Diffusion Processes and Fertility Transition Selected Perspectives (2001) / Chapter Skim
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8 Ready, Willing, and Able: A Conceptualization of Transitions to New Behavioral Forms
8 Ready, Willing, and Able: A Conceptualization of Transitions to New Behavioral Forms
Pages 240-264
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From page 240... ...
acceptability of the new pattern of acRon Lesthaeghe and Camille Vanderhoeft are professors in the department of social research at Vrije University, Brussels. The authors extend a special note of gratitude to Jan Marien at Vrije University for further mathematical research on the location of the minimum of three beta-distributions, and Martin Vaessen at Macro International for making available several tabulations from the raw data.
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From page 241... ...
The use of the R,W,A preconditions also has the advantage of creating links between the various social science disciplines, and particularly between economics concentrating on the R condition, and the other social sciences that pay more attention to normative and cultural aspects, that is, to the W condition. The present conceptualization is therefore also meant as an overarching framework for the integration of hitherto segregated "narratives" existing in the various social science disciplines (compare van de Kaa, 1996; Burch, 1996; Lesthaeghe, 1997~.
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From page 242... ...
and A First, the R precondition has been extensively discussed and conceptually modeled in the economic literature dealing with demographic outcome variables.
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From page 243... ...
The outcome is that we have a set of theories that explain conceptually why fertility control may be advantageous, but that we are still far removed from reliable and valid measurements of the key ingredients. Incidentally, the studies that tried to measure the key concepts pertaining to child utility in a direct way, rather than through rough proxies, were fielded by social psychologists rather than by economists.
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From page 244... ...
In other words, there is no moral dilemma or "cultural lag." This may be true in problems of firms adopting a new technology, but not in the field of fertility transitions. Much of the discussion of the W condition in narratives of fertility transition stems from the Princeton EFT project and is therefore linked to the concept of secularization, meaning the reduced credibility given to religious prescriptions.
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From page 245... ...
Others argued vividly that a lack of motivation constituted the weakest link. Stronger still, if there was no "reversal of the wealth flow," family planning efforts would run against the interests of large segments of populations of developing nations.
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W and A, respectively, and the weakest link rule gives the distributions of the outcome variable S as S = Min (R.
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to high (greater than 0.5~. random variables R
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From page 248... ...
An explicit formula for the pdf of S however, is not our concern here, and would not even be useful for our purposes, as it involves incomplete beta functions (which are to be evaluated by numerical integration)
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. Hence, the upper tail of W will be pulled in, S would have a slightly higher peak than W
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. In this instance, the distribution of the minima of scores (dotted line)
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They assume that an outcome variable Y at time t would be a function of two components: first, a set of individual characteristics Xi i, and second, a weighted set of social influences Zen I This equation is as follows: Yi ~ = Maxi,' + bi ~ mi,jZj,'-l + Pi,' i jeN The "reek letters identify coefficients and roman capitals are variables.
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. In the model of three preconditions, we need to specify the Montgomery-Casterline expression not just for social learning and social influence with respect to family planning (i.e., ability)
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The bottom line from this discussion is that the sole application of social learning and social influence models to the factors affecting the ability condition may lead to lopsided policy inputs. If the two other conditions, and predominantly the W condition, are overlooked, the final S distribution may show a surprising lag as a result of the weakest link rule.
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. Such a three-way classification can be obtained from the African DHS surveys for all currently married, fecund, and exposed women; the results are presented in Table 8-1.
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Sudan 1989-90 2,187 .39 .40 .21 Tanzania 1991-1992 2,543 .35 .40 .25 Cameroon 1991 1,337 .35 .31 .34 Zambia 1992 2,006 .34 .32 .34 Burkina F 1993 2,338 .33 .49 .18 Zimbabwe 1994 2,331 .28 .13 .59 Madagascar 1992 1,727 .25 .39 .36 Malawi 1992 1,471 .24 .45 .31 Namibia 1992 1,308 .24 .26 .50 Rwanda 1992 1,627 .21 .30 .49 Ghana 1993 1,502 .16 .41 .43 Morocco 1992 3,129 .14 .20 .66 Kenya 1993 2,657 .12 .31 .57 Egypt 1992 6,370 .11 .21 .68 NOTE: Exposed = not amenorrheic or pregnant; also women reporting not having sex, infrequent sex, menopausal/hysterectomy, subfecund and infecund or in postpartum abstinence are eliminated from N
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From page 256... ...
, and hence we would expect that ethical or religious objections, health fears and beliefs, or social pressure from others would be the key factors in pulling the S curve for Niger to the left, thereby preventing a contraceptive breakthrough. In their study of "unmet need," Westoff and Bankole (1995, nr.
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From page 257... ...
For DHS surveys with dates 1994 or later, the results were obtained from special tabulations provided by Macro International starting from the raw data tapes. In these tables, although produced for fecund, married, and exposed women, a number of respondents still give reasons for not using contraception pertaining to not being married, having no or infrequent sex, being infecund or subfecund, or having reached menopause.
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From page 258... ...
The DHS surveys of the late 1980s probed reasons for not using contraception among married, fecund, and exposed women who also stated that they would "be unhappy to have the next pregnancy soon" or for whom "such a pregnancy would cause problems." The results are also published in the DHS country reports for these years (chapter 4~. Among the answers, some categories are indicative of infecundity or subfecundity or nonexposure, and we have eliminated such respondents from our analysis.
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From page 260... ...
In such circumstances, the bottleneck condition at the onset would be primarily the A distribution, which is logical for most of Sub-Saharan Africa given the lower knowledge levels and the much weaker FP organization during the 1980s. But when overall need for contraception increases over time, that is, when the R distribution shifts to the right, the W distribution rather than the A distribution increasingly becomes the weakest link.
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It allows us to integrate economic and noneconomic paradigms of transitions to new forms of behavior, a crucial requirement for the study of fertility transitions in particular.
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The application to the data from African DHS surveys illustrates that a simple three-way classification of the fecund and exposed population according to the planning status of the next pregnancy can already shed light on the approximate locations of the R
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Second, the DHS data on reasons for not using contraception among the R-RWA subpopulation of fecund and exposed women should be produced systematically and in a comparable fashion. To estimate Rwa, the questionnaire should also allow for the specification of multiple reasons rather than just one.
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From page 264... ...
Montgomery, M., and J Casterline 1996 Social learning, social influence, and new models of fertility.
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