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pubmed:abstractText |
Korea completed the whole process of what is called the demographic transition to a low fertility and mortality level with the successful implementation of the national family planning program in 1962, and this has been accompanied by rapid socioeconomic development. Most of the fertility decline was due to a rising age at marriage and to lower marital fertility. The national family planning program, combined with the widespread practice of induced abortion, has placed an important role in reducing marital fertility, particularly among older women. This paper aims, therefore, to examine the determinants of fertility and their changes over time in an effort to suggest future population policy directions for Korea. The analysis is divided into 2 parts-estimation of pregnancy intervals by applying the proportional hazards model, and estimation of the determinants of fertility by adopting the logistic regression model to find out whether a pregnancy terminates in a live birth or in an abortion. In both analyses, the sex was included as the main explanatory variable. A woman's education has been shown to have a significant effect on delaying the timing or on the wife's age at first pregnancy, but its effect on the pace of subsequent pregnancies is much smaller and often positive. On the other hand, the woman's education has a consistently positive effect on the probability of a pregnancy ending in an abortion although the effect shows a steady decline over time. Form first parity, the sex composition of previous children stands out consistently as the most important factor in deciding both the pace of pregnancy and its outcome. The pregnancy risks of the women with sons are reduced by almost 50% at the second and third parities. The probability of a pregnancy ending in an abortion also increases substantially when parents already have a son. The decline of the desired family size but the sustained strong son preference has made the sex of children a more important factor in the determination of Korean fertility. The woman's education, on the other hand, has become a less important factor.
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