The impact of freedom on fertility decline

Abstract

Although fertility decline often correlates with improvements in socioeconomic conditions, many demographers have found flaws in demographic transition theories that depend on changes in distal factors such as increased wealth or education. Human beings worldwide engage in sexual intercourse much more frequently than is needed to conceive the number of children they want, and for women who do not have access to the information and means they need to separate sex from childbearing, the default position is a large family. In many societies, male patriarchal drives to control female reproduction give rise to unnecessary medical rules constraining family planning (including safe abortion) or justifying child marriage. Widespread misinformation about contraception makes women afraid to adopt modern family planning. The barriers to family planning can be so deeply infused that for many women the idea of managing their fertility is not considered an option. Conversely, there is evidence that once family planning is introduced into a society, then it is normal consumer behaviour for individuals to welcome a new technology they had not wanted until it became realistically available. We contend that in societies free from child marriage, wherever women have access to a range of contraceptive methods, along with correct information and backed up by safe abortion, family size will always fall. Education and wealth can make the adoption of family planning easier, but they are not prerequisites for fertility decline. By contrast, access to family planning itself can accelerate economic development and the spread of education.

Study of knowledge and contraception practices in low socio-economic women of Delhi

“…shortfalls and breaks in commodity supplies, arbitrary medical rules and restrictions before contraception can be used, unaffordable prices, laws restricting the provision of safe abortion as well as widespread misinformation about contraception. 25 The knowledge of non-contraceptive knowledge of noncontraceptive benefits was present in one-third of the studied sample. Making them aware of these potential benefits probably will make them more acceptable.…”

“…Even the religious rules and value systems often limit the mobility and decision making capacities of women. 25 Opposition from the family members/spouse was seen in 15.4%. This is really sad for country like India where the male dominance still prevails which forbids the women from her independent decision making.…”

What do men want? Re-examining whether men benefit from higher fertility than is optimal for women

“…There is a broader social science literature that makes parallel proposals that patriarchal norms or women's low social status kept fertility high until recent centuries [2]. Although the latter literature is not committed to evolutionary accounts, and therefore has no interest in whether the actors were pursuing fitness-maximizing strategies, their argument hinges on a rather unlikely assumption that women have little autonomy in any society pre-demographic transition.…”

“…This is commonly interpreted by social scientists as women exercising their preferences for smaller families than men when they have the power to do so ( [2][3][4][5], but see [6] for a more nuanced understanding). While female autonomy and empowerment are operationalized in diverse ways, their definitions share an emphasis on women being able to act in their individual interests with limited social coercion.…”

Voluntary family planning to minimise and mitigate climate change

“…They can be tangible (eg, inadequate resourcing or maintenance of contraceptive supplies, child marriage, or sexual abuse) and intangible (eg, cultural and familial pronatalism, religious or partner opposition to contraception, fatalism, or myths and exaggerations about contraceptive side effects). [12][13][14] These barriers can primarily be tackled by education, in the media as well as in schools. [12][13][14] Nations as culturally and politically diverse as Bangladesh and Brazil, Columbia and Cuba, Thailand and Tunisia, and regions such as Kerala in India, have halved their fertility rates in about the same time as China, yet without a coercive one child policy.…”