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Ideas, Economics and 'the Sociology of Supply': Explanations for Fertility Decline in Bangladesh

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  • N. Kabeer

Abstract

The persistence of high rates of fertility in Bangladesh, despite the poverty of its population, has been given alternative, and apparently competing, explanations, including the absence of effective forms of family planning, the resilience of pro-natalist values and norms and the existence of material constraints which led to the reliance on children as economic assets. The recent and dramatic declines in fertility rates, in the absence of any apparent major economic changes in the decades prior to the onset of fertility decline, appears to contradict materialist explanations for fertility behaviour and to support explanations which stressed ideas about the acceptability of birth control and the availability of the means for doing so. This article argues that such an interpretation is based on an historical analysis of events in Bangladesh. It offers an alternative explanation which stresses socio-economic change as the primary motor for change in family size preferences, but which recognises the role of modern forms of family planning in facilitating the pace of the resulting fertility decline.

Suggested Citation

  • N. Kabeer, 2001. "Ideas, Economics and 'the Sociology of Supply': Explanations for Fertility Decline in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 29-70.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:38:y:2001:i:1:p:29-70
    DOI: 10.1080/00220380412331322181
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ali, Tariq Omar & Hassan, Mirza & Hossain, Naomi, 2021. "The moral and political economy of the pandemic in Bangladesh: Weak states and strong societies during Covid-19," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    2. Zuazu-Bermejo, Izaskun, 2022. "Robots and women in manufacturing employment," ifso working paper series 19, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso).
    3. Oğuz Işik & M. Melih Pinarcioğlu, 2006. "Geographies of a silent transition: a geographically weighted regression approach to regional fertility differences in Turkey [Géographie d’une transition silencieuse: une approche des différences ," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 399-421, December.
    4. Raj Arunachalam & Trevon Logan, 2016. "On the heterogeneity of dowry motives," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 135-166, January.
    5. Naila Kabeer & Simeen Mahmud & Sakiba Tasneem, 2018. "The Contested Relationship Between Paid Work and Women’s Empowerment: Empirical Analysis from Bangladesh," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(2), pages 235-251, April.
    6. S.K. Mohanty & Guenther Fink & Rajesh K. Chauhan & David Canning, 2016. "Distal Determinants of Fertility decline: Evidence from 640 Indian Districts," PGDA Working Papers 12415, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    7. Sanjay K Mohanty & Gunther Fink & Rajesh Chauhan & David Canning, 2016. "Distal determinants of fertility decline: Evidence from 640 Indian districts," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(13), pages 373-406.
    8. Aamir Jamal, 2016. "Why He Won’t Send His Daughter to School—Barriers to Girls’ Education in Northwest Pakistan," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(3), pages 21582440166, August.

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