Topic: The Relationship Between Female Literacy and Fertility
“Many Indian states are making reasonable progress with fertility decline through non-authoritarian methods. This progress owes a great deal to the improvement of female literacy” ( Dreze, 2001)
Fertility rates throughout the world are causing a big problem with the population dilemma that the world has run into. The main contributor to this problem of either under population or over population is female literacy. Over the years many developed countries such as Canada and Japan have had their CBR (crude birth rates) drop under the ideal level of replacement which is 2.1 children per couple. With our own level of replacement fertility at around 1.6 and that of Japan’s at approximately 1.3 these countries are both going to be facing the population problem of a very large elder population with a low workforce that will not be able to provide for the older generations. At the opposite end of the spectrum you have countries like India whom currently have a replacement fertility rate of approximately 3 children per couple. This means that these children will have less employment opportunities even in the most developed of cities. With these high birth rates the parents of these families will sometimes not be able to provide enough for their families which will increase poverty rates even more.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between female literacy and the effects that this has on the population growth or decline in terms of fertility rates within countries. I will begin with examining the massive birth rates of developing countries, how it affects the people living in the cities and their economy. I will the move on to discuss the decline of birth rates in more developed countries and the effects it will have on our societies demographic, interactions and our economy. Hopefully through a better understanding of the situations that are occurring and the possible outcomes...