Fertility and family structure
Ryder, N.B.
Population Bulletin of the United Nations 15: 15-34
1983
ISSN/ISBN: 0251-7604 PMID: 12265832 Document Number: 400397
This article presents a review of theoretical considerations in studies related to the research on fertility decline. The paper argues that in spite of the large expenditure of professional and material resources on research related to the problems of fertility behavior, there has been little advance in understanding of the relationship between the human variables related to fertility control. The most important reason for the lack of success is the disproportionate emphasis placed on the problem of explanation at the individual level whereas the institutional setting which always and everywhere conditions individual decisions and behavior has been consigned to residual neglect. It is argued that a theory of fertility decline is but 1 element in a theory of social change. The conceptualization required for that differs categorically from the designs of most current demographic enquiry. A theory of social change is concerned with the transformation of institutional structures, whereas the centerpiece of most demographic studies has been the individual decision maker. Although no claim is made to provide the necessary alternative conceptualization, this article does provide a set of suggestions for ways in which we may learn something important by pointing our investigations in other directions. The article studies those aspects of modernization which have the most direct implications for family structure--the way mortality decline affects the quantitative and temporal equilibrium within the traditional family. Because of an increase in the ratio of sons to fathers and a delay in the time of transfer of status and rights from the senior to the junior generations, fertility decline accompanied with increased life expectancy is disrupting the quantitative as well as temporal equilibrium within the family. The account of modernization as a force for demographic change is focussed not so much on fertility itself, but on the system of family mortality. The pursuit of family interests yields consequences which are unsatisfactory for society in the aggregate because some of the costs incurred by the senior generation are displaced onto the junior generation, necessitating some policy decisions. An acceptable theory of fertility decline is probably inaccessible within the confines of mechanistic micro-analytic models; the admission is required that social scientists are only beginning to define the macro-analytic problem in such a way to suggest appropriate research and methodologies. Fertility decline may need to be a subsidiary by-product rather than the focus of analytic strategy.