Asia-Pacific Population Journal - Volume 5, Issue 4, 1990

The present generally accepted theoretical approach to understanding fertility sees population and development as mutually interacting; that is, fertility affects development and development affects fertility as well. The effect of high fertility and rapid population growth on development goals has been well-understood since Coale and Hoover’s pioneering effort in 1958, but the notion that development programmes, other than family plannin programmes as such, affect fertility is a somewhat newer and more novel idea.

Increasing attention is being paid to the rapid change of population age structures in developing countries, even though population growth has long been considered as the main issue in those countries. As a result of the consistent decline in fertility over the last two to three decades, the working age population currently claims a large proportion of the total age structure. Soon, however, rapid growth of the elderly population will be one of the most conspicuous characteristics of population change in the developing countries. It is estimated that currently the total world population increases 1.7 per cent annually, whereas the portions of the population aged 55+ years and 65+ years increase 2.2 per cent and 2.8 per cent, respectively. Eighty per cent of the increase in the 55-t population occurs in the developing countries. In the next three decades, the population aged 65 and over in the developing countries will be twice as great as in the developed countries (Kinsella, 1988).

The fertility decline of Singapore is often cited as a success story of a developing country’s effort to balance population growth with economic development. Since achieving nationhood in 1965, Singapore’s fertility has fallen by almost 70 per cent in about 20 years: the total fertility rate (TFR) dropped from 4.66 in 1965 to a historic low of 1.44 in 1986, after breaking through the replacement level in 1975. The size of successive birth cohorts also fell by about one-third, even though the number of married women of reproductive ages increased by more than 70 per cent. After 15 years of below-replacement fertility, Singapore can be characterized truly as a lowfertility society.

The population of Fiji consisting of two major ethnic groups, the indigenous Melanesian population referred to as Fijians and the population who are of Indian origin referred to as Indians, has gone through significant demographic changes in the recent past. These were revealed in the two latest publications on Fiji (Bureau of Statistics, 1989; Gubhaju and Navunisaravi, 1989). The demographic change with which this note is mainly concerned is the decline in fertility of Fijians and Indians over the past two decades, 1966-1986.

Until recently, it was believed that fertility in Nepal has persisted at a very high level with a total fertility rate (TFR) of around six children per woman. In a recent article, Tuladhar (1989, pp. 15-30), using the birth history data from the 1986 Fertility and Family Planning Survey, obtained a TFR of 5.61 children per woman for the period 1980-1985. This rate was obtained without any adjustment to the raw data. He cautiously concluded that Nepal may be on the verge of the onset of fertility decline. Except for this publication, the author knows of no other studies so far which address the issue of fertility decline in Nepal. Therefore, the aim of this note is to use village-level data to contribute to the on-going debate about the onset of fertility decline in Nepal in general and the study population in particular.