Pathways to Low Fertility: 50 Years of Limitation, Curtailment, and Postponement of Childbearing

Abstract

This study applies survival analysis to the birth histories from 317 national surveys to model pathways to low fertility in 83 less-developed countries between 1965 and 2014. It presents period measures of parity progression, the length of birth intervals and total fertility that have been standardized fully for age, parity, and interval duration. It also examines parity-specific trends in the proportion of women who want no more children. Outside sub-Saharan Africa, fertility transition was dominated by parityspecific family size limitation. As the transition progressed, women also began to postpone their next birth for lengthy periods in many countries. During the first half of the fertility transition in much of sub-Saharan Africa and in some other countries, however, women stopped childbearing without targeting particular family sizes. Moreover, birth intervals in sub-Saharan Africa have been lengthening since the onset of the transition. Birth control is not restricted to a dichotomy between limitation and spacing. Other reasons for curtailing childbearing and postponing having another birth also shape countries' pathways through fertility transition.

The emergence and diffusion of birth limitation in urban areas of developing countries

“…National-level analyses of fertility trends by parity or age (as a proxy for parity) confirmed a role for family limitation across Asia, Latin America, as well as in contemporary high fertility contexts in Europe (Knodel 1977;Hobcraft 1985;Feeney 1991;Juarez and Llera 1996;Rodriguez 1996;Hosseini-Chavoshi et al 2006;Spoorenberg 2009;Spoorenberg and Dommaraju 2012;Lerch 2013;Spoorenberg 2013;McDonald et al 2015;Timaeus and Moultrie 2020). Yet there are notable exceptions.…”

“…When compared to stopping behaviors, the spacing (or postponement) of births had a comparatively limited impact on the decline of completed fertility outside of sub-Saharan Africa according to Knodel and van de Walle (1979) and Timaeus and Moultrie (2020). Yet Hruschka's et al (2018) modeling exercise found the inverse.…”

“…Period indicators of fertility fluctuate a lot in times of significant spacing or postponement of births, which constitute two mechanisms women rely on to temporarily (rather than definitively) limit their number of children (see Timaeus and Moultrie 2020). Cohort measures, by contrast, smooth out short-term variations and are therefore better suited to gauge long-term trends in birth limitation.…”

“…In this case, women do not stop childbearing. They curtail reproduction for motives that are not related to the attainment of a target parity -a widespread mechanism of birth limitation in sub-Saharan Africa according to Timaeus and Moultrie (2020). However, the average age at first birth has remained below 25 years in developing regions (Bongaarts et al 2017), and remarriage is often accepted.…”

Fertility Intentions and Effective Factors at a Glance: A Systematic Review

“…(2,3) and quickly expanded across Europe (3). The European pattern quickly became popular in developed Asian and American societies (4,5,6,7). At the same time, the childbearing rate among less developed countries showed a signi cant reduction (8,9).…”