Postponement and Recuperation in Cohort Fertility of East Asian Countries

Yoon-Jeong Shin , Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs
Haebong Woo, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs

This study looks at the fertility rates of Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore for cohorts from the 1940s to 1970s. We compare cumulated cohort age-specific fertility rates between the benchmark cohort (1950~1960) and subsequent cohorts. Changes in cohort fertility rates of Korea were decomposed using parity progression ratios. The results from this study show that both period total fertility rates and cohort total fertility rates declined significantly. Women in the East Asian countries not only delayed child births but also hardly recovered delayed births afterward. The contribution of changing parity progression ratios varied across the cohorts. The drop of first-birth rates were mostly influential for the reduction of fertility rates between the cohorts of the 1960’s and the cohorts of the 1970’s which show fertility rate below replacement level. The results of this study demonstrates that fertility rates of East Asian countries would hardly increase in the near future.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 1. Fertility, Family Planning, Sexual Behavior, & Reproductive Health 1