Abstract

Reducing the fertility rate to replacement level or less is a widely accepted goal for environmentalists and international economic development experts. However, considerable controversy surrounds the choice of strategy for reducing fertility. Since World War II, development experts have relied upon the demographic transition model, which holds that modernizing, increasing education, and reducing infant mortality cause couples to want and to have fewer children. Nevertheless, historical and contemporary studies cast doubt on both the explanatory and predictive power of this model. Presented here is an alternate model—the economic opportunity model of fertility. This model explains increases as well as declines in fertility and it is supported by recent data. The model holds that perception of expanding opportunity encourages people to raise their family size target and, pare passu, actual family size. Likewise, the economic opportunity model predicts that a sense of scarcity or contracting economic opportunity leads to marital and reproductive caution.