Introduction

As described by Allan Hill in this volume, the last twenty years have witnessed spectacular declines in human fertility. In 1970, birth rates were high and showed little sign of change in any major developing region of the world. The few exceptions were clearly idiosyncratic, comprising small island states such as Fiji and Mauritius, the city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore and larger territories that had received massive North American aid, as in the case of the Republic of Korea and Taiwan.

Some twenty years later the position is very different. Fertility has declined throughout Central and South America and appears to be approaching replacement level in such countries as Brazil. In Asia, there is greater variation in recent trends. Steep declines have occurred in China, Indonesia and Thailand. More modest falls have been registered in Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and India. In Bangladesh there is recent evidence of a moderate decline, while in Pakistan fertility may even have risen.

In the predominantly Arabic belt of North Africa and the Middle-East, birth rates remain high but downward trends are well established in Egypt and Tunisia and there have been more recent falls in Morocco and Algeria. Similarly, in sub-Saharan Africa, high fertility persists and several countries have experienced a rise rather than a fall over recent decades. Zimbabwe and Botswana are the only countries in this region with unmistakeable trends to lower fertility, but Kenya is about to join their ranks.

Attempts to account for these trends are dominated by economic considerations. Esther Boserup has presented in this volume many of the central arguments.