Human fertility in relation to education, economy, religion, contraception, and family planning programs

Abstract

Background: The world population is expected to increase greatly this century, aggravating current problems related to climate, health, food security, biodiversity, energy and other vital resources. Population growth depends strongly on total fertility rate (TFR), but the relative importance of factors that influence fertility needs more study. Methods: We analyze recent levels of fertility in relation to five factors: education (mean school years for females), economy (Gross Domestic Product, GDP, per capita), religiosity, contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR), and strength of family planning programs. We compare six global regions: E Europe, W Europe and related countries, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab States, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. In total, 141 countries are included in the analysis. We estimate the strength of relationships between TFR and the five factors by correlation or regression and present the results graphically. Results: In decreasing order of strength, fertility (TFR) correlates negatively with education, CPR, and GDP per capita, and positively with religiosity. Europe deviates from other regions in several ways, e.g. TFR increases with education and decreases with religiosity in W Europe. TFR decreases with increasing strength of family planning programs in three regions, but only weakly so in a fourth, Sub-Saharan Africa (the two European regions lacked such programs). Most factors correlated with TFR are also correlated with each other. In particular, education correlates positively with GDP per capita but negatively with religiosity, which is also negatively related to contraception and GDP per capita. Conclusions: These results help identify factors of likely importance for TFR in global regions and countries. More work is needed to establish causality and relative importance of the factors. Our novel quantitative analysis of TFR suggests that religiosity may counteract the ongoing decline of fertility in some regions and countries.

Drivers of desire for more children among childbearing women in sub-Saharan Africa: implications for fertility control

“…The study found that 64.95% of women desired more children, and this ranged from 34.9% in South Africa to 89.34% in Niger. This finding is comparable to previous studies [ 34 , 35 ]. However, it is higher than what was found in other studies [ 36 – 38 ].…”

“…In addition, women who are working are less likely to desire more children. These findings corroborate several previous studies which have revealed that higher socioeconomic status is associated with lower fertility desires [ 34 , 40 – 44 ]. This result can be discussed within the context of the wealth flow hypotheses postulated by Caldwell [ 45 , 46 ], who elucidates that, in contemporary societies, women and families who are in the high socioeconomic strata tend to view more children as additional burden that has the tendency to strain their resources, including time.…”

“…The possible pathways to explain the differences in the study findings could be differences in study scope and setting, the population sample, and the time these studies were carried out. The higher prevalence of desire for more children recorded in this study could also be attributed to the general importance attached to more children in most parts of SSA [ 34 , 35 , 39 ].…”

Cultural inheritance is driving a major transition in human evolution

“…Why would human fertility decline when individuals are on average more comfortable and healthier than ever? The correlates and proximate causes are broadly understood: total fertility rate (TFR) declines across societies with increasing education and economic development (177).…”

Sociological Analysis of Education and Reduction in Family Size in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan

“…It has been controlled in the developed world mostly whereas consistently found high in the developing countries even in the beginning of the 21st century. Education along with more awareness, access to family planning services, and adoption of family planning methods are the major causes of population control in the world (Götmark & Andersson, 2020;Mandl, 2019;Steer & Wathne, 2010;Tropf & Mandemakers, 2017; Ullah, Ashraf, Tariq, Aziz, .…”