Word: heering
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...second project, Heer is making a statistical analysis of the social factors which differentiate fertility of nations. He has approached the problem of the effects of economic development on fertility in a unique way. Although experts have always known that economic development means a lower birth-rate, Heer claims the direct result of economic development is an increase in fertility. An example is the large increase in the American birth rate in the prosperous post World War II period...
...only the indirect effects of development according to Heer which lead to an eventual depressing of the birth rate. Heer points to the increased cost of children in an industrial urban society where parents have to pay for the space children take up and the food they eat. In an agricultural society children may be used productively in the farm work, and there is no crucial space problem...
Other indirect effects of development are reduced child mortality, perhaps the most important single factor, and increased literacy. The latter is usually accompanied by delayed marriage and a more sensitive sophistication which leads to greater acceptance of family planning. Heer thinks that another indirect result of economic development, increasing technology, caused an eight per cent decrease in the U.S. birth rate over the last year with the acceptance of oral contraceptives...
...Heer is also beginning a third survey to determine the effects which reducing mortality will have on the population rate. The study centers on determining how many offspring a couple will need to assure themselves a 95 per cent certainly of one surviving son when the father has reached his 65th birthday. Using a computer, the probability of having one surviving son will be determined at 24 levels of mortality, ranging from average life expectancies of 20 years to 73.9 years. The study assumes no couple can produce more than 12 children. Preliminary results reveal that population growth is greatest...
...preliminary results of the study are revolutionary because they indicate that contraception cannot curb the population rate in societies with high mortality, and that it becomes really effective only in societies of very low mortality. Thus Heer concludes that "progress in curbing the population explosion may best be brought about through further reduction in mortality," rather than increased contraception...