With the sudden decline of fertility it was particularly interesting to examine the situation in Kerala, regarding parental sex preference in formulating family planning policies for the rest of India with high fertility and son preference. The 1980 Kerala Fertility Survey included nearly 3000 households with about 2700 ever married women in reproductive age. Maternity history and fertility regulation data were collected. Data from 2500 currently married women were used, cross-classified by the number of male and female living children and contraceptive use status. A multiplicative model was used to study various interaction effects and to construct standardized rates of contraceptive use. Measures adjusted for both male and female composition and differential use of contraceptives among male-female combinations were obtained by the model to avoid arbitrariness in choosing rates and to preclude objections raised in previous research on Arnold\'s index. The model was generalized to facilitate simultaneous effects of the number of male and female children and family size on contraceptive use. Initial analysis showed that the effect of sex preference on contraceptive acceptance was rather negligible. However, there was a significant male-female interaction effect on contraceptive use. Contraception was high when the family size was large, with children of the same sex. With the effect of family size removed, the contraceptive use rate seemed to be in the inverse direction of the number of male or female children. This was possibly the result of two factors: 1) high contraception rate with large families of the same sex, and 2) low use of contraception among large families with a high number of children of both sexes. The Kerala situation partly supports McClelland\'s theory that couples already having proportionally more daughters may terminate fertility earlier. In Kerala such termination also occurs when couples have proportionally more sons, and family size also plays an important role in fertility cessation.

Rwanda\'s high fertility rate and very rapid population growth have a negative impact on the welfare of women. Traditionally, women in Rwanda won the respect of their in-laws by having many children, on whom they depended for social status, help in agricultural work, and support in old age. Women also played a very important role in agricultural production in addition to their daily household activities. Migration of men and young people to urban areas has left many women totally in charge of agricultural production and has further deprived them of their limited leisure time. Low income, legal obstacles, literacy, custom and other factors limit women\'s resulting from their inferior social and juridical status conditions their reproductive behavior despite the development of a family planning program dating to 1981. The low level of female education is an important factor; 33% of women vs. 61% of men are literate. 25% of Rwanda\'s budget is devoted to education, but population growth has impeded progress Illiteracy implies a lack of receptivity to new ideas, including family planning. A 1983 fertility study in Rwanda showed that marriage age increased with education, from 18.8 years for illiterate women to 19.5 for those within 3-5 years. The number of children declined with the educational attainment of the mother, as did infant mortality rates. Considering the physical labor that women carry out, their repeated pregnancies are a handicap to the promotion of their own and their family\'s health. The prevailing high fertility exacerbates nutritional problems; some 20% of infants weigh less that 2.5 kg at birth. Efforts have recently been made to recognize the contribution of women and to elevate their status, such as improving their access to education, raising the legal marriage to 21, and prohibiting polygamy. The National Office of Population was created in 1981 to study population problems and take action to resolve them. The national population policy adopted in 1990 seeks to increase awareness of population problems, promote use of contraception, improve health, promote participation of women in development, and improve population distribution. Its specific goals are to reduce the annual growth rate from 3.6% in 1990 to 2.0% in 2000, increase contraceptive prevalence from 12% in 1990 to 48.4% in 2000, and increase life expectancy from 49 years in 1985 to 53.5 years in 2000. New strategies have been developed to improve the status of women, and other actions that will be needed have been identified.

The objective of this discussion is to test the applicability of economic theory of fertility with special reference to postwar Japan and to find a clue for forecasting the future trend of fertility. The theories examined are the \"Chicago model\" and the \"Easterlin hypothesis.\" The major conclusion common among the leading economic theories of fertility, which have their origin with Gary S. Becker (1960, 1965) and Richard A. Easterlin (1966), is the positive income effect, i.e., that the relationship between income and fertility is positive despite the evidence that higher income families have fewer children and that fertility has declined with economic development. To bridge the gap between theory and fact is the primary purpose of the economic theory of fertility, and each offers a different interpretation for it. The point of the Chicago model, particularly of the household decision making model of the \"new home economics,\" is the mechanism that a positive effect of husband\'s income growth on fertility is offset by a negative price effect caused by the opportunity cost of wife\'s time. While the opportunity cost of wife\'s time is independent of the female wage rate for an unemployed wife, it is directly associated with the wage rate for a gainfully employed wife. Thus, the fertility response to female wages occurs only among families with an employed wife. The primary concern of empirical efforts to test the Chicago model has been with the determination of income and price elasticities. An attempt is made to test the relevance of the Chicago model and the Easterlin hypothesis in explaning the fertility movement in postwar Japan. In case of the Chicago model, the statistical results appeared fairly successful but did not match with the theory. The effect on fertility of a rise in women\'s real wage (and, therefore in the opportunity cost of mother\'s time) and of a rise in labor force participation rate of married women of childbearing age in recent years could not be verified. The application of the Easterlin hypothesis to Japan provided more satisfactory results. 4 variants of measure of relative economic status were tried to apply. 1 of them was the relative cohort size, the movement of which failed to coincide with that of fertility. The other 3 variants were considerably well fitted with fertility changes. The Chicago model was rejected, and the Easterlin hypothesis received some support from the available evidence. According to the findings, recent decline in fertility can be explained by a worsening of relative income status of young couples.

A multicenter study with 328 women, 302 of whom were nulliparous, was carried out using a Copper 7 IUD of reduced size: the Mini-gravigard. 10 Swiss and Austrian gynecologists in private practice participated in the trial. 92% of the patients were nulliparous. Insertion was easy and painless in the majority of the cases. An experience of 3081 women cycles was accumulated. Over the 28-month study, 5 involuntary pregnancies were recorded (Pearl Index=2). The percentage of spontaneous expulsions was 4.9% (16 cases of partial or complete expulsion). In 7.6% of all women (25 cases), the device was removed due to pelvic pain and persistent bleeding. An evaluation of these results has been performed according to the life-table method.

The author argues that the effect of sex preference must be disentangled from the effect of number preference in Korea. This study tests--with hazard models--the effect of the number of previous children on the next birth according to the sex composition of previous children. Data were obtained from the 1974 Korean Fertility Survey. This paper also analyzes the timing of childbearing in recent periods in order to determine whether replacement-level fertility is temporary or permanent. The ideal number of children declined from 3.9 children in 1965 to 2.1 in 1991. The age-specific fertility rates for ages 20-24 years declined rapidly during the late 1980s. The fertility rates among women aged 25-29 years and 30-34 years increased during 1985-90. The proportion of fertility among women aged 20-29 years increased from 67.9% in 1975 to 86.6% in 1984. Women born in the late baby boom period of the late 1950s to mid-1960s reached prime reproductive age during the late 1980s and 1990s, but the crude birth rate remained about the same during 1985-92. A higher percentage of women (22.4%) born during 1955-59 remained single in 1990. During 1960-90, the percentage of women aged 20-24 years who were married declined. These trends indicate later age at childbearing and an explanation for the temporary nature of below-replacement fertility in the late 1980s. Korean women did not want to have more than 2 children, and the interval between first and second births increased since 1985. Among pregnancies of parity 2 conceived since 1985, over 90% of women with at least one son ended subsequent pregnancies by abortion compared to only 59% without sons. Hazard models of 1974 data reveal that son preference had an important effect on fertility. Fertility was higher among women with only daughters. Findings suggest that the value of sons must be measured at the societal and not at the individual level.

This case study of the Xavante of Pimentel Barbosa is an example of an Amazonian Indian group that, when exposed to White society, experienced the common history of diseases and social disruption, and then eventually, recovered from the demographic shock, increased fertility, and reduced mortality. Early contact for the Xavante was during the early 18th century in Goias state, Brazil; by the end of the 19th century the Xavante had migrated west into Mato Grosso in isolation. Brazilian government interests (1940s) and a research expeditionary group (1962) resulted in health posts and extensive genetic, epidemiologic, and demographic studies. The results showed good physical and nutritional status, but stress from epidemic disease and social disruption. Conditions had improved by 1976, and the battle was with encroaching ranchers. Strong indian political action led to the securing of boundaries within the Pimentel Barbosa reservation by 1977. The population doubled from 249 in 1977 to 411 in 1988, and increased to 3 villages. There was evidence of a return to more traditional practices. Data collection for this analysis occurred during 1976-77 and 1988 and 1990. Results were provided for recent demographic change, recent births and deaths, factors affecting fertility, fertility change, parity and infant mortality, life expectancy changes, infanticide, population growth, marriage patterns, and health changes. Fertility histories were collected from 71 women in 1971 and 109 women in 1990. Difficulties were encountered due to Xavante differences in enumeration of children. In the comparison of the surveys in 1977 and 1990, there was close correspondence of reported births, and discrepancies of 4-9 births and in age at death. The difficulties encountered were attributed to problems with interpreters. The demographic analysis showed evidence of introduced diseases, which increased infant mortality and threatened population replacement, followed by decreased infant mortality and a large cohort of reproductive age women increasing population growth. The history of this and similar populations is one of a rise and fall in population since colonial times. The seminomadic nature of this group may have saved them from extinction.

This study aimed to identify fertility behaviors among Thai Muslims in the southern region of Thailand and draw comparisons to Thai Buddhists in order to determine whether religion contributes to fertility differentials. Data was obtained during interviews using a questionnaire. The sample included 1035 married women, 514 of Buddhist and 525 of Muslim villages. The sample populations are described in terms of age, number of marriages, family type, education, income, husband\'s occupation, and knowledge and practice of family planning. Indices of current and cumulative fertility, including expected children were measured. When controls are applied for education, occupation, income and family planning, the differential still exists, indicating that religion does contribute to the higher fertility of the Muslims.

A model of processes underlying marriage and family timing were applied to longitudinal data on 288 young adult males from the Southern Youth Study. The purpose was to assess the implications which adolescent status and familial orientations may hold for patterns of family formation and expansion. The subjects were selected from nonmetropolitan high schools in Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and South Carolina. Initial contact was made in the sophomore year (1966-1967) when family background and significant other encouragement data were requested through questionnaires administered in the classroom. Recontacted as seniors in 1968, respondents were questioned concerning status and family aspirations. In 1972 the respondents were contacted for a 3rd time and data regarding marriage timing and procreation were obtained. 45% of the 288 males had married within 4 years of high school, but 81% reported no children. 16% reported 1 child and only 3% reported 2 or more children. On the average, as high school seniors, these males expressed desires for slightly later marriage than did males in the Project Talent national study of high school seniors. The expected negative relationships of early fertility with significant other occupational encouragement and with educational aspirations indicated high aspirations to be associated with lower young adult procreation. The strongest correlation reflected the importance of marital timing. Premarital factors failed to directly influence procreation independently of marital duration and only adolescent educational and marital desires directly influenced the timing of marriage.

Objective of this paper is to compare data published in the general reports of countries participating in the World Fertility Survey. The major differences encountered were presented by the differences between the surveys of the different countries, in this case Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, and the disparity of classification criteria of the variables considered. For example, age intervals varied in the different countries, as did distribution of women as to place of residence and educational status. Since such variables are strictly related to fertility rate and contraceptive usage, differences must be taken into consideration in the interpretation of results. In all countries considered the proportion of women knowing about contraception was very high; there were, however, great differences in contraceptive usage. Panama and Costa Rica, for example, had high levels of contraceptive use, while Colombia was in an intermediate position, and Peru and the Dominican Republic had low levels. In all countries contraceptive use was higher in urban residents, and in women with better education. Such differences were less noticeable in countries where contraceptive use was higher. Parity had a great influence on contraceptive use, since women with no children had lower levels of contraceptive use than women with higher parity.

High infant and child mortality corresponds to high fertility in West Africa which may be attributed to 3 factors: 1) the desire to replace the dead child, 2) the death of the first child which results in termination of lactation which in turn causes renewed ovulation in the mother, and 3) the birth of a second child at a short interval after previous birth necessitates the early weaning of the first child. Considering the nutritional deficiencies and diseases in West Africa, this early weaning could be fatal. Recommended policy includes more than simply maternal and child care in relation to family planning but a broader approach to overall maternal and child care.