraception and abortion.
9. Virtually all wealthy societies now have below-replacement fertility levels, and in almost all less developed nations in the world today there are genuine stirrings of a fertility decline, as high-fertility norms and behavior give way to low-fertility preferences.
10. The level of fertility in the world is such that a woman gives birth to more than four children every second (we’ve got to find this woman and stop her!).

EXAMINATION QUESTIONS

Multiple-Choice (Choose the single best answer—the page where the answer is found is indicated in parentheses)

1. The fertility transition can best be described as the shift
   1. to a higher probability that children born will survive to adulthood.
   2. from low to high female empowerment.
   3. from family building by fate to family building by design. (191)
   4. from parental bondage to parental freedom.
2. “Natural” fertility in most populations produces an average of about ____ children.
   1. two to three
   2. four to five
   3. six to seven (193)
   4. eight to nine
3. Hutterite society has been notable especially for having high fertility in the context of
   1. low mortality. (194)
   2. dense urban life.
   3. acceptance of abortion.
   4. late age at marriage.
4. Of the following, _______ is least likely to be an explanation for the high fertility that existed for most of human history.
   1. the need to overcome high mortality
   2. the fact that children are a source of security and labor for their parents
   3. the desire for sons
   4. religious objections to the use of contraception (196)
5. The concept of accepting calculated choice as being a valid element in marital fertility decisions is one of the
   1. differences between fecundity and fertility.
   2. preconditions for a substantial fertility decline. (200)
   3. proximate determinants of fertility.
   4. diffusion processes leading to a drop in fertility.
6. The single most important instigator of fertility decline at the societal level is
   1. increased longevity. (203)
   2. the empowerment of women.
   3. secularization.
   4. higher levels of education.
7. The idea that couples strive to maintain a balance between how many surviving children they have and how many they want is associated with the concept of the
   1. preconditions for a substantial fertility decline.
   2. exogenous factors that influence reproductive behavior.
   3. new household economics of fertility behavior. (205)
   4. demographic linkage between fertility and reproductive health.
8. The concept that parents seek a trade-off between quantity and quality is derived from
   1. the innovation-diffusion perspective.
   2. neo-classical economic theory.
   3. rational choice theory.
   4. the supply-demand framework. (205)
9. The concept that fertility is importantly influenced by other people with whom we live and associate is derived from
   1. the innovation-diffusion perspective. (209)
   2. neo-classical economic theory.
   3. rational choice theory.
   4. the supply-demand framework.
10. Of the following characteristics of women, _______ is most closely associated with fertility levels.
    1. educational level (208)
    2. labor force participation
    3. religious preference
    4. wealth
11. Of the following important proximate determinants of fertility, ________ is least effective in terms of its average effect on fertility levels.
    1. abortion
    2. age at entry into sexual unions
    3. voluntary abstinence (215)
    4. breast-feeding
12. Among women in their 30s and 40s in the United States, the most popular form of contraception is
    1. the condom.
    2. the pill.
    3. sterilization. (216)
    4. the IUD.
13. The available evidence suggests that the most widely used method of birth control in the world is
    1. the pill.
    2. the condom.
    3. voluntary abstinence.
    4. abortion. (219)
14. The total fertility rate measures the total number of
    1. children born in a population.
    2. surviving children that a woman will have in her lifetime.
    3. children ever born to a woman at the end of her reproductive career.
    4. projected children ever born per woman if ASFRs do not change. (227)
15. The net reproduction rate is also known as the
    1. generational replacement rate. (228)
    2. total fertility rate.
    3. fertility index.
    4. mean length of generation.
16. Data on fertility intentions help to sort out the difference between
    1. timing and quantum of births. (230)
    2. gross and net reproduction.
    3. general and age-specific rates.
    4. proximate and distal determinants of fertility.
17. The region of the world that currently has the highest levels of fertility is
    1. Africa. (233)
    2. Asia.
    3. Latin America.
    4. Oceania.
18. The evidence suggests that ________ is an important impediment to higher fertility levels in Europe.
    1. lack of gender equity within marriage (237)
    2. the widespread use of abortion
    3. a continually sluggish economic environment
    4. the “glass ceiling” for women in the workplace
19. The impact of China’s one-child policy on that country’s fertility level can best be described as
    1. having provided the initial impetus for a fertility decline.
    2. allowing China to mirror similar fertility declines among its neighbors.
    3. facilitating an already existing decline in fertility. (240)
    4. being important only because it accompanied measures of social equity.
20. Among the following factors that might be influencing current fertility trends in the United States, the one with the least impact is that
    1. increasing numbers of babies born are Hispanic.
    2. high levels of cohabitation are depressing the birth rate. (247)
    3. teenage birth rates are declining.
    4. the average age at motherhood is increasing.

True-False

1. In population studies, fecundity refers to the biological capacity to reproduce. T (191)
2. The healthier a woman is, the later is the age at which she experiences menarche. F (192)
3. Hutterite women in the United States in the 1930s averaged 11 live births per woman. T (194)
4. Female genital mutilation is associated with low status of women, which is associated with high fertility. T (202)
5. The opportunity costs of children change over time as social circumstances change. T (206)
6. The diffusion of ideas such as desired family size is enhanced by the existence of rigidly defined social strata. F (210)
7. Before there was birth control, there was child control. T (212)
8. The later a woman marries, the more children she is likely to have. F (215)
9. Abortion rates tend to be highest when other methods of contraception are not readily available to women. T (219)
10. The United Kingdom is one of the few European countries in which fertility has recently risen above replacement level. F (236)

ESSAY/CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How have the three preconditions for a fertility decline played out thus far in your own life?
2. Do you agree that the supply-demand framework and the innovation-diffusion theories seem like complementary perspectives on the fertility transition, rather than competing with each other? Defend your answer.
3. How do you think your perspective on the number of children you want to have in your lifetime would differ if you lived in western Europe as compared to living in sub-Saharan Africa?
4. What are the arguments for and against the idea that fertility control is a moral dilemma rather than preventive medicine?
5. Why is it that different racial/ethnic groups in the United States have such different levels and trends in fertility? How do the perspectives on the fertility transition help us to understand these differences?

WEBSITES SUGGESTED FOR THIS CHAPTER

http://www.dhsprogram.com Most of the information that we have about fertility and reproductive health in developing countries comes from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), conducted by ICF Macro as part of the Measure project. At the DHS website you can produce your own summary of results by using the DHS STATcompiler, which is available under the “Data” category.

http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/dataset/contraception/wcu2012.shtml The United Nations Population Division has put together an Excel spreadsheet summarizing information about contraceptive utilization for most developing countries in the world. Of course, much of this information is drawn from Demographic and Health Surveys.

http://www.unfpa.org/ The UNFPA is the United Nations Population Fund—the population “outreach” arm of the UN. They publish an informative annual report that is available at this website, and recent volumes have all focused on issues of reproductive rights and gender equity and their relationship (implied or explicit) to the fertility transition.

http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/prh/prh-intro.html The Population and Reproductive Health Oral History Project at Smith College includes interviews with key people throughout the world who have been instrumental in implementing the dramatic fertility transition that occurred in the twentieth century.

And, of course, keep track of the latest items related to this chapter on my blog:

http://weekspopulation.blogspot.com/search/label/fertility transition

OTHER RESOURCES

Ever since it was published, I have had students read: Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd, A Convergence of Civilizations: The Transformation of Muslim Societies around the World (New York: Columbia University Press), 2011. It always evoke a lot of class discussion. Indeed, I spend an entire class period on the topic, assigning groups of students to different countries discussed in the book. The book came out just before the Arab Spring, so the class discussion can raises key issues about fertility levels since those events.

A good starter for class discussion about the ideational aspects of fertility is the article by Joseph Lee Rodgers, Craig A. St. John, and Ronnie Coleman, “Did Fertility Go Up After the Oklahoma City Bombing? An Analysis of Births in Metropolitan Counties in Oklahoma, 1990–1999,” Demography 42(4):675–692, 2005. The answer is yes, it did. The question is why? This discussion could be combined with the article by Jungmin Lee and Myungho Paik, “Sex Preferences and Fertility in South Korea during the Year of the Horse,” Demography 43(2):269–292, 2006; and Patrick Heuveline and Bunnak Poch, “The Phoenix Population: Demographic Crisis and Rebound in Cambodia,” Demography 44(2):605–426, 2007.