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The demographic transition from high mortality and high fertility to low mortality and low fertility is well underway around the world and has started in sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades. There is evidence that the decline in fertility, which accompanies the latter stages of the demographic transition, creates the potential for a demographic dividend and a window of opportunity for economic growth. In addition to the increase in income from the decline in youth dependency rates and the rise in working-age share of the population, the decline in fertility promotes changes in behavior that can lead to higher income. Lower fertility can induce higher labor force participation rates, particularly for women. Reduced youth dependency rates may also lead to increased investment in the health and education of each child, thereby increasing children’s productivity when they enter the workforce. Changes in fertility and age structure may affect national savings rates and investment. Finally, there may also be a positive feedback effect between the demographic and economic transitions, whereby fertility decline induces improvements in health, education, female labor market participation, and economic growth, and these improvements in turn lead to further reductions in fertility and additional economic benefits.

Background Korean government has established various policies to counter the low fertility rate since the mid-2000s, but it still has the lowest fertility rate among OECD member countries. This study investigated the relationship between changes in the Korean fertility rate and policies to encourage fertility. Methods This study utilized data of the total fertility rate of 250 local governments between 2014 and 2018, and a casebook of local government birth promotion policies. The dependent variable was fertility rate, and the independent variable was fertility promotion policy. Using SPSS 25.0 and M-plus 8.0 programs, descriptive statistical analysis and latent growth modeling were conducted. An unconditional quadratic function change model was selected as a final model of this study. Results The average of the initial fertility rate and the linear rate of change in the Korean fertility rate, and the rate of change of the quadratic function were all statistically significant, meaning that the fertility rate of decline increases over time. Also, the linear rate of change and the quadratic function change rate were significant, showing significant differences in the initial level and rate of change of the fertility rate between local governments. Among fertility policies, only the in-kind policy had a significant effect on the initial value of the fertility rate, meaning that the higher the number of in-kind policies, the higher the fertility rate. Conclusion This study is crucial as it examined the changes in the fertility rate of Korean local governments as well as the policy factors affecting the fertility rate at a quantitative level.

Between the early 1950s and the present, the global fertility transition has been nearly universal in the developing world. However, as of 2017, two countries out of the 190 countries for which the United Nations provides fertility estimates had not yet met the conventional criterion for establishing the onset of the fertility transition (a decline of at least 10 per cent from peak fertility), and another five countries did so only very recently. These are the laggards in the global fertility transition. The countries are all in sub-Saharan Africa: Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Mali, Niger, and Somalia. This paper first reviews the fertility history of these seven countries, and subsequently provides data on the timing and pace of the global fertility transition in the four major developing regions: Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. It then explores potential reasons for the slow emergence of fertility decline in each country. The paper concludes with a discussion of each country’s prospects for fertility decline, which generally are weaker than those in the projections of the United Nations.

With historically similar patterns of high and stable cohort fertility and high levels of gender equality, the Nordic countries of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland are seen as forerunners in demographic behavior. Furthermore, Nordic fertility trends have strongly influenced fertility theories. However, the period fertility decline that started around 2010 in many countries with relatively high fertility is particularly pronounced in the Nordic countries, raising the question of whether Nordic cohort fertility will also decline and deviate from its historically stable pattern. Using harmonized data across the Nordic countries, we comprehensively describe this period decline and analyze the extent to which it is attributable to tempo or quantum effects. Two key results stand out. First, the decline is mostly attributable to first births but can be observed across all ages from 15 to the mid-30s. This is a reversal from the previous trend in which fertility rates in the early 30s increased relatively steadily in those countries in the period 1980–2010. Second, tempo explains only part of the decline. Forecasts indicate that the average Nordic cohort fertility will decline from 2 children for the 1970 cohort to around 1.8 children for the late 1980s cohorts. Finland diverges from the other countries in terms of its lower expected cohort fertility (below 1.6), and Denmark and Sweden diverge from Finland, Iceland, and Norway in terms of their slower cohort fertility decline. These findings suggest that the conceptualization of the Nordic model of high and stable fertility may need to be revised.

Child fosterage is one of the major manifestations of lack of capacity to cater for young family members in several societies of sub-Saharan Africa, which is reputed for prolific and sustained childbearing in the context of poverty. In Nigeria, the practice remains rife, with attendant negative consequences for foster children and communities in some cases. This paper, therefore, examined the challenges and coping strategies adopted by foster children in Bayelsa State, which was identified as one of the areas with high rates of child fosterage in Nigeria. Ethnomethodology and the rational choice theory were adopted as the theoretical framework. A total of 408 copies of a questionnaire were administered on respondents through a multistage sampling technique. Six in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions were conducted with foster children. The challenges reported by these children included physical abuse and maltreatment, lack of love and care, and lack of freedom of speech and boldness. Among the coping strategies identified by the foster children were endurance and silence, obedience and humility, and the uptake of paid jobs. There is, therefore, an urgent need for sustained fertility decline in order to discourage unnecessary child fosterage in Bayelsa and other states in Nigeria.

After decades of fertility postponement, we investigate recent changes in late parenthood across low-fertility countries in the light of observations from the past. We use long series of age-specific fertility rates from the Human Fertility Database (1950-2016) for women, and new data covering the period 1990-2016 for men. In 1950, the contribution of births at age 40 and over to female fertility rates ranged from 2.5 to 9 percent, but then fell sharply until the 1980s. From the 1990s, however, the prevalence of late first births inaeased rapidly, especially so in countries where it was initially lowest This has produced a late fertility rebound in the last two decades, occurring much faster for women than for men. Comparisons between recent and past extremely late (age 48+) fertility levels confirm that people are now challenging the natural fertility barriers, particularly for a first child.

Trends toward later and less marriage and childbearing have been even more pronounced in East Asia than in the West. At the same time, many other features of East Asian families have changed very little. We review recent research on trends in a wide range of family behaviors in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. We also draw upon a range of theoretical frameworks to argue that trends in marriage and fertility reflect tension between rapid social and economic changes and limited change in family expectations and obligations. We discuss how this tension may be contributing to growing socioeconomic differences in patterns of family formation. This focus on East Asia extends research on the second demographic transition in the West by describing how rapid decline in marriage and fertility rates can occur in the absence of major changes in family attitudes or rising individualism.

South Korea and other developed regions in East Asia have become forerunners of prolonged lowest-low fertility. South Korea's total fertility rate has been below 1.3 for two decades, the longest duration among OECD countries. Using vital statistics and census data, I study recent trends in the country's cohort fertility covering women born before the 1960s to those born in the 1980s. Analyzing outcomes at both the intensive margin of fertility (i.e., timing and number of children) and the extensive margin of family formation (i.e., marriage and childlessness), I document three novel patterns. First, the driver of low fertility has evolved across birth cohorts, from married women having later and fewer childbirths, to fewer women getting married, and finally to fewer women having children even if married. Second, a decomposition analysis of marriage and fertility changes indicates that the marriage and fertility decline was driven by changes within educational groups rather than by changes in women's educational composition. Third, the relationship between women's educational attainment and marriage or fertility was negative for the 1960s cohort, but an inverted U-shaped education gradient emerged beginning with the 1970s cohort.

The generalized and relatively homogeneous fertility decline across European countries in the aftermath of the Great Recession poses serious challenges to our knowledge of contemporary low fertility patterns. In this paper, we argue that fertility decisions are not a mere “statistical shadow of the past”, and advance the Narrative Framework, a new approach to the relationship between economic uncertainty and fertility. This framework proffers that individuals act according to or despite uncertainty based on their “narrative of the future” – imagined futures embedded in social elements and their interactions. We also posit that personal narratives of the future are shaped by the “shared narratives” produced by socialization agents, including parents and peers, as well as by the narratives produced by the media and other powerful opinion formers. Finally, within this framework, we propose several empirical strategies, from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective, including an experimental approach, for assessing the role of narratives of the future in fertility decisions.

Over the past half century substantial changes in reproductive behavior have occurred throughout the developing world, with the total fertility rate declining by 56 percent—from 6.0 to 2.7 births per woman between 1960 and 2010 (United Nations 2015). Declines have been especially rapid in Asia and Latin America over this period, but in sub-Saharan Africa (“Africa”) the fertility transition occurred later and is proceeding at a slower pace. As a result of high African fertility and declining mortality, the population of this region is now growing at a faster rate (2.5 percent per year) than other regions of the developing world. The UN projects the sub-Saharan population to grow from 0.8 billion in 2010 to 3.9 billion in 2100 (ibid.) Such an unprecedented expansion of human numbers will create a range of social, economic, and environmental challenges and make it more difficult for the continent to raise living standards. Not surprisingly, interest in and concerns about the adverse consequences of demographic trends in Africa have reached high levels among policymakers and researchers.