Sustaining declines in fertility have increasingly become an alarming issue in most of the world economies. Many governments have been making enormous efforts to alleviate such intertwined problems ...as falling fertility and soaring elderly dependency. What really makes fertility rates fall? Does housing price have a role (as many argue)? Most researchers addressed this issue from a demographic perspective, but have yet to fully unravel the mystery of human fertility behaviour. The paper aims to investigate the novel linkages between birth rate, housing price and elderly dependency, with the case of Hong Kong. It employs two key methods: (i) the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) to co-integration procedure and (ii) Granger causality, to disentangle the complicated relationships, long-run and short-run. The empirical results show that a 1 percent increase in housing prices and elderly leads to 0.52% and 1.65% decreases in birth rate respectively. Besides, both housing price and elderly dependency Granger cause birth rate in the long-run. Our findings not only shed light on fertility behaviour, but also provide implications for policy change. That is particularly relevant to those economies whose low fertility situations need to be ameliorated.
► A 1% increase in housing prices leads to 0.52% decreases in birth rate. ► A 1% increase in elderly dependency rate leads to 1.65% decreases in birth rate. ► Both housing price and elderly dependency Granger cause birth rate in the long-run.
Thermo-sensitive genic male sterility (TGMS) is the genic sterile system in plants that affects the fertility/sterility response to temperature in hybrid rice breeding. Eight TGMS lines, DDR 1S, DDR ...18S, DDR 19S, DDR 20S, DDR 23S, DDR 27S, DRR 28S and DDR 29, showed satisfactory seed-set percentage at high altitude, but complete sterility at low altitude. Characterization of sterility-sensitive stage and floral traits were determined by the tracking method. At low altitude, with an average air temperature of 35.4 degreesC, TGMS lines DRR 19S, DRR 20S and DRR 29S displayed a sterility-sensitive stage at 21 days prior to normal heading. The TGMS line DRR 1S required a temperature of 36.6 degrees C for complete sterility at 17 days prior to normal heading. In the remaining seven lines, the temperature for complete sterility ranged from 33.9 degrees C to 35.8 degrees C at low altitude. Angle of opened lemma and palea showed a significantly positive correlation with opening duration of lemma and palea and with size of stigma.
Purpose
Cost-benefit theory cannot explain the inverse relationship between education and fertility behavior among developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine psychological factors ...in fertility decisions, focusing on the number of children and determinants involved in the decision to have three or more children.
Design/methodology/approach
Two empirical models were employed utilizing data from the Japanese General Social Survey of 2005 and 2006. An ordered logit model was used to examine how educational background impacts the number of children people choose to have. A logit model focused on psychological factors was used to investigate the effect of the burden of childcare on the decision to have more children.
Findings
The probability of a third birth declines as the number of years of education increases for women, but not for men. Women whose mothers were housewives tended to have fewer children, whereas women who live in families and are homeowners were likely to have more children. For women, the most influential factor in the decision to have a child was awareness of childrearing costs. Men from higher-class, higher-income families tended to have more children.
Practical implications
The analysis indicates that maternal leave or systemic re-employment support can impact a woman’s decision to have a child.
Social implications
The inverse relationship between women’s fertility behavior and education can be partially explained by the awareness among educated women of the duties and burdens of childrearing.
Originality/value
This study contributes to practical information concerning the role of psychological factors in fertility decisions.
Tanzania’s child mortality rate—between 103 and 130 deaths per 1000 live births–is well above the world average. The data from the Tanzania HIV/AIDS and Malaria Indicator Survey 2007/08 were used in ...order. There were 27,511 children included in the analysis. Regression analysis focused on child mortality based on maternal and fertility behaviours. Children belonging to the group of higher birth order faced 0.17 odds of dying. A birth spacing of 24 months or longer was observed in the successive birth interval for 76% of the respondents. Focusing on the study’s findings, encouraging longer breastfeeding practice is one way to help produce a healthy baby.
This article examines the effect that intentions to start studying and to enter into employment may have on childbearing intentions and subsequent childbearing. The analysis also includes the impact ...of the corresponding behaviour: currently studying or being employed. The theoretical background draws on Barber’s study of competing attitudes, with an emphasis on competing intentions. Based on survey and register data for Bulgaria, the analyses reveal the effect of competing intentions. For example, the intention to start studying hampers the construction and subsequent realisation of intentions to have a child within 2 years. The actual behaviour of currently studying has the same effect; both effects are most pronounced for intentions to become a parent and for actual entry into parenthood. Inversely, an intention to enter into employment facilitates childbearing intentions and, for men, so does the behaviour of being employed. The latter result holds for women’s intention to have a second child. The findings indicate that when childbearing intentions and realisation are analysed, it is preferable to consider persons with a competing intention to start studying either as a separate group or group them with those who are currently studying, not with those who are not. Logistic regression models and interaction effects are applied for the analyses.
The genetic basis of male sterility and fertility restoration of the Pingxiang male-sterile rice (PMSR) was studied using progeny populations created between PMSR and 11 fertile lines. It was found ...that the male sterility was determined by two interacting (epistatic) dominant nuclear genes, one for sterility and one for fertility restoration. The dominant sterile gene expresses as male-sterility when existing solely, but as normally fertile when coexisting with the restoration gene. The individuals with only the restoration gene are normal and fertile.
A homozygous sterile line developed using PMSR by repeated selfing was characterised for its fertility behaviour under controlled and field conditions. Male fertility was affected by both temperature and photoperiod with temperature being more important. The critical temperature for inducing fertility was 27–28
°C. Blow this critical temperature, plants remained sterile, but become partially fertile at higher temperature. The panicle development stages that are sensitive to temperature were from differentiation of the secondary branch primordium (S3) to the meiotic division of the pollen mother cells (S6). Continuous high temperature (>30
°C) during these sensitive stages is necessary to maintain male fertility. Long photoperiod (15
h) induced partial fertility even under temperature, which could induce sterility. In practice, this line can be regarded as thermo-sensitive. In the sub-tropical zone, this line has complete sterile phase longer than 4 weeks and thus is suitable for hybrid production using the two-line system (a pair of pure sterile and fertile lines). Male sterile line required low temperature and short photoperiod to express male sterility, like the one derived from PMSR, has never been reported in any crop species. This line is also the first dominant nuclear male-sterile line that could be exploited for hybrid seed production using the two-line system.
The monograph (Between Self-Fulfillment and Social Expectations: The Attitude of the University-Educated Towards Fertility) considers a wider social background of reproductive decisions in ...university-educated people stemming from the evidence about the lowest birth rates among the university-educated population. This is a sociological study despite the examination of two established approaches in studying the relationship between education and fertility within the economic theories of fertility behaviour. The monograph considers some major results of sociological, anthropological and other qualitative studies which have importantly upgraded conclusions of extensive demographic surveys on this relationship.
In Slovenia, quite a few researchers have studied fertility and suicide, but rarely have the connections between both phenomena been made. The author aims to overcome simplified explanations of ...falling fertility and rising suicide rates by studying population dynamics as a socially relevant issue both at the Slovenian as well as the global level. She studies fertility and suicide by focusing on the historical development of population issues, recent theoretical population analyses and demographic statistics. Fertility and suicide are analysed from the viewpoint of approaches developed in the social sciences and humanities. In the second part of the monograph, these approaches are applied to fertility and suicide trends in Slovenia and press media reports on both issues.By providing an overview of the history of studying fertility and suicide in Slovenia and abroad, the author has concluded that most approaches to fertility and suicide are grounded on the premises of the modernisation theory. Nevertheless, she was not discouraged to study alternative approaches to fertility and suicide that, according to researchers in the humanities, do not necessarily have a lower explanatory potential.
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