Women and Demographic Change
Introduced| English |
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| family planning/ˈfæmɪli ˈplænɪŋ/ |
The strongest driver of fertility
- The status of women is one of the strongest drivers of fertility.
- As female education and employment rise, fertility falls.
- This is a key reason countries move through the DTM.
As female education and employment rise, fertility usually...
Education and work lead to later marriage and fewer children → fertility falls.
Why education lowers fertility
- Educated women tend to marry later and have fewer children.
- They gain more knowledge of and access to family planning 计划生育.
- Careers raise the opportunity cost of having many children.
Raises or lowers fertility?
Sort each factor by its effect on fertility.
Access to family planning tends to lower fertility.
Family planning gives women more control over family size, lowering fertility.
Careers raise the ____ cost of having many children (the value of what a woman gives up).
The opportunity cost of children rises when women have careers to give up.
Select all factors that lower fertility.
Education, work, and family planning lower fertility; very early marriage raises it.
Match each change to its effect.
All three empower women's choices and lower fertility.
Women in the economy
- When women earn income, households are richer and healthier.
- Their choices ripple through population, economy, and development.
- Improving women's rights is one of the UN's key development goals.
Do not treat falling fertility as women being "forced" to change. The pattern is driven by opportunity: education, work, and family planning give women more choices, and many choose smaller families. It is a change in options, not coercion.
In many countries, as girls' school enrolment rose, the average number of children per woman fell from six or seven to around two within a generation. More years in school meant later marriage, careers, and access to family planning — fertility fell as a result.
The status of women strongly drives fertility. Rising female education and employment, plus access to family planning, lead women to marry later and have fewer children — a key engine of the demographic transition and of development.