Between 1800 and 1975, sexuality in the West was transformed. Hera Cook shows how the growing effectiveness of contraception gradually eroded the connection between sexuality and reproduction. The ...increasing control over fertility was crucial to the remaking of heterosexual physical sexual behaviour and had a massive impact on women's lives. Dr Cook charts how, why, and when attitudes towards sex changed from the repression of the nineteenth century to the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Environmental degradation has been found to have a significant impact on human health. Although scientists and clinicians are at the forefront of understanding these complex links, it is also ...necessary to investigate the potential insights that the humanities can provide. Building on existing scholarship, this study argues that African indigenous knowledges are replete with mechanisms for understanding the nature of the problem and in procuring lasting solutions. Specifically offering an in‐depth content analysis of Ifá religious corpus among the Yorùbá of Southwestern Nigeria, this study argues that Ifá corpus contains significant historical references to epistemological sources for understanding the relationship between environmental degradation and (in)fertility. I demonstrate that Odù Ọ̀sá Méjì, an Ifá corpus, explains the interlayers of Yorùbá notions on environmental degradation, drought, forest burning, displacement of animals, and famine as causes of health‐related issues such as decrease in sperm count and quality, absence of menstruation, post‐term pregnancies, and decreased lactation. Relevant metaphors and hermeneutical tools are employed to uncover valuable insights from Ifá corpus on the nexus between a healthy environment and human fertility.
Not Just Later, but Fewer Hellstrand, Julia; Nisén, Jessica; Miranda, Vitor ...
Demography,
08/2021, Letnik:
58, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
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.
What progress has been made in fertility preservation (FP) over the last decade?
FP techniques have been widely adopted over the last decade and therefore the establishment of international ...registries on their short- and long-term outcomes is strongly recommended.
FP is a fundamental issue for both males and females whose future fertility may be compromised. Reproductive capacity may be seriously affected by age, different medical conditions and also by treatments, especially those with gonadal toxicity. There is general consensus on the need to provide counselling about currently available FP options to all individuals wishing to preserve their fertility.
An international meeting with representatives from expert scientific societies involved in FP was held in Barcelona, Spain, in June 2015.
Twenty international FP experts belonging to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, ESHRE and the International Society of Fertility Preservation reviewed the literature up to June 2015 to be discussed at the meeting, and approved the final manuscript. At the time this manuscript was being written, new evidence considered relevant for the debated topics was published, and was consequently included.
Several oncological and non-oncological diseases may affect current or future fertility, either caused by the disease itself or the gonadotoxic treatment, and need an adequate FP approach. Women wishing to postpone maternity and transgender individuals before starting hormone therapy or undergoing surgery to remove/alter their reproductive organs should also be counselled accordingly. Embryo and oocyte cryopreservation are first-line FP methods in postpubertal women. Metaphase II oocyte cryopreservation (vitrification) is the preferred option. Cumulative evidence of restoration of ovarian function and spontaneous pregnancies after ART following orthotopic transplantation of cryopreserved ovarian tissue supports its future consideration as an open clinical application. Semen cryopreservation is the only established method for FP in men. Testicular tissue cryopreservation should be recommended in pre-pubertal boys even though fertility restoration strategies by autotransplantation of cryopreserved testicular tissue have not yet been tested for safe clinical use in humans. The establishment of international registries on the short- and long-term outcomes of FP techniques is strongly recommended.
Given the lack of studies in large cohorts or with a randomized design, the level of evidence for most of the evidence reviewed was 3 or below.
Further high quality studies are needed to study the long-term outcomes of FP techniques.
None.
N/A.
This book offers an original interpretation of the history of falling fertilities in Britain between 1860 and 1940. It integrates the approaches of the social sciences and of demographic, feminist, ...and labour history with intellectual, social, and political history. It exposes the conceptual and statistical inadequacies of the orthodox picture of a national, unitary class-differential fertility decline, and presents an entirely new analysis of the famous 1911 fertility census of England and Wales. Surprising and important findings emerge concerning the principal methods of birth control: births were spaced from early on in marriage; and sexual abstinence by married couples was a far more significant practice than previously imagined. The author presents a new general approach to the study of fertility change, raising central issues concerning the relationship between history and social science.
From a population perspective, the trajectories of both the total fertility at successive time periods and the total fertility of successive birth cohorts are derived from the same array of ...age-specific fertility rates. This analysis uses the assumption of constant age-specific fertility proportions to derive new explicit relationships between period and cohort fertility. In short, period total fertility is approximately equal to the total fertility of the cohort born a generation earlier, with a modest additive adjustment. A simple relationship also links both period and cohort total fertility to ACF, the average fertility of the childbearing cohorts in a given year. Assuming that fertility levels follow a cubic curve, cohort values from the derived relationships are then compared to observed cohort fertility values for the United States in 1917–2019. Despite substantial violations of the constant proportional fertility assumption, the calculated values deviate from the observed values by an average of only 7–8%. Short-term projections suggest that U.S. cohort fertility will continue to decline.
This article gives a concise overview of the theoretical development of the concept of the “second demographic transition” since it was coined in 1986, its components, and its applicability, first to ...European populations and subsequently also to non-European societies as well. Both the demographic and the societal contrasts between the first demographic transition (FDT) and the second demographic transition (SDT) are highlighted. Then, the major criticisms of the SDT theory are outlined, and these issues are discussed in the light of the most recent developments in Europe, the United States, the Far East, and Latin America. It turns out that three major SDT patterns have developed and that these evolutions are contingent on much older systems of kinship and family organization.
Significance At the end of the historical declines in both mortality and fertility (the “first demographic transition”), new demographic phenomena developed in the Western World. Therefore, new theoretical frameworks were needed to explain features such as the baby bust, the systematic postponement of marriage and parenthood, subreplacement fertility, the rise of alternative forms of partnerships, and parenthood outside marriage. The “second demographic transition” (SDT) theory is such an attempt. Although it accepts the major tenets of bounded rational economic choice, it also allows for autonomous preference drift by relying on Maslow’s theory of shifting needs. As such, an essentially cultural component is being added.
Offspring Bulatao, Rodolfo A; Wachter, Kenneth W
03/2003
eBook
Odprti dostop
Despite recent advances in our understanding of the genetic basis of human behavior, little of this work has penetrated into formal demography. Very few demographers worry about how biological ...processes might affect voluntary behavior choices that have demographic consequences even though behavioral geneticists have documented genetics effects on variables such as parenting and divorce. Offspring: Human Fertility Behavior in Demographic Perspective brings together leading researchers from a wide variety of disciplines to review the state of research in this emerging field and to identify promising research directions for the future.
The last four decades have witnessed large declines in fertility globally. This study uses data from 78 low- and middle-income countries to examine concurrent trends in unwanted fertility. Three ...measures of unwanted fertility are contrasted: the conventional unwanted total fertility rate, a proposed conditional unwanted fertility rate, and the percentage of births unwanted. Incidence of unwanted births and prevalence of exposure to unwanted births are both derived from answers to questions on prospective fertility preference, recognized as the most valid and reliable survey measure of preferences. Country-level trends are modeled both historically and with the decline in total fertility, with a focus on regional differentials. Results show that unwanted fertility rates—especially the conditional unwanted fertility rate—have declined substantially in recent decades. By contrast, the percentage of births unwanted has declined less, remaining stable or even increasing: from a birth cohort perspective, declines in unwanted fertility have been far more modest than the increased parental success in avoiding unwanted births. The regional patterns suggest that sub-Saharan Africa has several similarities with other major regions but also some peculiar features, including a recent stall in the decline of unwanted fertility that persists after controlling for the stage of fertility transition.
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