The Concentration of Reproduction: A Global Perspective

Lutz, W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7975-8145 (1987). The Concentration of Reproduction: A Global Perspective. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-87-051

Preview

Text WP-87-051.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

This paper studies the heterogeneity of women with respect to achieved fertility under a global perspective. Besides the graphical analysis of Lorenz curves, the proportion of women that has half the number of all children is used as a quantitative indicator of concentration. The empirical basis for this paper are mainly the World Fertility Survey data for 41 less developed countries and 11 industrialized nations. This is supplemented by other sources including the Chinese one per thousand fertility survey.

The study shows that during the course of demographic transition concentration increases while the average level of fertility decreases. This strong negative association holds for time series of the historical fertility decline in Germany and Austria and also very clearly for the cross-section of 41 LDCs. The recent fertility decline in China presents a major exception from this general pattern since it was not associated with increasing concentration. In modern European societies concentration has been diminishing mainly because of an approximation of real parity distributions to the relatively homogeneous expected family sizes. The future trend of concentration in childbearing in low fertility countries will mainly depend on the extent of childlessness.

Actions (login required)

View Item