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Demand Theories of the Fertility Transition: An Iconoclastic View
Abstract
This paper challenges the widely held and influential view that the fertility transition is largely the consequence of changing parental demand for children brought about by changes in the economic costs and benefits entailed in childbearing. Using evidence from both historical and contemporary populations we argue that demand theories do not offer a plausible explanation of the fertility transition. Instead, we propose that ideational, rather than structural, economic change lies at the heart of the transition. In particular, we suggest that attitudes to birth control, broadly defined, play a crucial role.
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Citations
Cited by
The demographic transition revisited as a global process
Reher, D. S. (2004) · Population, Space and Place · doi:10.1002/psp.313 · Cited by 247
Africa's unique fertility transition
Bongaarts, J. (2017) · Population and Development Review · doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2016.00164.x · Cited by 196
The Causes of Stalling Fertility Transitions
Bongaarts, J. (2006) · Studies in Family Planning · doi:10.1111/j.1728-4465.2006.00079.x · Cited by 199
Cohabitation in China: Trends and Determinants
Yu, J., & Xie, Y. (2015) · Population and Development Review · doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00087.x · Cited by 165
Newson, L., Postmes, T., Lea, S. E. G., & Webley, P. (2005) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0904_5 · Cited by 160
Metadata
- Authors
- Cleland, J., & Wilson, C.
- Venue
- Population Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 1987-03
- Volume
- 41
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 5-30
- ISSN
- 0032-4728 (ISSN-L)
- 1477-4747
- OpenAlex
- W1966843838
- Cited by
- 893
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 23.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Cleland, J., & Wilson, C. (1987). Demand Theories of the Fertility Transition: An Iconoclastic View. Population Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/0032472031000142516
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
