Publication by Virginia Deane Abernethy

Fertility Decline in Former "Asian Tigers"1

Virginia Deane Abernethy

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Roberto V. Penaloza    

Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University

ABSTRACT

The fertility opportunity hypothesis suggests that individuals and couples adjust family size in response to their perception that economic opportunity is increasing - or diminishing. A sense that opportunities are expanding encourages a relatively high, even rising, family size target. On the contrary, the perception that opportunities and resources will fall short of satisfying the aspirations of oneself or family lead to lowering family size targets. The literature suggests that family size target translates into completed family size on the order of 85 to 90 percent. The economic collapse of former "Asian tigers" in late summer, 1997, offered a chance to test the hypothesis prospectively. In 1998, an author (Abernethy) predicted that fertility rates in the nine Asian tiger countries would fall during the 1997-1999 interval at a faster rate than had been observed in immediately preceding two-year intervals. This paper reports the results of tests of the hypothesis with respect to the Asian tigers and several other country clusters for which no particular prediction was made. Preliminary findings appear to support the fertility opportunity hypothesis.

1. INTRODUCTION

The economic collapse in former "Asian tigers" presents an opportunity to test, prospectively, the fertility opportunity hypothesis (Abernethy 1979, 1993 [1999], 1994). The hypothesis claims to predict country or regional trends in the fertility rate.

The rationale for the fertility opportunity hypothesis is based upon sociobiology’s assumption that the desire for descendants is the result of evolutionary selection and is innate. The preeminent strategy of natural selection is successful reproduction, which is distinct from maximum reproduction. The motive to reproduce is tempered by judgments about how many children can be raised well given expectations, aspirations that entail alternate uses for resources, and subjective perceptions about resource availability. Thus, the motive to reproduce is balanced by restraint.

The hypothesis also has roots in, or is congruent with, the economic literature that relates fertility to resources (for example, Becker 1960, 1974; Easterlin 1962, 1971, 1976; Macunovitch 1996.) The hypothesis differs slightly, however, in suggesting that individuals, either consciously or subliminally, size up the economic and social climate. Apparently good or improving conditions are seized upon as a reproductive opportunity, whereas a perception that conditions are deteriorating and resources, scarce, leads to reducing family size targets and, hence, to a declining fertility rate.

In addition to its links with sociobiology and economic models, the fertility opportunity hypothesis (Abernethy 1979, 1993 [1999], 1994) derives from the study of whole human societies by anthropologists. Both anthropology and sociobiology (including studies of non-human species) are rich in case studies that can be interpreted as meaning, or are explicitly presented as evidence, that individuals seek to avoid (ameliorate) hardship through reproductive restraint. Limiting the total number of young, and/or optimizing the timing and spacing of births, tends to improve the quality of offspring and their chance of survival until they, too, reproduce.

The leap from family size targets to total fertility rate (TFR) relies upon the cross-cultural finding that the number of children wanted accounts for 85-90 percent of completed family size (Pritchett 1994). This finding, itself, is a response to a school of thought that sees provision of family planning services as the sufficient condition for reducing family size (Robey 1993.)

Exclusive reliance upon contraceptive availability as the road to fertility decline denies motivational factors. The fertility opportunity hypothesis, however, integrates psychological variables including both motivation and perception.

The fertility opportunity hypothesis poses a problem for certain popular demographic theories that explain a transition to low fertility through the mechanisms of modernization and declining infant mortality (Thompson 1929; Davis 1945; Notestein 1945) or merely cultural diffusion (Coale and Watkins 1986.) Historical demographic, on the contrary, is replete with studies that support and expand the opportunity hypothesis (Davis 1963; Demeny 1968; Diaz-Briquets and Perez 1981; Lee 1980, 1987.)

A scenario for prospectively testing part of the opportunity explanation of changing fertility patterns presented itself in summer, 1997, the beginning of the economic meltdown, or "Asian contagion," that was to afflict the nine countries which had come to be known, informally, as the "Asian tigers." Rapidly collapsing asset and currency values, with losses of up to 40 percent, weighed on most sectors of these societies (Abernethy, 1998).

The nine countries of this sample are characterized by modernization in at least one primary sector of the society and, until 1997, by this sector being relatively affluent. The countries vary greatly, however, in the pervasiveness of modernizing influences. Some observers would exclude the Philippines because it never achieved independent economic take-off and remained heavily reliant on the presence of the U.S. naval bases for nearly a century, until the early 1990s. Others would exclude Japan from the list of former "tigers" because of the length of time that its economy has been modernizing. Japan began to invest in technology and education near the turn of the twentieth century, and to modernize other facets of society immediately after World War II. Taiwan and Hong Kong embarked on extensive modernization within a decade of the ending of World War II.

Whatever their differences and pace of change, however, some generalizations apply. By 1997, each country had experienced improvements in standard of living, the value of education was increasingly appreciated as the high road to economic success, and the prospect of entering the middle class was influencing an increasing proportion of the population.

For all countries in the group, economic prospects changed radically in the summer of 1997, a downward spiral initiated by a sharp devaluation of the Thai baht. In Japan, the unemployment rates in 1998 and 1999 rose to a level higher than at any time since 1953 (Much, 1999). Personal bankruptcies in 1999 were 50 percent higher than in 1997 and, a further sign of falling incomes, Japanese retail sales declined from 1997 through 1999 (Bonner, 2000). In 1998, the Japanese suicide rate was the highest recorded. Contemplating an uncertain future, a majority of university students expressed a preference for government as opposed to private-sector employment (Rogers, 1999).

The 1997 economic collapse occurred not only in Thailand and Japan but was area-wide. This development presented an opportunity for hypothesis testing. So far as is known to the authors, this is the first prospective test of the fertility opportunity hypothesis.

If the hypothesis is correct, the general economic deterioration would be expected to produce a declining fertility rate. Insofar as fertility decline is a secular trend that has been observed in the Asian tigers for a number of years (since the end of World War II, in the case of Japan), the specific prediction is for an increasing rate of decline in the period after 1997 (Abernethy 1998). That is, the fertility decline from 1997 to 1999 was expected to be significantly faster than the decline observed in preceding two-year intervals. The year, 1998, may be seen as a transition period during which women who had conceived prior to the economic collapse gave birth.

The data, all derived from Population Reference Bureau (PRB) Population Data Sheets, are far from ideal. If annual census data are not available, PRB reports and adjusts findings from the closest year. They are the most recent data available but are not necessarily the figures for the date in question. Further, the quality of census data varies by country.

These difficulties have not deterred us from testing the hypothesis because the errors in data are expected to be random. It is commonly said that random errors easily obscure a significant relationship but are unlikely to create the appearance of a relationship that does not, in fact, exist.

2. DATA AND PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

Fertility rates and percentage change for the Asian tigers are shown in Tables I and II. The relevant comparison is between the two-year interval from 1997 to 1999, and earlier two-year intervals.

Parallel data for South and Central America and the Caribbean appear in Tables III and IV. Since no comparable watershed economic event occurred in these countries during the study period, the fertility opportunity hypothesis predicts that the rate of change from 1997 to 1999 will be no different from the change rates observed in preceding intervals.

The comparison groups, while not ideal, appear on their face to be the best available. Many countries and sectors within each country have made gains toward modernization and industrialization. Nevertheless, the regions as a whole would be considered as "developing" or "underdeveloped" by most observers, and, with few exceptions, have begun the transition to smaller family size relatively recently. No other continent or coherent grouping of countries seems as suitable as a control group.

Nevertheless, future studies will entertain the possibilities for a better control group and, in addition, for quantification of independent variables. Preliminary considerations suggest that fluctuations in the exchange rate could be a useful proxy for a societal and individual perception of improving or deteriorating economic opportunity.

[Tables I, II, III and IV about here]

Table I shows the (former) Asian tigers’ total fertility rate (TFR) by country, by two-year intervals, from 1991 through 1999. Table II shows the percentage change in TFR between each interval, both by country and by average for all countries in the sample. In every one of the former Asian tigers except Thailand, the percentage decline between 1997 and 1999 was greater than the decline in the previous interval.

The average decline in the fertility rate between 1997 and 1999, including Thailand, was 6.6 percent. The largest average decline in any other interval was 1.6 percent between 1991 and 1993, due largely to a shift in Malay fertility. That is, the average fertility decline from 1997 to 1999 is four times as large as the decline in the next most salient two-year interval.

In Thailand, the fertility rates had declined fast in the two, two-year intervals that preceded the 1997-1999 interval (8.3 percent and 13.6 percent decline, respectively). One might surmise that such rates of decline could not reasonably be expected to persist. Moreover, an ex post facto search reveals a possible explanation for the unexpectedly early decline. The timing of the Thai fertility rate decline may possibly be explained as a serendipitous effect of the government’s energetic efforts to head off an HIV/AIDS epidemic.

In the late 1980s, the Royal Thai Army recognized HIV/AIDS as an emerging epidemic among its "roughly 60,000 annual military conscripts, selected by lottery from 21-year-old Thai males." The rate increased steadily from 0.5 percent in 1989 to 3.7 percent in 1993, when it appeared to level off. Sero-surveillance of pregnant women showed similarly rising rates of infection, a pattern of rising incidence reminiscent of the early years of HIV/AIDS infection in the worst affected regions of Sub-Saharan Africa.

In response to the 1989 alert, the Thai government made the control of HIV/AIDS infection a national priority. Education and warning ads aired through all types of media channels as well as the promotion of condom use in government-sponsored sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics were in full swing by 1990. "The ‘100% condom program’ enlisted the cooperation of sex establishment owners and sex workers to encourage all clients to use condoms when obtaining sex. The government supplied almost 60 million free condoms a year to support this activity" (Phoolcharoen, 1998).

Targeting the approximately 100,000 sex workers in Thailand began in 1991 after an initial, successful pilot project in Ratchaburi province (WHO Regional Office, 2000). Thai men as well as foreigners are known to use brothels on a regular basis, so it seems probable that men fearing exposure to HIV would import condom use into their own homes. Responding to the national education campaign, wives may also have demanded the precaution. In addition, "life skills empowerment" was fostered among Thai youth, with the object of encouraging "safer sex behavior"(Phoollcharoen, 1998, p.1873).

It seems probable that the combination of widespread use of condoms in Thailand, and perhaps abstinence, resulted in the rapidly declining fertility rates observed in the 1991 through 1997 intervals. This additional factor, preceding and unrelated to the economic dislocation of 1997, could be seen to justify excluding Thailand from the analysis, as is done in several iterations below.

3. METHODS

If the fertility opportunity hypothesis is correct, the fertility rate for the Asian tigers should decline at a faster rate after the 1997 economic collapse than in previous years. To present a formal test of this hypothesis, the mean percentage changes in TFR for periods 1991-1993, 1993-1995, and 1995-1997 are compared to the mean percentage change for period 1997-1999 for the sample of Asian tigers. For the three comparisons, the test is of the form.

Ho: a,i  b

Ha: a,i > b

where a,i is the mean of the period i population of percentage changes in TFR, with i = 1991-1993, 1993-1995, and 1995-1997; and b is the mean of the period 1997-1999 population of percentage changes in TFR. The test is one-tail because we expect to see a greater decline in TFR percentage change in period 1997-1999. The comparison signs are in the direction shown because declines in the percentage change have a negative sign. If the null hypothesis is rejected we conclude that the population of percentage changes in TFR in period 1997-1999 has a lower mean than that in the previous period i, implying either a slower increase or a faster decline in TFR percentage change relative to the previous periods. Because we have the same sample of countries in all periods, the appropriate test for each comparison is a paired test. A t-test is performed in each case, but because the normality assumption for the percentage changes in TFRs may be too strong, the results of non-parametric sign tests are also presented.

For comparison purposes, three other groups of countries – Central America, Caribbean, and South America –, which did not suffer the economic collapse that started in 1997 for the Asian tigers, are also included in the analysis, and the same tests are performed with their data. For these "comparison" groups of countries, we expect not to reject the null hypothesis, while for the Asian tigers we expect to reject it. Considering the small sample sizes in all cases, the power of the tests is low, and so the null hypothesis is never accepted.

The analysis with individual tests concentrates on the behavior of the percentage change in TFR for each group of countries separately. That is, we are able to make comparisons between period 1997-1999 and previous periods within groups of countries. Regression analysis provides a means to make cross group comparisons. The objective is to try to determine for which group of countries the decrease in 1997-1999 TFR percentage change is greater. The main limitation of the two regression analyses used in this study lies in the classical OLS assumptions, which we do not challenge.

As a first attempt we model the TFR growth for the "average country" in each group of countries. To get the average country’s TFR we average the TFR for all the countries in the group per year. We assume that between 1991 and 1997, the TFR for the average country in a group grows exponentially at an instantaneous constant rate r1 – in two-year intervals –, but between 1997 and 1999 this growth rate changes to r2. That is, making t = 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 for years 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999, respectively, for average country i , the TFR grows according to

TFRi,t = TFRi,1 exp(ri,1 t), for t = 1, 2, 3, and 4, and

TFRi,t = TFRi,4 exp(ri,2 t), between t = 4 and 5,

which gives rise to the following econometric model

Log(TFRi,t) = 1 + 2 Centrali,t + 3 Southi,t + 4 Tigeri,t

+ (5 + 6 Centrali,t + 7 Southi,t + 8 Tigeri,t) t

+ (9 + 10 Centrali,t + 11 Southi,t + 12 Tigeri,t) Year99i,t

+ i,t

where Central, South, and Tiger are dummy variables for Central America, South America, and the Asian tigers, respectively; t is for the years, and Year99 is a dummy variable for year 1999. Rate r1 is calculated as 5 for the Caribbean, 5 + 6 for Central America, 5 + 7 for South America, and 5 + 8 for the Asian tigers. Rate r2 is calculated as 5 + 9 for the Caribbean, 5 + 6 + 9 + 10 for Central America, 5 + 7 + 9 + 11 for South America, and 5 + 8 + 9 + 12 for the Asian tigers. For the Asian tigers’ average country we expect the percentage change from r2 to r1 to be larger than that for the other groups’ average countries. Figure 1 shows the trend for the average countries corresponding to each group.

[Figure 1 about here]

A limitation of modeling the TFR for the "average country" of each group is that we completely ignore the variability of TFR values among the countries within the groups. Working with averages, our sample size becomes only 20 – four groups of countries and five years of data. To take country variability into account we use a different approach. Our second regression analysis models the TFR percentage change, TFRG, – for TFR growth – for each country over the periods. We assume that, for each group of countries, the TFRG remains at a constant average value during periods 1991-1993, 1993-1995, and 1995-1997, but that it suddenly changes to in period 1997-1999. With data on TFRG for 32 countries and four periods we get 128 usable observations. Our second econometric model is

TFRGi,t = 1 + 2 Centrali,t + 3 Southi,t + 4 Tigeri,t

+ (5 + 6 Centrali,t + 7 Southi,t + 8 Tigeri,t) P9799i,t + i,t

where Central, South, and Tiger are dummy variables for Central America, South America, and the Asian tigers, respectively, and P9799 is a dummy variable for period 1997-1999. Subscript i is for the countries, and subscript t is for the periods. Rate is calculated as 1 for the Caribbean, 1 + 2 for Central America, 1 + 3 for South America, and 1 + 4 for the Asian tigers. Rate is calculated as 1 + 5 for the Caribbean, 1 + 2 + 5 + 6 for Central America, 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 for South America, and 1 + 4 + 5 + 8 for the Asian tigers.

4. RESULTS

Table V reports the p-values for the paired t-tests. Comparison 1 corresponds to the test for period 1991-1993 with 1997-1999, comparison 2 corresponds to 1993-1995 with 1997-1999, and comparison 3 corresponds to 1995-1997 with 1997-1999. If the p-value is less than 0.05 we conclude that there has been a statistically significant decline in the percentage change in TFR when comparing the previous period with period 1997-1999. This happens in the first comparison for the Asian tigers only. The table also reports the tests for the Asian tigers excluding Thailand – which could be considered an outlier. Without Thailand, the null hypothesis is rejected for the Asian tigers in all three comparisons. For the non-Asian groups, the null hypothesis is never rejected. These results support the fertility opportunity hypothesis.

[Table V about here]

A special case among the groups of non-Asian, comparison countries is the Caribbean. Contrary to the other groups, the Caribbean’s decline in TFR becomes apparently slower on average in period 1997-1999 relative to the previous periods. For this group only, all the tests were performed to test if the percentage change in 1997-1999 is slower rather than faster than for the previous periods. The results show that statistically the percentage change in TFRs in all the periods is more or less similar.

Table VI shows the results for the sign tests. Comparison 1 corresponds to the test for period 1991-1993 with 1997-1999, comparison 2 corresponds to 1993-1995 with 1997-1999, and comparison 3 corresponds to 1995-1997 with 1997-1999. With the sign test, the test statistic produced follows a binomial distribution. The numbers in the table are the tests statistics and they show the number of times the percentage change in the previous period was greater than the percentage change for 1997-1999. For each group, the 90 percent confidence interval is reported, and if the test statistic falls outside this interval we reject the null hypothesis. For the Asian tigers only, we reject the null hypothesis in comparisons 1 and 3. The null hypothesis is rejected in all instances when Thailand is excluded from the group. Therefore, we conclude that the rate of decline in 1997-1999 TFR is statistically significantly higher only for the Asian tigers, supporting the fertility opportunity hypothesis.

[Table VI about here]

As it was explained above, the case of the Caribbean is special. For this group of countries, the asterisks denote a slower decline of the TFR in period 1997-1999 relative to previous periods.

Table VII shows the results for our first regression model. All the p-values are less than 0.05, so we go ahead and use these results to produce Table VIII with estimated r1 and r2 values. In Table VIII we see that during years 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997, the average country’s two-year TFR rate of decline is 5.42 percent for the Caribbean, 3.94 percent for Central America, 2.03 percent for South America, and 1.88 percent for the Asian tigers. From 1997 to 1999, these rates of decline became greater for all groups except the Caribbean. For this last period, the average country’s two-year TFR declines at a rate that is greater by 3.55 percent for Central America, 2.35 percent for South America, and 4.32 percent for the Asian Tigers. For the Caribbean, this rate of decline becomes smaller by 5.13 percent. We notice that the decline from r1 to r2 is the greatest for the Asian tigers, representing an over 200 percent change, compared to lower than 120 percent changes for Central and South America. Excluding Thailand from the group of Asian tigers simply strengthens our results.

[Tables VII and VIII about here]

Table IX shows the results for our second regression model. Looking at the p-values for the country-group dummy variables we observe that none is less than 0.05. This indicates that – the average percentage change in TFR for the periods before 1997-1999 – is roughly the same across the four groups of countries. Looking at the coefficients for Central*P9799 and South*P9799, and considering that the coefficient for P9799 is not significant, we notice that – the average percentage change in TFR for period 1997-1999 – for Central American countries appears to be 7.38 percent lower on average than for the Caribbean; for South American countries, it appears to be 6.59 percent lower on average than the Caribbean. However, in these two cases the p-values indicate that those differences are not statistically significant.

The case is different for the Asian tigers. For this group of countries, the percentage change in TFR is on average statistically significantly lower, that is, 9.72 percent lower than for the Caribbean. That is, the results of our second regression model imply that in period 1997-1999, the Asian tigers experienced on average the fastest decline in TFR among all the groups of countries considered. As with our first regression model, the exclusion of Thailand from the Asian-tigers group just strengthens the conclusions.

[Table IX about here]

The two regression analysis implications complement the conclusion drawn from the previous independent test analyses that the Asian tigers were the only group of countries that showed an average faster decline in TFR in period 1997-1999 relative to the previous periods analyzed.

Although these results supporting the fertility opportunity hypothesis are suggestive, an appropriate follow-up would include in-depth studies of individual countries and within-country sectors. Other factors that could be driving our findings should be ruled out before generalizing our conclusions.

5. LIMITATIONS

The main methodological limitation of this study lies on the implicit assumption that we make that the group of Asian tigers and the chosen comparison groups are essentially similar, and that the only difference is on the former suffering an important economic collapse. There are known techniques that we could use to classify the countries before testing, but the main problem is to come up with the best variables or characteristics we could comfortably use to decide if a country is similar enough to another. We could also make our regression models more complicated by adding variables that control for inherent country differences – income level, education level, political, economic, financial, and currency stability, for example – but then we would need to decide on the way these variables would enter the model.

Another limitation is that our approach is not direct. It assumes that the fact that a country suffers economic hardship implies that its citizens have a net negative perception about their future. That is, we are not using a direct measure of citizens’ confidence about what their future would be. A more direct approach would measure the effect on fertility of some measure of citizens’ perception. We would still need to control for inherent differences among countries.

Despite its limitations, this study serves its purpose of presenting preliminary evidence in support of the fertility opportunity hypothesis. A more definitive answer would have to address the limitations mentioned.

6. DISCUSSION

The Asian tiger data and comparison with regions unaffected by an extraordinary economic shift add to the picture of fertility responding to economic opportunity. The predicted and observed rapid fertility decline in eight of the nine Asian countries is congruent with the expectation that couples and individuals who perceive a contraction in economic opportunity will lower family size targets and, indeed, have fewer births. If the stimulus is exogenous to natural demographic cycles (such as change in the size of cohorts entering the labor market), the response can be rapid.

This is a first attempt at quantification in any test of the fertility opportunity hypothesis. Many refinements are possible, especially those responsive to the limitations noted above, and should be encouraged.

In addition, one variant might include separate tests for subsets of populations where distinct patterns of declining (or rising) fertility might be expected. The model is Malaysia before 1990.

A thumbnail sketch begins in 1957, with Malaysia gaining independence from Great Britain. Subsequently, the majority Malaysian population voted themselves numerous educational and employment opportunities, benefits available only to them and progressively discriminating against the country’s Chinese and Indian minorities.

Malaysia’s affirmative action policies that favored the majority created conditions that apparently delayed fertility decline among the favored 60 percent of the population. The Malay fertility rate (which in 1957 was about 5 children per woman - the lowest among Malaysia’s three main ethnic groups) declined little after independence and by 1987 was significantly higher than that of other ethnic groups (Govindasamy and DaVanzo, 1992.)

Thus, educational opportunity and improved healthcare and survival rates among Malays became well established without having, for decades, a discernible effect on their fertility rate.

After 1957, the newly disadvantaged Chinese and Indian sectors experienced not only economic and cultural discrimination but also sharply declining fertility rates. Chinese fertility declined from 7 births per woman before independence to 2.5 in 1987. Indian fertility declined from approximately 8 to 3 births per woman in the same period (Govindasamy and DaVanzo, 1992).

The fertility opportunity hypothesis explains both effects. Fertility remained high among Malays, who for 30 years enjoyed unprecedented opportunity and prosperity. In the same period, the economic woes experienced by Malaysia’s Chinese and Indian populations could account for the rapid decline in their fertility rates.

Inevitably, the Malay’s relative share of the population increased rapidly, to about 60 percent in the 1980s. By 1990, competition within the large cohort of young Malays just entering the labor market meant that, despite their politically-guaranteed, preferential access, opportunities were significantly diminished in comparison with expectations (Abernethy 1998, and see Macunovich 1996, 1999). This relatively sudden competitive shock may explain the decline in the Malay TFR from 4.1 to 3.6 during the 1991 to 1993 interval.

The period of depressed oil prices (from about 1994 through 1999) suggest a further opportunity to test the fertility opportunity hypothesis. Mid-Eastern oil-producing countries, although modernized in terms of education, urbanization, and healthcare, have had persistently high fertility rates. Some attribute the high rates to the still-limited public role for women. It also may be that fertility remained high because families bore few of the costs of raising children: government healthcare, education, and housing programs and subsidies for infrastructure were generous, not to say lavish. The decline in oil revenues forced governments to scale back on benefits to which citizens had become accustomed. The hypothesis predicts that citizens would hesitate to assume the burden of an additional child under the newly more difficult circumstances.

Other opportunities for testing will inevitably present themselves over time, perhaps with renewed attention to the other arm of the fertility opportunity hypothesis, viz., that a sense of expanding opportunity – all else equal - causes an increase in fertility.

The literature suggests that a sense of rapidly expanding opportunity, especially if it is unrelated to individual effort or an ethic of saving in order to further improve one’s standard of living, runs the risk of stimulating fertility. Perceived windfalls of opportunity from either political or economic sources have, in the past, preceded baby booms (Abernethy 1979, 1999 [1993], 1994; Diaz-Briquet and Perez, 1981; Easterlin 1962; Lee 1980, 1987).

One situation that might be watched is the unfolding policy of land redistribution in Zimbabwe. By August 2000, over 3000 commercial farms had been promised to landless veterans, or taken over by squatters (Zimbabwe, 2000). The redistributed plots of land, though individually small, will probably be perceived as wealth, and certainly as windfalls, by recipients. Formerly landless families, assessing their good fortune, are likely to raise their preferred family size. Unless other factors such as civil war or an epidemic intervene, Zimbabwe has the earmarks of a baby boom in the making.

7. CONCLUSION

Understanding conditions that alter the fertility rate is clearly important. World population will stabilize when the rate of child survival is two per woman and this rate has been maintained for two to three generations. Population would stabilize sooner if women averaged fewer than two surviving children. High premature mortality is an undesirable mechanism for stabilizing population, whereas low fertility not only stabilizes population size but also helps protect the health of mother and children.

Despite unique histories and within-country variation, eight of nine former Asian tiger countries’ fertility declines support the prediction of the fertility opportunity hypothesis. The sharp decline in fertility rates in the interval between 1997 and 1999, compared to declines within other intervals, strongly suggests that families adapted to contracting economic opportunity by trying to minimize additional child-raising obligations. The average decline in the fertility rate of the nine Asian tiger countries studied was 6.6 percent in the 1997-1999 interval, compared to an average decline of 1.6 percent in the next most changed interval.

Hypothesis testing in other countries and regions is needed. Part of the strength of the present study is that it apparently confirms a prediction. Nevertheless, not all tests can be prospective. Historical studies have many advantages. They lend themselves to careful specification as well as finer selection of control countries. Comparisons among specifiable, distinctly different sectors within countries, such as within Malaysia, are also likely to be rewarding.

The sensitivity of the linkage between economic or political opportunity and fertility rates should be confirmed or refined through further historical and prospective studies. The present findings may be sufficient to suggest, however, that domestic and international interventions into a nation’s economy may alter demographic outcomes in hitherto unexpected ways.

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Table I. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) by Country by Year

*Estimated. Hong Kong’s changed administrative status – reversion to mainland China – is responsible for gap in Population Reference Bureau data.

Source: World Population Data Sheets, 1991-1999. Washington D.C: Population Reference Bureau.

World Population Data Sheets, 1991-1999. Washington D.C: Population Reference Bureau.

Table II. Percentage Change in Total Fertility Rate, By Country, In

Two Year Intervals