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The spread of health services and fertility Transition

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Demography

Abstract

We use detailed measures of social change over time, increased availability of various health services, and couples’ fertility behaviors to document the independent effects of health services on fertility limitation. Our investigation focuses on a setting in rural Nepal that experienced a transition from virtually no use of birth control in 1945 to the widespread use of birth control by 1995 to limit fertility. Changes in the availability of many different dimensions of health services provide the means to evaluate their independent influences on contraceptive use to limit childbearing. Findings show that family planning as well as maternal and child health services have independent effects on the rate of ending childbearing. For example, the provision of child immunization services increases the rate of contraceptive use to limit fertility independently of family planning services. Additionally, new Geographic Information System (GIS)-based measures also allow us to test many alternative models of the spatial distribution of services. These tests reveal that complex, geographically defined measures of all health service providers outperform more simple measures. These results provide new information about the consequences of maternal and child health services and the importance of these services in shaping fertility transitions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB# 8120, University Square, 123 West Franklin Street, 27516-2524, Chapel Hill, NC

    Sarah R. Brauner-Otto

  2. Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, USA

    William G. Axinn & Dirgha J. Ghimire

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  1. Sarah R. Brauner-Otto
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  2. William G. Axinn
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  3. Dirgha J. Ghimire
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This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01-HD32912) and the Fogarty International Center, International Training and Research Program in Population and Health. Paper presented at the regular session “Cross-National Perspectives on Fertility and Reproduction” at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August 14–17, 2004. We would like to thank Jennifer Barber, Jennifer Johnston-Hanks, and Scott Yabiku for comments on earlier versions of this article; the staff of the Population and Ecological Research Laboratory, Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal for their assistance in data collection; and Paul Schulz for programming assistance. Any errors are the responsibility of the authors.

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Brauner-Otto, S.R., Axinn, W.G. & Ghimire, D.J. The spread of health services and fertility Transition. Demography 44, 747–770 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2007.0041

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