NGO Committee on Education

Changes in the total fertility rate—lifetime

 

births per woman—have dramatic effects

on population size and are therefore the

focus of much research, analysis, and

debate among demographers. The com-

plex and unpredictable nature of fertility

rates makes this debate far from academ-

ic: National and international health, eco-

nomic, and other policies and programs

may be based on expected changes in

population size.

 

When demographers prepare popula-

tion projections for developing countries,

they generally assume that fertility will

decline as it has in many of those coun-

tries in past decades. How far and how

fast it will fall remains uncertain. In the

past, many projections routinely assumed

that fertility would settle at the “replace-

ment level,” usually about two children

per woman. At that level, population size

eventually stabilizes.

 

In many industrialized countries and

some developing countries such as China

and Thailand, average fertility is now well

below the two-child average. Because

these low fertility levels lead to popula-

tion decline sooner or later, some reports

have sounded alarms about the possibili-

ty of a worldwide “birth dearth.” The

majority of the world’s countries, howev-

er, have fertility above the two-child aver-

age and large numbers of women of

reproductive age due to higher fertility in

the past. Thus, global population growth

is ensured for many decades.

 

The United Nations population pro-

jection often considered tobe the most

likely (the “medium” projection) assumes

thatfertility in developing countries will

drop to an average of2.1children per

woman by 2050 and eventually to 1.85.

Aswith any projection, such assumptions

may prove correct for some countries but

not for others. Although the 1980s and

1990s saw rapid fertility decline in many

countries, fertility now stands at 3.0 in

developing countries, and the pace of

decline tends to slow as countries reach

lower fertility levels.

 

In a recent analysis of survey data

between 1990 and 2003 in developing

countries, demographer John Bongaarts

of the Population Council found that

some had not yet experienced fertility

decline while others had “stalled” in their

transition from high to low fertility.

Countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali,

Mozambique, Niger, and Uganda are very

poor countries with high fertility that

remained virtually unchanged from one

survey to the next in the late 1990s. In

“stalled” countries, such as the

Dominican Republic, Ghana, Kenya, and

Turkey, fertility rates settled in a range

from 2.5 children per woman (Turkey) to

4.7 children (Kenya) after earlier substan-

tial declines. The accompanying graph

illustrates different patterns of fertility

decline: little or no decline in Uganda,

rapid fertility decline in Iran, the stall in

Kenya, and a stall followed by resumption

of fertility decline inBangladesh.

 

Bongaarts found that factors associ-

ated with fertility decline—contraceptive

use and a desire for fewer children—also

remained nearly unchanged in the stalled

countries. Similarly, unintended births

and unmet need for contraception

remained high in these countries.

(“Unmet need” is the proportion of

women who prefer to avoid a pregnancy

but are not using contraception.) In

Ghana, Kenya, and the Dominican

Republic, socioeconomic improvements,

such as increases in per capita income

and education, stagnated as well.

 

These findings suggest that further

investments in socioeconomic develop-

ment, as well as improvements in contra-

ceptive access and supply, will be needed

in these stalled countries to reduce unin-

tended births and continue on the path of

fertility decline. In Africa, the HIV/AIDS

epidemic could also bring a slowdown in

socioeconomic progress and an increase

in couples’ desire for children. In some

countries, the stall in fertility decline may

be temporary, while in others the stall may

continue for years, depending on trends

in the factors that influence childbearing.