Title: [The usefulness of the intended number of children for fertility predictions in Japan].
Abstract: Unwanted births are difficult to predict, but wanted births can be predicted to a certain extent because they are regarded essentially as the consequences of a woman's or a couple's decision-making on the question of how many children they intend to have. In Japan's 7th National Fertility Survey data were obtained on how many children currently married women of child-bearing age intend to have. On the basis of this data it was found that the mean number of children intended for the age group of women 20-24, 25-29, and 30-34 are around 2.2 and that the figures correspond fairly well to those derived from other fertility surveys held during the past 5 years. The figures also turned out to be very close to 2.19 of the completed fertility. It was assumed that such similarity between the intended and the completed fertility existed because of the probable failure of realization of the mean number of children intended due to unexpected subfecundity was made up for by the possible occurrence of unwanted births. If that actually is the case, the mean number of children intended for currently married young women can be regarded as a good predictor of their completed fertility level. It was also found that differential completed fertility due to several respondent's characterstics, such as wife's education, degree of urbanization, and husband's occupation, can presumably be predicted by differences in the mean number of children intended for women of young cohort due to the same characteristics. Finally, by transforming the predicted levels of completed fertility for currently married women into those for women as a whole, it is concluded that the predicted level of the total fertility rate for the young cohort is likely to be at best 2.0 on average, below the replacement level of the Japanese population. (Author's Modified)
Publication Year: 1979
Publication Date: 1979-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['pubmed']
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