WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT AND FERTILITY CHANGES

• Published in: International journal of sociology of the family Vol. 39; no. 1/2; pp. 49 - 75
• Main Author: PHAN, LY
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Serials Publications 01-04-2013
• Subjects: Birth Control; Children; Decision Making; Educational Attainment; Employment; Female fertility; Females; Fertility; Labor Force Participation; Personal empowerment; Population Policy; Sociocultural Factors; Sons; Womens education; Womens empowerment; Womens Roles; Working women
• ISSN: 0020-7667; 0973-2039; 0020-7667

The relationship between women's empowerment and their fertility has been a major theme in studies of gender and development. The improved status of women is considered to increase their educational attainment and economic opportunities, and lead to higher decision-making power. Fertility decline is hypothesized as the result of such progress in women's empowerment. There have been many different suggestions on how women's empowerment initiates changes in fertility levels. However, the ways that women's empowerment affect fertility has not been clearly identified. This paper identifies four major pathways in which women's empowerment affects women's fertility. Four aspects of women's empowerment that are generally found to have effects on women's fertility include female education, female labor force participation, women's participation in decision-making process, and women's use of contraceptives in combination with population policies. Patriarchal cultural factors such as the preference for high fertility and the preference for sons are common-cause factors to both women's empowerment and fertility. Increase in women's empowerment are often associated with lower fertility levels, whereas, patriarchal cultural factors are often associated with lower level of women's empowerment and higher fertility.