This paper reviews half a century of research into the determinants of fertility. It is argued that
the quest for the determinants of fertility behaviour and change during that period can best …

An analysis of fertility transitions in 69 developing countries since 1960 finds that the
relationship between development and pretransitional fertility, the timing of the onset of …

Fertility rates vary considerably across and within societies, and over time. Over the last
three decades, social demographers have made remarkable progress in documenting these …

Most women in the West use contraceptives in order to avoid having children. But in rural
Gambia and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, many women use contraceptives for the …

Prevailing theories of fertility behavior do not explain what sustains fertility in industrialized
countries. Extending James Coleman's concept of social capital, the authors argue that the …

Demography and culture have had a long but ambivalent relationship. Cultural influences
are widely recognized as important for demographic outcomes but are often “backgrounded” …

Few studies have examined empirically the influence of women's position on contraceptive
behavior in sub-Saharan Africa. Using data from the 1988 Togo Demographic and Health …

In recent years, ethnographic research has challenged the notion within demography that
fertility-related behaviour is the outcome of individualistic calculations of the costs and …

Background With a maternal mortality ratio of 789 per 100,000 live births, and a
contraceptive prevalence rate of 4.7%, South Sudan has one of the worst reproductive …

Over the past decade there has been an increasingly receptive audience for participatory
and qualitative research methods by policy makers, development practitioners and …