Rural-Urban Fertility Differentials: 1975

This paper is concerned with identifying differentials in levels and patterns of urban and rural fertility in Pakistan, based on Pakistan Fertility Survey data. Findings show that there are marginal differences in the over-all levels of fertility in the two areas. However, younger urban women are reproducing at a higher rate than rural counterparts, whereas older urban women use relatively more contraception and have lower fertility than older rural women

Pakistani Couples: Different Productive and Reproductive Realities?

Gender systems depict several dimensions of the relations between men and women across different social settings. Mason (1995) has described the complexity of gender systems that encompass concepts such as women’s standing, empowerment, the sexual division of spheres and the rather widely used concept of women’s status. Gender systems in Pakistan are posited to be unequal in favour of men, because of strong patriarchal systems, which ordain that men and older persons make all major decisions. As a result, women’s status is argued to be low in most dimensions poor educational attainment, few economic opportunities apart from family based employment which is largely unpaid and the virtual seclusion of women from the public spheres of life especially those involving financial transactions. Spheres of life are quite separate with men having the primary responsibility of breadwinning and women to be primarily responsible for within household routine chores such as those involving cleaning, cooking, animal care and child care. Men control the major part of decision making and presumably act in their own interest which may not necessarily coincide with women [Folbre (1988)]. Especially in terms of productive decisions but also in reproductive decisions, women necessarily play a subsidiary role which relegates them to a lower position in terms of decision making and control of resources [Dwyer and Bruce (1988)]. This paper looks more closely at the two spheres of production and reproduction in rural Pakistan. It uses responses from matched husbands and wives to test whether in fact there is a difference between spouses in their perceptions, goals/orientation about production and reproduction.

Does Female Education Affect Fertility Behaviour in Pakistan?

The study explores the relationship between female education and fertility in Pakistan and is based on data from the Pakistan Fertility Survey 1975. Only slight differentials were identified between women with no education and those who had primary or less schooling. However, women with more than primary education had notably lower fertility. Also the role of the intermediate variables such as proportions married, length of breast feeding and contraceptive use had significant associations with female education

Informalisation of Women's Work: Consequence for Fertility and Child Schooling in Urban Pakistan

Female employment is considered an important means of lowering fertility through ways such as raising the age at marriage, through influencing desired family size and also through better knowledge and use of contraceptives. Increasing female labour force participation is frequently recommended as a critical policy measure for reducing the birth rate. However the significant inverse relationship between employment and fertility found for developed countries is weak or absent in the case of developing countries [Rodriguez and Cleland (1980)]. More recent evidence indicates that it is not so much employment per se but type of employment which is a critical determinant of reproductive behaviour [United Nations (1985)]. It has been shown that while high status professional jobs are associated with greater influence on women's domestic autonomy and fertility, low paying jobs lead to an increasing burden of work with entirely different implications for fertility and other household related behaviour. In the context of Pakistan, despite two decades of industrial growth and development, official data sources show stagnant and low levels of female labour force participation rates (LFPR) in urban Pakistan. The LFPR for urban women ranged between 3 and 5 percent for the period between 1971 and 1988. Data collection methods of government agencies are known to greatly underestimate female labour force participation (FLFP) particularly in rural areas and in the urban informal sector where the distinction between productive and domestic activities tends to be ambivalent. Evidence from micro surveys indicates, on the contrary, an increasing influx of women in the urban labour market, particularly in the informal sector [Sathar and Kazi (1988); Shaheed and Mumtaz (1981); Bilquees and Hamid (1989)]. A large number are shown to be working in home-based piece-rate employment while domestic service mainly as sweepers, washerwomen, maids, etc................................

Pakistani Couples: Different Productive and Reproductive Realities?

Gender systems depict several dimensions of the relations between men and women across different social settings. Mason (1995) has described the complexity of gender systems that encompass concepts such as women’s standing, empowerment, the sexual division of spheres and the rather widely used concept of women’s status. Gender systems in Pakistan are posited to be unequal in favour of men, because of strong patriarchal systems, which ordain that men and older persons make all major decisions. As a result, women’s status is argued to be low in most dimensions: poor educational attainment, few economic opportunities apart from family based employment which is largely unpaid and the virtual seclusion of women from the public spheres of life especially those involving financial transactions. Spheres of life are quite separate with men having the primary responsibility of breadwinning and women to be primarily responsible for within household routine chores such as those involving cleaning, cooking, animal care and child care

Reproductive Behaviour in Pakistan: Insights from the Population, Labour Force, and Migration Survey 1979-80

Pakistan, with a population of83 million at the 1981 census, ranks as the ninth largest nation in the world. Owing to the persistently high levels of fertility and the concomitant relatively low levels of mortality, Pakistan's population has registered an annual growth rate of about 3 percent over the last two decades. This high growth rate poses a problem to all those concerned with the effects of rapid population growth in the face of limited global resources. Although a slight decline in Pakistan's fertility had been recorded in 1975, it was considered to be of little significance and a phenomenon too recent to influence population growth [I). A 12•percent decline in fertility during the 1970- 75 period, as suggested by the Pakistan Fertility Survey (PFS) data, however, generated hopes that Pakistan may well be entering into an era of declining fertility. There is an urgent need to investigate whether this decline was real and whether it continued in the late Seventies. Answers to these queries are of paramount importance both for population related research and for policy formulation. In this context, the data collected for Studies in Population, labour Force, and Migration (PLM) - a PIDE/ILO-UNFPA project [5] - may be extremely useful

The Onset of Fertility Transition in Pakistan

In a Comment published in the Autumn 2000 issue of this journal, Mr Ghulam Soomro1 takes issue with our recent article in Population and Development Review.2 Although Mr Soomro is highly critical of our article, we are pleased that he has read the article carefully and made the effort to write an extended comment. We are not prepared, however, to concede the major points in that Comment. Two major points are made by him. First, that marital fertility decline is a small component of the recent fertility decline in Pakistan, which has been mainly due to postponement of entry to first marriage. Second, that the underlying motivation for fertility change in the 1990s has been economic distress, a consequence in part of the structural adjustment programmes instituted in the late 1980s. However, in the first point, Soomro interprets the demographic data from the past three decades incorrectly and, in the second point, he misrepresents our argument

Some Consequences of Rising Age at Marriage in Pakistan

Nuptiality changes have been at the core of demographic transitions in Europe and in several Asian societies [Caldwell (1993)]. Delayed marriages have been seen as precursors of fertility change in most societies. They underlie changes in family formation patterns and living arrangements, which ultimately are the bases of demographic transition. The concomitants of profound changes in marriage behaviour are worth studying because of their impact on demographic outcomes such as the population growth rate and fertility. Moreover, they are also strongly connected to the role and status of women, family living arrangements and power structures. The most prominent outcome of the rise in proportions single is that most young men and particularly young women begin experiencing profound changes in their lives. They essentially have several years of their lives "freed" from the responsibilities and changes associated with marriage, and in the case of girls from reproduction. The delay in marriage for females in particular has direct impact on delaying the age of sexual initiation and the age at first birth (since almost all childbearing occurs within marriage). But most importantly, it has direct influences on raising the potential for a larger amount of time between childhood and "adult" responsibilities allowing young people to develop their capabilities in terms of education and work.

Some Consequences of Rising Age at Marriage in Pakistan

Nuptiality changes have been at the core of demographic transitions in Europe and in several Asian societies [Caldwell (1993)]. Delayed marriages have been seen as precursors of fertility change in most societies. They underlie changes in family formation patterns and living arrangements, which ultimately are the bases of demographic transition. The concomitants of profound changes in marriage behaviour are worth studying because of their impact on demographic outcomes such as the population growth rate and fertility. Moreover, they are also strongly connected to the role and status of women, family living arrangements and power structures