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TOPIC 4: FERTILITY

Definition

Issues &
Basic
Challenges
Concepts
in Fertility

Ways of
Fertility in
Measuring
Malaysia
Fertility
DEFINITION

Fertility refers to the actual number of children born. This is


distinguished from fecundity, or the biological maximum
number of children that could be born.
General Overviews on Fertility
Fertility means an ability to provide life or produce children
naturally and actual occurrence of birth.
Fertility is important because it ensures the continuity of the
generation.
Fertility affects both male and female.
Womens fertility is affected by the childbearing age (normally
between 15-49 year-old) whilst mens fertility is commonly
affected by particular lifestyle (eg. Smoking, free-sex etc.).
Obviously, a countrys level of fertility is a major source of
population change.
Modernity has a strong effect on fertility in that births are lowered
in advanced societies.
Conversely, the least developed nations have the highest fertility.
Factors Affecting Fertility
Fertility is subject to biological factors affecting fecundity.

It commences at puberty (about age fifteen) and has a tendency to


decline with advancing age.

For women it ceases at the menopause (beginning 45) but there is


no corresponding upper age-limit for men.

Fertility depends to some extent on personal attitudes, aspirations,


intelligence and education.

It may also been influenced, directly or indirectly, by government


policy of one kind or another and by economic circumstances.

It also varies according to occupation, social status, region and


cultural practices.
Example-Cultural Factor
The highest fertility rates in the world is in Rwanda, an East African nation of
10,000 square miles and 7.2 million people , or 720 persons per square mile.
The fertility rate in Rwanda is 8.5 children per woman of childbearing age.
The country is rural and its economy is agricultural; but it does not have
enough farmable land to support such a large number of people.
Rwanda is a male-dominated society. The majority of women work in
agriculture, and more than half are illiterate.
Rwandan men believe that fathering children is a sign of manhood; they
object to birth control measures for their wives not only because they want to
continue to father children but also because they think birth control pills will
make their wives weak and unable to work in the fields.
From the women viewpoint, the more children they have, the more stable their
marriages; children also help in the fields, thereby lightening the mothers
workload and helping protect her from abuse from the father.
Since women cannot inherit property under Rwandan Law, children are about
the only measure of status that accrues directly to a woman.
Therefore, the women also feel they benefit from having large families.
Chinas One Child Policy
Baby Boom in America 1946-1960s

St. Joseph Hospital, Chicago, 1941


BASIC CONCEPTS
Concept Definition
Total Fertility Rate (TFR) The total number of children a woman
would bear during her lifetime if she
were to experience the prevailing age-
specific fertility rates of women.

Gross Reproduction Rate (GRR) The number of baby girls a cohort will
have. It assumes that all of the baby
girls will grow up and live to at least age
50.

Net Reproduction Rate (NRR) The NRR starts with the GRR and adds
the realistic assumption that some of
the women will die before age 59;
therefore they will not be alive to bear
some of the potential babies that were
counted in the GRR.
Concept Definition
Family size Number of children in a family
Legitimacy Birth to married couple
Illegitimacy Births to the unmarried female
population at the reproductive ages.
This population includes the single,
widows, and divorced, the assumption
being that there are no illegitimate
births to married women, that is, births
where the father is not the husband.
WAYS OF MEASURING FERTILITY
Ways of Measurement Explanation
Period measure Refer to a cross-sectional
calculation of the population in
one year.

Cohort measure Follows the same people over a


period of decades.
Period Measure
Period measure refers to a cross-sectional calculation of the population in one
year.

The Crude Birth Rate


Since women rarely have the maximum number of children of which they are
capable, the fertility of a society is normally quiet a bit lower than its fecundity.
The simplest measure of fertility is the crude birth rate the number of live birth
occurring in a particular population during a given year for each 1000 people
in that population.
This method of calculating fertility is crude because it ignores the age and sex
structure of populations.

The General Fertility Rate


A more refined measure is the general fertility rate the number of live births
per year per 1000 women of childbearing age, generally considered
between fifteen and fourty-four years of age.
This general fertility rate provides a more accurate view of how fertile a
society is because it is calculated using only women who are in the age
bracket where they might have children.
Total Fertility Rate
Demographers also use another period measure of fertility called the total
fertility rate, which is the average number of children a woman will have in her
lifetime, based on current birth rates.
With todays birth rates, for example, women average about 1.8 children in
contrast to 2.5 children in 1940.
Cohort Measure
Cohort measure follows the same people over a period of decades.

Age-Specific Birth Rate


For other purposes, demographers use age-specific birth rates that calculate
the number of births among women in a particular age category (eg. 10-14,
15-19, 20-24) .
In fact, the slow increase in the birth rate since 1976 can be attributed in part
to the number of women who had delayed having children and then
decided in their thirties to have at least one child.
Some demographers have even referred to this as a baby boomlet since
the number of births to women between thirty and thirty-nine years of age
more than doubled.
Fertility Trends in Malaysia
Currently, fertility rate in Malaysia is 2.64 children born per woman.
Min number of children born by age
and ethnicity (2004)
Age Malay Chinese Indian Total

15-19 0.6 1.0 0.9 0.7

20-24 1.0 1.6 1.1 1.2

25-29 1.8 1.7 1.7 1.8

30-34 2.8 2.2 2.8 2.6

35-39 3.9 2.7 2.8 3.4

40-44 4.6 3.1 3.2 3.9

45-49 4.7 3.0 3.3 3.9


Factors Affecting Fertility Rate in
Malaysia
At macro level
Government policy of family planning:
- National Family Planning Act 1966.

At Micro level
Individual and family dynamics:
- Higher socioeconomic status, women in education and labor force,
changing in lifestyles.
- View that a better quality of family life can be achieved by a smaller
number of children.
- Higher level of education, less children; negative correlation

Simultaneously, expanded educational and career options for women and,


consequently, their growing commitment to paid work have given women
increased economic independence. One result is that more women are
voluntarily choosing singlehood and like it
Swartz in Lamanna dan Riedmann ( 2005 )
ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN FERTILITY
Population of four or five times necessarily caused some socio-economic
implications.
Effects of such population expansion will look felt at all levels of life especially
of national resources.
Among the areas of the field will be involved are as follows:

Food Supply
Most food items have to be imported and this will cause food security
problems and foreign exchange. Therefore the study should be made about
land use and potential use of other sources.

Housing
At least 10 million units of housing will be needed to accommodate the
additional population of 50 million and this will take about 100 years
according to current building rates.
Jobs
More than 20 million new jobs must be created. Thus it is important to move
the labor force becomes disciplined, motivated and productive.

Health
Number of hospital beds should be increased from 25 thousand to 140.000 if
the current long-term goal of 2 beds for every 1,000 population to be
achieved. Number of doctors already should be increased from 4.200 to over
30,000.

Education
Place for 15 million shall be provided and at least 4000.000 teachers needed.

Water Supply
Water use is expected by 15.6 billion cubic meters. Lack of water has already
been anticipated in 2000 for a total population of 21 million.

Energy Consumption
Energy consumption will increase by 4 or 5 times this will double again with the
industrial economy. This problem will be more complicated because the
achievement of 70 million will occur in Malaysia have run out of oil and gas
(post-Hydrocarbon).

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