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Caregiving responsibilities at home may impact working mothers’ intentions to expand family

Woman cooking in kitchen

A study published in the European Sociological Review by former HCPDS Graduate Student Affiliate Sinn Won Han, current HCPDS Graduate Student Affiliate Ohjae Gowen, and HCPDS faculty member Mary Brinton expands recent research that shows an increase in both female labor force participation and fertility rates (a change signaling possible greater gender equality within the household) by looking at the impact of the persistent “gender-role ideology” that continues to prioritize…

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How do gender equality and perceived economic insecurity influence fertility intentions in Spain?

Head shot of Xiana Bueno and Mary Brinton

Gender equality is positively associated with fertility, whereas perceived economic uncertainty tends to contribute to lower fertility. Recent postdoc fellow Xiana Bueno and faculty member Mary Brinton have authored a paper published in Population Studies that explores what happens when these two different factors intersect in Spain.

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Flame retardant chemicals found in many foam products may lower chances of pregnancy, live birth

A study by Harvard Pop Center faculty member Russ Hauser, MD, finds that women undergoing fertility treatments who were found to have higher concentrations of a common type of flame retardant in their urine were less likely to become clinically pregnant and achieve a live birth. Learn more in a press release by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  

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Why has rate of fertility decline been slower in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Harvard Pop Center Research Core Director Jocelyn Finlay, PhD, and Research Associate Iván Mejía-Guevara, PhD, are authors on a working paper published by United Nations University WIDER (World Institute for Development Economics Research) that examines the link between fertility rates and wealth.

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In South Africa, child support grants not found to incentivize having more children

Harvard Bell Fellow Molly Rosenberg, PhD, is lead author on a paper published in PLOS One that examines how receiving a social protection grant may influence fertility. Exposure to a child support grant was not found to incentivize pregnancy, however, it could result in longer spacing between pregnancies. Harvard Pop Center faculty members Till Bärnighausen, Kathleen Kahn, and Stephen Tollman are also authors on the paper.

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How does female literacy, under-5 mortality rate, and poverty level influence declining fertility rates in India?

Harvard Pop Center researchers, including visiting scientist Sanjay K. Mohanty, PhD, faculty member Gunther Fink, PhD, and associate director David Canning, PhD, have produced a PGDA working paper that explores the distal determinants of fertility decline across 640 Indian districts.

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District-level look at fertility change and gender bias in India

Visiting scientist Sanjay K. Mohanty, PhD, has published a paper that expands fertility change and gender bias research in India to the district level. This new research, published in the Journal of Biosocial Science, suggests that a comprehensive strategy to reduce the gender differential in child mortality and curb sex-selective abortion to improve the child sex ratio would be helpful in India.

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Mortality Expectation and Fertility Choice

Pop Center faculty members, David Bloom and David Canning, and PGDA fellows, Isabel Gunther and Sebastian Linnemayr, analyze the role of mortality expectations on population growth in their paper, “Fertility Choice, Mortality Expectations, and Interdependent Preferences An Empirical Analysis“.  

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Pop Center Special Event

Join us for our last Pop Center Seminar before summer on Monday, May 20, 2013 at 4:00PM when David Canning, Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences and Professor of Economics and International Health, Department of Global Health and Population, will present: “Demographic Dividend in Africa.” Professor Canning will discuss how the new emphasis on family planning in Africa affects fertility, and how falling fertility in Africa affects prospects for a…

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