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Frans Van Poppel - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Marital Fertility Decline in the Netherlands: Child Mortality, Real Wages, and Unemployment, 1860–1939
Demography, 2012Co-Authors: Jona Schellekens, Frans Van PoppelAbstract:Previous studies of the Fertility Decline in Europe are often limited to an earlier stage of the marital Fertility Decline, when the Decline tended to be slower and before the large increase in earnings in the 1920s. Starting in 1860 (before the onset of the Decline), this study follows marital Fertility trends until 1939, when Fertility reached lower levels than ever before. Using data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN), this study shows that mortality Decline, a rise in real income, and unemployment account for the Decline in the Netherlands. This finding suggests that marital Fertility Decline was an adjustment to social and economic change, leaving little room for attitudinal change that is independent of social and economic change.
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marital Fertility Decline in the netherlands child mortality real wages and unemployment 1860 1939
Demography, 2012Co-Authors: Jona Schellekens, Frans Van PoppelAbstract:Previous studies of the Fertility Decline in Europe are often limited to an earlier stage of the marital Fertility Decline, when the Decline tended to be slower and before the large increase in earnings in the 1920s. Starting in 1860 (before the onset of the Decline), this study follows marital Fertility trends until 1939, when Fertility reached lower levels than ever before. Using data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN), this study shows that mortality Decline, a rise in real income, and unemployment account for the Decline in the Netherlands. This finding suggests that marital Fertility Decline was an adjustment to social and economic change, leaving little room for attitudinal change that is independent of social and economic change.
Alfred E. Hartemink - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Soil Fertility Decline: Definitions and Assessment
2006Co-Authors: Alfred E. HarteminkAbstract:In permanent agricultural systems, soil Fertility is maintained through applications of manure, other organic materials, inorganic fertilizers, lime, the inclusion of legumes in the cropping systems, or a combination of these. In many parts of the world the availability, use, and profitability of inorganic fertilizers have been low whereas there has been an intensification of land-use and an expansion of crop cultivation onto marginal soils. As a result, soil Fertility has Declined and it is perceived to be widespread, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.(1-3(1), (2), (3)) Soil Fertility Decline is considered as an important cause for low productivity of many soils.(4), (5) It has not received the same amount of research attention as soil erosion; possibly as soil Fertility Decline is less visible and less spectacular, and more difficult to assess. Assessing soil Fertility Decline is difficult because most soil chemical properties either change very slowly or have large seasonal fluctuations; in both cases, it requires long-term research commitment. There are several other confounding factors that make assessment of soil Fertility Decline complicated (e.g., spatial and temporal variation, soil analytical methods), and, for those reasons, other techniques have been used to estimate the rates and changes in soil Fertility Decline. The methods to assess soil Fertility Decline are described in this entry.
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Assessing soil Fertility Decline in the tropics using soil chemical data
Advances in Agronomy, 2006Co-Authors: Alfred E. HarteminkAbstract:Soil Fertility Decline is perceived to be widespread in the upland soils of the tropics, particularly in sub‐Saharan Africa. Most studies have used nutrient balances to assess the degree and extent of nutrient depletion; these have created awareness but suffer methodological problems as several of the nutrient flows and stocks are not measured. This chapter focuses on the assessment of soil Fertility Decline using soil chemical data (pH, organic C, total N, available P, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and exchangeable cations) that are routinely collected in soil surveys or for the assessment of fertilizer recommendations. Soil Fertility Decline can be assessed using a set of properties from different periods at the same site or from different land‐use systems with the same soils. The former is easier to interpret; the latter can be rapidly collected but differences may be due to inherent differences and not have resulted from soil management. This study provides an analytical framework for the assessment of soil Fertility Decline and shows pitfalls and how they should be handled. Boundary conditions are presented that could be used in future studies on soil Fertility management and crop productivity in the tropics.
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soil Fertility Decline in the tropics with case studies on plantations
2003Co-Authors: Alfred E. HarteminkAbstract:Human population and soil degradation plantation agriculture soil Fertility Decline - theoretical considerations annual crops perennial crop plantations forest plantations sugar cane plantations case 1 - sugar cane plantation, Papua New Guinea case 2, sisal plantations, Tanzania. (Part contents.)
Jona Schellekens - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Marital Fertility Decline in the Netherlands: Child Mortality, Real Wages, and Unemployment, 1860–1939
Demography, 2012Co-Authors: Jona Schellekens, Frans Van PoppelAbstract:Previous studies of the Fertility Decline in Europe are often limited to an earlier stage of the marital Fertility Decline, when the Decline tended to be slower and before the large increase in earnings in the 1920s. Starting in 1860 (before the onset of the Decline), this study follows marital Fertility trends until 1939, when Fertility reached lower levels than ever before. Using data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN), this study shows that mortality Decline, a rise in real income, and unemployment account for the Decline in the Netherlands. This finding suggests that marital Fertility Decline was an adjustment to social and economic change, leaving little room for attitudinal change that is independent of social and economic change.
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marital Fertility Decline in the netherlands child mortality real wages and unemployment 1860 1939
Demography, 2012Co-Authors: Jona Schellekens, Frans Van PoppelAbstract:Previous studies of the Fertility Decline in Europe are often limited to an earlier stage of the marital Fertility Decline, when the Decline tended to be slower and before the large increase in earnings in the 1920s. Starting in 1860 (before the onset of the Decline), this study follows marital Fertility trends until 1939, when Fertility reached lower levels than ever before. Using data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN), this study shows that mortality Decline, a rise in real income, and unemployment account for the Decline in the Netherlands. This finding suggests that marital Fertility Decline was an adjustment to social and economic change, leaving little room for attitudinal change that is independent of social and economic change.
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A method of estimating the time of marital Fertility Decline and associated parameters.
Mathematical Population Studies, 2009Co-Authors: Dov Friedlander, Moshe Pollak, Jona SchellekensAbstract:This paper presents a new method for estimating the time of the onset of marital Fertility Decline. The proposed method produces a maximum likelihood least squares estimate for the point of change in a sequence of marital Fertility indexes. It is suggested that the proposed method has certain advantages over previous attempts to estimate the time of the onset of marital Fertility Decline.
Heidi Colleran - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Variation in wealth and educational drivers of Fertility Decline across 45 countries
Population Ecology, 2018Co-Authors: Heidi Colleran, Kristin SnopkowskiAbstract:Fertility Decline in human populations is an inherent evolutionary puzzle with major demographic, socio-cultural and evolutionary consequences. The individual level predictors of Fertility Decline are numerous, but the way these effects vary by country and how they are causally mediated by other factors has received relatively little attention. Here we take a multilevel approach to compare similarities and differences in the primary predictors of contemporary Fertility Declines—wealth and education—across 45 countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data collected from 2003 to 2015. We use multilevel models to understand variation in the slopes of these predictors on Fertility, and structural equation models to examine the causal pathways by which they take their effects, focusing on four mediating variables: local mortality and birth rates, women’s work status, and contraceptive use. We find that associations between wealth and Fertility differ substantially across populations, while associations between education and Fertility are consistently negative. The mediators also vary: community-level birth rates and women’s contraceptive use are important mediators between education, wealth and the number of children born across a wide variety of countries, but community-level mortality rates and women’s work status are not. We discuss our results in the context of different causal pathways that reflect cultural and biological evolutionary dynamics as simultaneous and interacting drivers of Fertility Decline.
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The cultural evolution of Fertility Decline
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B Biological sciences, 2016Co-Authors: Heidi ColleranAbstract:Cultural evolutionists have long been interested in the problem of why Fertility Declines as populations develop. By outlining plausible mechanistic links between individual decision-making, information flow in populations and competition between groups, models of cultural evolution offer a novel and powerful approach for integrating multiple levels of explanation of Fertility transitions. However, only a modest number of models have been published. Their assumptions often differ from those in other evolutionary approaches to social behaviour, but their empirical predictions are often similar. Here I offer the first overview of cultural evolutionary research on demographic transition, critically compare it with approaches taken by other evolutionary researchers, identify gaps and overlaps, and highlight parallel debates in demography. I suggest that researchers divide their labour between three distinct phases of Fertility Decline—the origin, spread and maintenance of low Fertility—each of which may be driven by different causal processes, at different scales, requiring different theoretical and empirical tools. A comparative, multi-level and mechanistic framework is essential for elucidating both the evolved aspects of our psychology that govern reproductive decision-making, and the social, ecological and cultural contingencies that precipitate and sustain Fertility Decline.
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community level education accelerates the cultural evolution of Fertility Decline
Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2014Co-Authors: Heidi Colleran, Grazyna Jasienska, Ilona Nenko, Andrzej Galbarczyk, Ruth MaceAbstract:Explaining why Fertility Declines as populations modernize is a profound theoretical challenge. It remains unclear whether the fundamental drivers are economic or cultural in nature. Cultural evolutionary theory suggests that community-level characteristics, for example average education, can alter how low-Fertility preferences are transmitted and adopted. These assumptions have not been empirically tested. Here, we show that community-level education accelerates Fertility Decline in a way that is neither predicted by individual characteristics, nor by the level of economic modernization in a population. In 22 high-Fertility communities in Poland, Fertility converged on a smaller family size as average education in the community increased—indeed community-level education had a larger impact on Fertility Decline than did individual education. This convergence was not driven by educational levels being more homogeneous, but by less educated women having fewer children than expected, and more highly educated social networks, when living among more highly educated neighbours. The average level of education in a community may influence the social partners women interact with, both within and beyond their immediate social environments, altering the reproductive norms they are exposed to. Given a critical mass of highly educated women, less educated neighbours may adopt their reproductive behaviour, accelerating the pace of demographic transition. Individual characteristics alone cannot capture these dynamics and studies relying solely on them may systematically underestimate the importance of cultural transmission in driving Fertility Declines. Our results are inconsistent with a purely individualistic, rational-actor model of Fertility Decline and suggest that optimization of reproduction is partly driven by cultural dynamics beyond the individual.
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The Evolutionary Anthropology of Fertility Decline in Rural Poland
2013Co-Authors: Heidi ColleranAbstract:Demographic transition to low Fertility appears maladaptive from the standpoint of genetic fitness. In their search for causality, evolutionists and demographers alike have found it difficult to separate individual characteristics from wider sociocultural and interpersonal influences on Fertility, with research tending to focus on either micro or macro levels of analysis. This thesis is concerned with understanding Fertility Decline from an integrated evolutionary perspective, by combining and testing hypotheses from two different theoretical frameworks: human behavioural ecology, which emphasises individual factors and a socioeconomic model of behaviour; and cultural evolution, which emphasises social interactions, cultural norms and group level effects. I collected ethnographic and survey data designed to test these hypotheses from 1,995 women in 22 populations (21 villages and 1 town) in rural southern Poland. The area is characterised by high completed Fertility (>3 births) and low contraceptive prevalence, but is rapidly ‘modernising’ from a peasant agrarian to a fully market-integrated economy. I use multilevel regression models to explicitly examine both individual and group-level effects on Fertility Decline. Specifically, I examine how Fertility is influenced by: (1) changes in the effects of wealth and status; and (2) changes in the structure and frequency of social interactions. I also examine (3) the extent to which contraceptive use is driven by social influence and cultural dynamics in addition to socioeconomic factors. Ultimately, the aim of this thesis is to evaluate the extent to which low Fertility can be understood as: (a) a tradeoff between the quantity and ‘quality’ of children, as advocated by human behavioural ecologists; and (b) a compromise between cultural and reproductive success, advocated by cultural evolutionists. The results show that the characteristics of individuals are not the only things that matter. I find that Fertility Decline is associated with interactions between individuals, the environments in which they live, and the behaviour of the people that surround them. The findings partially support both approaches to Fertility Decline. However the combined assumptions of both frameworks are more successful in explaining low Fertility than is either framework alone. A comprehensive evolutionary explanation of the demographic transition will therefore require a principled synthesis of both.
David Shapiro - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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On the pace of Fertility Decline in sub-Saharan Africa
Demographic Research, 2017Co-Authors: David Shapiro, Andrew HindeAbstract:Background: This descriptive finding examines the comparative pace of Fertility Decline in sub-Saharan Africa, relative to Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Northern Africa. Objective: We seek to determine if Fertility Decline has been slower in sub-Saharan Africa than elsewhere in the developing world. Methods: United Nations 2017 estimates of national Fertility are used in assessing the comparative pace of Fertility Decline, and the four regions are compared in terms of how far they are into their Fertility transition. Results: The data shows clearly that Fertility Decline in sub-Saharan Africa, still at a comparatively early stage, has been considerably slower than the earlier Declines in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Northern Africa at comparable stages of the transition, and displays less within-region heterogeneity than the transitions in these other regions. Conclusions: The slower pace of Fertility Decline in sub-Saharan Africa, in conjunction with the high current Fertility levels in the region, means that in the absence of policies seeking to accelerate Fertility Decline, sub-Saharan Africa will continue to experience rapid population growth that in turn will constrain its development. Contribution: Presentation of data in a novel way (Figures 2‒4, and associated calculations) unambiguously demonstrates the slow pace of Fertility Decline in sub-Saharan Africa compared with other regions of the world
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Women's education, infant and child mortality, and Fertility Decline in rural and urban sub-Saharan Africa.
Demographic Research, 2017Co-Authors: David Shapiro, Michel TenikueAbstract:Background: This paper provides estimates of the contributions of increased women's education and reduced infant and child mortality to Fertility Declines in urban and rural areas of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, using individual-level data. Objective: The principal question that the paper addresses is: How much have increased women's schooling and reduced mortality contributed to Fertility Declines in urban and rural places in each of 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa? A secondary question is: What have been the changes in women's schooling and mortality in urban and rural areas in these countries? Methods: Data from the first and last Demographic and Health Surveys for each country is used, along with a decomposition technique that allows us to quantify how much of the observed Fertility Decline is attributable to increased education and how much is due to reduced mortality. Results: In urban places, on average, increased women's schooling accounts for 54Š of observed Fertility Decline while reduced mortality contributes 30Š. In rural areas with Fertility Decline, increased women's education accounts for an average of 30Š of the Decline while reduced mortality accounts for an average of 35Š. Results vary substantially by country and place of residence. Conclusions: Accelerating increases in women's schooling and decreases in infant and child mortality have the potential to accelerate Fertility Decline in sub-Saharan Africa. Contribution: The paper uses individual-level data to provide quantitative estimates of the importance of increased women's schooling and reduced mortality in contributing to Fertility Decline in sub-Saharan Africa
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Accelerating Fertility Decline in Sub-Saharan Africa
Population Horizons, 2015Co-Authors: David ShapiroAbstract:Abstract This paper considers the question, what can governments in sub-Saharan Africa do to accelerate the Decline of Fertility in the region? It begins with a review and discussion of United Nations projections of Fertility for sub-Saharan Africa, and suggests that in light of the stalling of Fertility Decline that has been observed in some countries of the region, those projections may be optimistic regarding the pace of Fertility Decline. An overview of the policy environment emphasizes several aspects of government views and policies on Fertility and population growth and how they have changed over time, and some differences among sub-regions are noted. The Easterlin framework for Fertility analysis serves as the theoretical framework for examination of how existing policies function to influence Fertility. The paper concludes by discussing what governments can do to accelerate the Decline of Fertility.