FERTILITY TRANSITION

BY PROF. M.J.MBONILE

GEOGRAPHY DEPARMENT

UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

Introduction

• The transition shows the change of a population from high birth rates to low birth.  It is a simple process but an exceedingly powerful one, for it shows clearly a major transformation of human reproduction.
• The fertility transition generally occurs in four stages. In the initial stage birth are high but cause only slow and steady population growth because the death rates are high.

Contd.

• This occurred during the pre-industrial period of hunter and gatherers which used extreme family planning methods such as infanticides among the Eskimos and urethra operation among the Aborigines in Australia.

Contd.

• In the next stage birth rates remain high, resulting in faster population growth because the death rates have started to decline because of improvement of health service and nutrition.
• In stage three, the birth rate begins to decline and population continues to expand because of a big stock of young population.

Fig 1: Fertility Transition

Global Fertility Transition

• Developed countries experienced a fertility transition characterized by slow and steady change.  From 1700 the fertility remain constant while the death rates began a long gradual decline.

Contd.

• The increase in fertility and decline in mortality was initially due to three factors:
• the first was the trade revolution, which introduced new foods such as potato and maize (corn) from the Americas.
• The second was the agricultural revolution that brought about higher yields of food production locally through the use of new agricultural practices.

Contd.

• Finally, the industrial revolution that made new goods available.  All of these changes were gradual, and increased the general standard of living for the population, without major medical breakthroughs.

Contd.

• While death rates fell, the birth rates remained high, as both cultural norms and expectations and need for productive labor at home made immediate downward adjustment in the birth rate difficult to attain.

Contd

• As life in an urban industrial society made large families neither necessary for labor nor desirable for cost reasons, the birth rate declined over one or two generations.  The intervening period saw a dramatic rise in the annual rate of population growth, to about 1 percent per year.

The Present Demographic Transition

• Today, the same fertility transition is occurring throughout the world’s less developed countries, though the chart shows some dramatic differences with the past transition.
• First birth rates start at higher levels, for reasons that are not at all clear. However, people at the beginning feel that births are not a problem.

Contd.

• Secondly, death rates have declined much more drastically, moving as much in one generation as it had in the past in two centuries because of borrowed health services from the developed countries.
• Third, the cause of the mortality decline lies in the development of new medical and public health technologies, based on anti-bacterial chemicals and insecticides that reduce disease vectors.

Contd.

• Rapid mortality declines without concomitant fertility declines means higher rates of population growth are occurring.
• Where growth rates reached one percent per year in Europe, they have recently reached over 3 percent per year in parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Contd.

• The birth rate is now beginning to fall. When this happens, as it has in parts of Asia and Latin America, it can come very quickly, declining from traditional to modern levels in a decade or two, rather than in a generation or two.

Contd.

• Along the same lines as the mortality declines, the fertility declines are in large part the result of new medical, mainly contraceptive, technologies.
• The mortality declines and the new contraceptive technology have also produced some revolutionary changes in public policy.

Contd.

• Up until 1952 most governments of the world were pro-natalist, and were actively opposed to any form of birth control.  In 1952.
• India became the first country to adopt an official policy to reduce population growth by reducing fertility within marriage.  This called for the formation of a national family planning program to spread the new contraceptive technology.

Contd.

• Since 1952, almost all less developed regions have undergone the same or a similar policy change: they now officially permit or are actively attempting to reduce population growth by reducing fertility.

The results have been mixed

• Some countries have experienced a very rapid fertility decline, experiencing a simultaneous substantial increase in the health of women and children.
• Other countries have made almost no progress. They continue to show high fertility and population growth, along with high levels of maternal and child mortality and very low levels of education and social welfare.

Fig 2: Fertility Transition in China and Latin America and East Africa.

Fertlity Transition in Africa

• Population generally contributes to economic development. But in the context of poverty and limited resources, high fertility can provoke health, economic and demographic problems, such as infant and child mortality, cases of infanticide, infant and child abandonment, inadequate education and unemployment.
• In most sub-Saharan countries, despite considerable efforts in the field of reproductive health, fertility remains at high levels (5 children per woman).

Contd.

• The process of fertility transition will probably be achieved over a longer period of time than initially anticipated, by 2010-2025. Nor will fertility decline occur at the same pace throughout

Contd.

• Thirteen countries, among them Burkina Faso, Chad and Guinea, have not begun the fertility transition; 22 are progressing through the incipient stage of transition; and in some countries, such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Kenya and Cape Verde, transition is advanced.

Contd.

• Early marriage, low contraceptive prevalence (less than 25 per cent) and prohibition of abortion, except to save the life of the pregnant woman, explain this situation.
• Areas with incidence of early marriage have a high fertility, and those with late marriage have just started the transition.

Contd.

• Transition is advanced in regions with high contraceptive prevalence (3 children per woman in southern Africa, with 47 per cent of contraceptive), with the exception of some large cities (Accra, Lome, Yaounde) where abortion could explain the fertility decline.

Contd.

• The population of the Caribbean and Latin America Doubled to 441 million between 1960-1988. These regions, during the 1950's experienced increases in their growth rate (3%) fertility rate (5/woman); and the rates of gross domestic product (2.6% per capita).

Contd.

• However, as they entered the 1960s, these regions experienced declines in fertility rates, mortality rates, and crude birth rates.

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Contd.

• Recent available data on these regions allows for the breakdown of countries into 1 of 4 groups: transition complete or nearly complete - with the total fertility rate (TFR) standing at 3 children/woman; advanced transition - with the TFR at 4 children or less/woman; intermediate transition - with the TFR at 5 children/woman; and delayed transition - with the TFR at 5-6 children/per woman

Contd.

• High fertility rates can in some way be attributed to age at marriage; in various countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, women are married at a young age. Despite the increased use of contraceptive methods (condoms, the Pill, sterilization and/or withdrawal), there exists very little knowledge of contraception.

Contd.

• In some cases abortion is a last resort; however, in countries where abortions are legal, the termination of pregnancies are almost equal to births. In Latin America, there is a short duration of breast feeding; a relationship exists between socioeconomic status and breastfeeding.

Contd.

• The duration of breastfeeding has increased in countries where the number of urban areas have increased. Governments should work to increase access to contraception as well as keeping them at a low cost.

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