Measurement Issues and Proximate Determinants of Slow and Stagnating Fertility Decline: Case Studies of Kenya and the Philippines

Thomas M. McDevitt, U.S. Census Bureau
Peter Johnson, U.S. Census Bureau

Bongaarts (2002:297) has recently observed that, “as countries approach the later stages of the transition [from higher to lower fertility], the pace of decline will slow down.” The reasons: early declines are attributable to diffusion and social interaction processes while later, further reductions are tied to level of socioeconomic development. This paper will first assess what the recent trends in fertility have been in two countries. It will then look at a model of the determinants of fertility in developing countries proposed by Bulatao and Lee (1983) to illustrate the fact that couples’ childbearing decisions, underlying stagnation, and reversal of fertility decline are driven by policy and program-related factors arguably determined by level of development but more directly tied to government and donor commitment to family planning. Such commitment is, in turn, amenable to change in the absence of broad changes in level of national development.