Global project 932-0648 · 1979–1982 · East-West Center (EWC). East-West Population Institute

Why are successive generations of parents having fewer and fewer children? Demographic studies have noted this transition from high to low fertility rates and are attempting to answer this question. This paper argues that a central reason for the fertility decline is a set of changes in parents' perceptions of specific values and disvalues attached to children. Children become less valuable in one sense, but they also become valued for different reasons and the burdens they impose on parents are altered both quantitatively and qualitatively. Taken collectively, these changes have been labeled "the transition in the value of children," a theory which attempts to explain long-term changes in fertility levels that accompany modernization. First, the theory and past literature, which was limited to seven Asian and two Western countries, are briefly reviewed. New evidence from countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania are presented in the remainder of the paper in an attempt to confirm the theory. Thus, to supplement the evidence of this transition from nine countries reported in a previous paper (Bulatao, 1979), data from an additional 14 countries are considered in

Source: DEC abstract, PN-AAH-613 (1979). The source's own text.