GENDER SYSTEM EFFECTS ON FERTILITY BEHAVIOUR OF FAMILY IN SIXTEEN COUNTRIES: AN EXPERIMENT IN JOINING INTERNATIONAL DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEY DATA

Nurdan ÜNALAN (Middle East Technical University)

The role distribution of man and women in a society (the gender structure) which is shaped by socio-economic and cultural structure of that society, is one of the important factors affecting fertility behaviour. This gender structure shows differences between developed and developing countries; i.e. each member of these groups have similar charteristics depending on the classification. According to the research results in literature, being man and woman leads to diversities in educational and working statuses of sexes in any community, however this variance of sexes can be seen sharply when developed and developing countries are compared. It has been tried to found out how it affects the fertility outcomes in different patterns of it.

The aim of this experimental study is to present the effect of gender structure on fertility behaviour of family in developing countries. To achieve this, the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data of 16 developing countries, representing all continents, have been chosen by preferring survey dates and survey models used which show closeness. Collected data of the following 16 countries having time intervals in 1992-1997 have been fulfiling the criteria. These countires are Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe. It is clear that these countries have different socio-cultural and economic structures. Because of the feature of experimental studies, variables such as cultural factors and religion which might affect the fertility trends would be held constant. Gender system would be analysed by looking at the patterns of socio-economic levels or categories (place of residence, level of education, current working status -labour force participation rate- and occupation type) for men and women (in this study, for women and her husband -DHS data include only education and occupation related variables for both of them-).

The age specific marital fertility rates of countries have been calculated. Observing a homogenous structure between groups and carrying out this from assumption of developing countries' having similar socio-economic structures, the data have been joined as an empirical study. Here, after the age specific marital fertility rates and median of 16 countries have been calculated, and the countries have been divided into two: countries under and above the median (cultural factors held unchanged).

Age specific marital fertility rates of two hypothetical developing countries have been compared in the frame of the socio-economic characteristics which determine the gender structure such as education, labour force participation rate.

In the literature, it has been usually assigned to woman (the wife), however, the study results show that the education levels and labour force participation rates of husband are also low in developing countries. The fertility rates of women and their husband are quite higher compared to the data of European Union countries which are given as examples to developed countries in the study. The differences between the fertility rates of hypothetical countries confirm the hypotheses of the study. If the level of education and labour force participation increases, and if education required jobs are carried out, the fertility rates decrease in these countries.

According to the study results, the fertility rate in developing countries is determined not only by the socio-economic status (S.E.S) of women but also by the socio-economic status of men. Husbands also live in the same or similar socio-economic conditions and cultural envirement. These results are also identical in the developed Europian countries; however, women and men have higher S.E.S levels. It has also been observed that socio-economic state of women and husband cannot be seperated. Thus, if empowerment of women in developing countries is required, husbands of these women would also be empowered. In general, if the point is to explain the fertility trends and factors, family, as a result, should not be separeted into two.

Therefore, efforts aimed to empowerment of women in the frame of population policy applications are not convincing. Instead, studies 'empowerment of family' should be conducted. When the number of people living in the developing countries (5/6 of the world population ) taken into consideration, the importance of this effort cannot be denied.