Publication: Experiences with Fertility Reduction in Five High-Fertility Countries: Synthesis of Case Studies
Loading...
Published
2010-05
ISSN
Date
2017-06-30
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Countries with high levels of fertility lag behind others in development indicators and in progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. While several developing countries have lowered fertility rates over the last three decades, huge challenges remain. The family planning needs of some 137 million married women in developing countries are still unmet. About a third of the approximately 205 million pregnancies each year are unintended, and half of induced abortions performed globally are unsafe. Some 28 countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, have a total fertility rate greater than 5, and the decline in fertility rates has been very slow or has stalled. In most countries, national averages mask substantial differences in fertility levels between the well-off and the poor, highlighting equity concerns. The objective of this study is not to repeat those discussions and findings but rather to provide evidence-based, relevant, and practical information on population and family planning issues to stimulate policy dialogue with client countries and influence World Bank lending in countries that still have high fertility rates.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2010. Experiences with Fertility Reduction in Five High-Fertility Countries: Synthesis of Case Studies. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27498 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Fertility Decline in the Islamic Republic of Iran 1980-2006(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-05)Despite its volatile history, the Islamic Republic of Iran has performed well on social indicators, especially in providing basic services such as health care and education. Iran's fertility decline may have proceeded in two stages, the first beginning in the late 1960s. The Iranian government introduced a family planning program during the 1960s with explicit health and demographic objectives. Between 1967 and 1977, fertility declined-mainly in urban areas-to an average of 4 children per woman. Although the family planning program continued after the 1979 Islamic revolution, it was suspended after war broke out with Iraq in 1980. During the war, the government pursued a pronatalist population policy, including incentives for childbearing. The fertility decline coincided with improvements in primary and secondary education, possibly affecting the rapid decline in adolescent fertility during 1997-2006, especially when compared to other Middle East and North Africa region countries. Today regional disparities in fertility exist with higher fertility in less developed districts. Yet Iran's example shows how good public policy interventions in health (including family planning) and education can reduce fertility and contribute to human development.Publication Fertility Decline in Botswana 1980-2006(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-05)Botswana has had a stable democratic government and good governance since independence in 1966. With a sustained high average economic growth (about 9 percent) fueled by the diamond mining industry, it is the only country in Africa listed among the 13 'economic miracles' of the world for 1960-2005. The total fertility rate remains high in Sub-Saharan Africa, with 25 countries showing a rate greater than 5.0. In contrast, Botswana experienced the greatest fertility decline in the region during 1980-2006, with the total fertility rate decreasing from 7.1 in 1981 to 3.2 in 2006. The Botswana national family planning program, judged the strongest in Africa, contributed to this decline. The government strongly committed to meeting family planning needs, integrated maternal and child health/family planning (MCH/FP) and sexually transmitted infection (STI) services in 1973. The government spends about 18 percent of its total budget on health, a higher proportion than the Abuja declaration's target of 15 percent.Publication Fertility Decline in Pakistan 1980-2006(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-05)Pakistan was selected as a case study because of its estimated 40 percent decline in fertility between 1980 and 2006. Pakistan's high fertility rate began to decline gradually after the late 1980s and has continued to fall since then, though progress has been uneven and there have been signs of a slowdown in recent years. Unlike the other four case study countries (Algeria, Botswana, Iran, and Nicaragua), the history of fertility reduction in Pakistan has not been an overwhelming success story but rather a story of challenges, partial responses, and shortcomings that offer abundant lessons for other high-fertility countries as well as planners in Pakistan.Publication Fertility Decline in Algeria 1980-2006(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-05)Like other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, Algeria has undergone a demographic transition. But Algeria's fertility decline defies conventional explanation. Despite inauspicious starting conditions-a high total fertility rate, reluctant policy environment, and delayed implementation of a national family planning program-Algeria has surpassed some of its neighbors in fertility reduction. Before its fertility transition, Algeria had one of the highest crude birth rates in the world, nearly 50 per 1,000. The fertility transition began in 1965-70, before any significant government support for or investment in population control or family planning and before significant external donor funding became available. Since then, profound changes in the traditional family model have led to a 64 percent decline in the total fertility rate in recent decades, from 6.76 in 1980 to 2.41 in 2006. Overall, Algeria's fertility decline is best understood in terms of changes in behavior, especially the delay in age at first marriage, the increase in contraceptive use, and-to a certain degree-the negative effects of the economic crisis manifested in the housing shortage and unemployment of young adults.Publication Fertility Decline in Nicaragua 1980-2006(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-05)Nicaragua, a largely urban country (56 percent of the population lives in urban areas), is one of the least populous (5.53 million) and poorest countries in CentralAmerica. Following reforms in the 1980s, Nicaragua made remarkable progress in gender equity in education and the labor force, while the wide availability of primary health care initiated in the 1970's, including family planning services, led to improvements in infant and child mortality rates. Several lessons emerge from Nicaragua's success at reducing fertility. The government was committed to gender equity and female empowerment through educating girls and women and recruiting women into the labor force. Family planning services were provided within a well functioning primary health care system, including an extensive, efficient contraceptive distribution network that works with international donors, and international and national Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to offer women a good mix of options. Demand must be created through a timely public education campaign. Success requires civic engagement with stakeholders, which may initially mean avoiding unnecessary confrontation and publicity of services for addressing the concerns of more conservative stakeholders.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.