Birth Rate - Factors Affecting Birth Rate

Factors Affecting Birth Rate

  • Government population policy, such as pronatalist or antinatalist policies (for instance, a tax on childlessness
  • Availability of family planning services, such as birth control and sex education
  • Availability and safety of abortion and the safety of childbirth
  • Infant mortality rate: A family may have more children if a country's infant mortality rate is high, since it is likely some of those children will die.
  • Existing age-sex structure
  • Typical age of marriage
  • Social and religious beliefs, especially in relation to contraception and abortion
  • Industrialization: In a preindustrial agrarian economy, unskilled (or semiskilled) manual labor was needed for production; children can be viewed as an economic resource in developing countries, since they can earn money. As people require more training, parents tend to have fewer children and invest more resources in each child; the higher the level of technology, the lower the birth rate (the demographic-economic paradox).
  • Economic prosperity or economic difficulty: In difficult economic times, couples delay (or decrease) childbearing.
  • Poverty levels
  • Urbanization
  • Pension availability
  • Conflict
  • Illiteracy and unemployment

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