Transcript Post-Soviet economic crisis and fertility decline: parity-specific trends in Tajikistan.

Post-Soviet economic crisis and fertility decline:
parity-specific trends in Tajikistan
David Clifford
Supervisors: Andrew Hinde and Jane Falkingham
Outline
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Background: Tajikistan
Motivations for study
focus
Approach
Data – birth histories from surveys
Results
Final thoughts
Background: Tajikistan
Background: Tajikistan
• Demographically:
– Highest fertility of Soviet Republics at time of independence
– early and universal marriage, swift progression to childbearing
– Non-marital childbearing very rare
• Independent from the Soviet Union in Sept. 1991
• Poorest of former Republics at time of
independence....and experienced most severe
economic crisis since
• Economic crisis exacerbated by civil war
– May 1992 onwards, concentrated in Southern
Tajikistan
– Worst fighting second half of 1992
– Followed by period of civil unrest until 1997
– Casualties estimated at between 20,000 and 100,000
– Estimated 70,000 refugees; 600,000+ IDPs
Economic crisis in Tajikistan
120.0
Index Value (1989=100)
100.0
80.0
Real GDP
60.0
Real Wages
40.0
20.0
0.0
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Year
Motivation
• Collapse of socialism in C and E Europe and FSU
• These countries offer ‘potentially rich’ material for an
examination of the effects of dramatic sociopolitical
and economic transformations on marital and fertility
behaviour (Agadjanian 1999)
• Key word: ‘potentially’…
– E Europe under researched (Caldwell and
Schindlmayr 2003)..
– post-Soviet Central Asia even more so..
– least known of all about Tajikistan (Gentile 2005)
What work has been done on post-socialist change has
shown..
• E Europe now the lowest fertility region in the world,
after precipitous fertility decline in 1990s
• Even larger absolute fertility declines in countries of
Central Asia
But for Tajikistan..
• whether there has been a decline in fertility has not
been formally established
• Problem of under-registration of births
– Increase in births at home
– Introduction of registration fee
– <50% of newborns officially registered in first six
months (2000)
• Hence TFRs ‘are probably much higher than most
statistics would suggest’ (Gentile 2005)
– TFRs based on vital registration data do show a
fertility decline..
– ..but is this simply an artefact of reduced
registration?
Fertility trends in Central Asia
5
4
3
2
1
0
Tajikistan
VR
Turkmenistan
VR
S
Uzbekistan
VR
S
Kyrgyzstan
VR
S
Kazakhstan
VR
S
1990
1992
1994
1996
Year
1998
2000
2002
Focus
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To establish whether total fertility in Tajikistan has
declined since end of Soviet Union, and to quantify
extent of decline
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TFR and ASFRs over time
Jackknife methods to calculate standard errors and CIs
Focus
• To explore the ‘pattern’ of fertility change in postSoviet Tajikistan - using parity specific fertility rates
• Evidence from other FSU countries:
– dramatic reduction in higher-order birth rates
• attributed to severe decline in living standards
– robust first birth rates, despite overall fertility
decline
• In some cases, an increase in early first births
• Particularly in first half of 1990s
• Marriage and childbearing as ‘strategy’ for coping
with uncertainty? (Friedman et al. 1994)
Approach
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Fertility change in period framework
Using survey birth history data.
– Fertility rates unaffected by under-registration
• Not using a regression approach
– Often studies relate demographic variables to
individual-level covariates (region, education..)
– Here focus is on macro-level explanators
(economic crisis, civil war..) - which aren’t
included in the survey
– and explaining temporal change – no time-varying
covariates in the survey
• Descriptive interpretation of trends: Ní Bhrolcháin
and Dyson (2007)
Birth history data
• Tajikistan Living Standards Survey (2003)
• 6,196 women 15-49
– Calculated fertility rates for 15 years before the
survey..
– so to look at changes in fertility over time, have to
examine TFR 15-34
20-24
25-29
30-34
1994
15-19
1990
Age-Specific Fertility Rates: Vital Registration and Survey
350
300
200
150
100
50
Year
2000
1998
1996
1992
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
1978
0
1976
ASFR
250
Results
• Fertility has declined in post-Soviet Tajikistan
– Vital registration (VR) does underestimate fertility
– but fertility decline in VR data not simply reflection
of decreased registration
– Consistent and significant declines in fertility since
independence:
Period
TFR 15-34
Standard error
95% CI
1990-92
4.27
0.102
4.07
4.48
1993-95
3.85
0.090
3.67
4.03
1996-98
3.44
0.084
3.27
3.61
1999-2001
3.27
0.092
3.09
3.45
Parity Specific Fertility Rates
1st half of the 1990s
• Significant declines in fertility at higher orders
• Spatially pervasive – so not just effect of civil war
• Timing and scale of decline suggest response to
economic crisis
• Achieved without widespread access to modern
contraception?
1st half of the 1990s
• First birth rates robust – and increase in early births
• Related to increase in marriage (esp. early marriage) in
early post-independence period
• A strategy for coping with economic crisis and
uncertainty?
– women become members of their husband’s
household after marriage (Harris 2004)
– Shemyakina (WP:13) in times of economic
crisis accentuated by conflict ‘girls may be…
married off to lift the [economic] burden from
their families’
From mid-1990s
• Higher order fertility quite robust
– Earlier declines a one-off response to economic
crisis, not prolongued transition?
• Significant declines in first birth rates
– Associated with significant declines in marriage rates
(60% decrease from 1995-2004)
Final thoughts
• Survey data provides evidence of postSoviet fertility decline
• Interesting case of decline
– Not context of modernisation
– Decrease in living standards, educational
enrollment, health
• Further work needed on the impact of
migration on nuptiality and fertility
First Marriage and First Birth Rates
Next Step.. What caused decline in marriage rates?
• One theory: labour migration has led to shortage of
men to marry (estimated 1m international migrants)
• Examining data on migration: survey has info. on
migrant members of the household, and when they first
moved away
– Temporal trends in migration
• Relate it to trend in marriage rates
– Cross-sectional
• Are the migrant workers primarily single?
• Are the areas with large numbers of single male
migrants also those showing declines in marriage?
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