Introduction & Session Notes. Opening Address. Plenary 1, 2, 3, 4. Panel Discussion 1A, 1B, 1C. Review & Preview. Plenary 5. Panel Discussion 2A. Session Notes, Population Change & Social Services. Panel Discussion 2B, 2C, 2D. Plenary 6. Panel Discussion 3A, 3B, 3C. Closing Address. |
PLENARY 3 - POPULATION CHANGE AND THE ROLE OF IMMIGRATION |
Population Studies Centre, University of Waikato AND PROFESSOR RICHARD BEDFORD, 2 - Population Dynamics 3 - Population Structure 4 - Population Policy: Issues 5 - References
SESSION NOTES,
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2.3 The Fertility and Family Formation Transition
All of the so-called "developed" populations, particularly those in Northwestern Europe and the European origin populations living outside Europe ("neo-Europes" - North America; Australia; Pakeha New Zealand), underwent a transition in family formation in the century between the 1880s and 1980s. The key elements of these transitions can be outlined as follows.
2.3.1 The Fertility Transition
Across the Western developed countries, fertility was declining from the late 19th century to reach very low levels in the depression of the 1930s, when a number of countries even reached sub-replacement3. The end of World War II saw the onset of the "baby boom", which reached varying intensities over varying durations, but was over everywhere by the early 1970s (Festy, 1979). The mid- to late-1970s saw the onset of what some European demographers have called the "Second Demographic Transition", during which fertility dropped to lower rates than ever before, often reaching significantly sub-replacement levels (1.2 - 1.4 birth per couple) (Davis, 1986; van de Kaa, 1987 & 1988; Lesthaeghe, 1991).
Pakeha followed a similar trajectory, but with some significant differences (Figure 2.1). As noted above, by 1896 fertility had dropped dramatically from its pioneer peak-levels. This decline continued to reach more or less exact replacement in the depression. The Pakeha baby-boom was longer, more intense and fertility levels higher than in any other comparable country. Birth cohort size rose, peaking bi-modally around 1961 and 1971 (Figure 2.2). The Second Transition occurred marginally later than elsewhere, and, while sub-replacement was reached, levels were never extreme, edging up in a "baby-blip" around 1991 to touch exact replacement again, a feature shared with Sweden and the United States, both of which countries we exceeded in terms of the level and duration of this phenomenon. In New Zealand, this reprise in fertility came from the coalescing of two factors: couples that had delayed childbearing were in their late 20s and early 30s and decided to go ahead and have children, and this coincided with the arrival of large cohorts at those very ages. It must be noted that for a much of the rest of this paper, a key factor will be fluctuations in birth cohort size (shown in Figure 2.2).
Figure 2.1: Total Fertility Rates, 1847-1986 
The Maori path has been totally different, more akin to what has happened in some Asian societies such as Thailand. By the late 19th century fertility levels were high (around 6.0 births per woman). They gradually edged up to reach just below 7.0 in the late 1950s. A decline then commenced, gradually at first, but this accelerated in the mid-1970s, perhaps being the most rapid decline on record anywhere. By the late 1970s, and since, Maori fertility has hovered at a level just above replacement.
Figure 2.2: Live Births and Fertility Rates, Total Population, 1921-1996 
2.3.2 The Family Formation Transition
Family formation strategies (how and when couples form a union, have children, and then see the family dissolve through attrition, death or rupture) also underwent a transition. In the 1870s, the western capitalist societies had two broadly different patterns: one of these, the early and virtually universal marriage for women in the pioneer neo-Europes, was beginning to shift towards the second of these, the Western European model, with later marriage and a significant minority of women remaining celibate. This similarity endured until World War Two. The "baby-boom" saw Western Europe and the neo-Europes, but particularly the latter, shift to relatively earlier and more universal marriage.
For neo-Europes these family formation trends often represented a return to pioneer patterns, while intensive immigration in the post-war period and particularly the preponderance of young adults and couples among immigrants, reinforced the reproductive capacity of the host neo-European populations. This trend then reversed sharply in the 1960s and 1970s, with age at first formal marriage becoming later and later, and now resembling the patterns of the most conservative cohorts this century marrying around 1930. This was accompanied by a decline in the proportion formally marrying but with a totally new element (at least as far as the last two centuries are concerned), of a shift from registered marriage as the normative form of first conjugal union towards cohabitation (Santow, 1989).
From the 1890s to the Second World War Pakeha New Zealand seems to have followed a rather extreme path, in shifting from its pioneer pattern, to later and less universal marriage more resembling British patterns. It then re-adopted the pioneer pattern in the "baby-boom", only to shift back in the late 1970s to the European model of later registered marriage. At the same time a radical shift-share between marriage and cohabitation took place, so that conjugal patterns began to resemble those of the Nordic countries and France (Dharmalingam et. al, 1996). This shift shows up in Figure 2.3. Very recent data (presented at an international conference in Beijing in October, Klijzing and Macura, 1997; Lapierre-Adamcyk, et al., 1997) show that the timing of this shift-share was coterminous in many of these countries and New Zealand. While a very high proportion of first unions involve cohabitation, this does not mean the demise of the institution of marriage. Instead, when any form of first union is analysed, rates remain remarkably constant over time. What we are seeing therefore is simply a repositioning of the institution (Lapeirre-Adamcyk, et al. 1997; Bumpass, 1990).
Throughout the period from first settlement until the 1960s, marriage and procreation were closely linked with conception typically following soon after the wedding, or in some periods often preceding it. Indeed, the early marriage of the "baby-boom" was accompanied by higher levels of teenage pregnancy than for any period for which New Zealand has age-specific records, but perhaps vying with the adolescent rates in the pioneer period.
It was in the "baby-boom" that conception, very frequently at teenages, was followed by a precipitated marriage and then a nuptial birth within the first seven months of marriage. At the later stages of the "baby-boom", teenage childbearing reached a peak, but by then the pressure to marry and to bear a child nuptially was declining. In the "Second Transition" two things happened simultaneously: teenage fertility levels declined very significantly, with the peak childbearing ages shifting from 20-24 years to 25-29; while an increasing proportion of babies were being born ex-nuptially, but at older reproductive ages. Thus, at its peak (1972) the then-Maori fertility rate was 69 per 1000 adolescent women; in 1994/95 it was down to only 29. The shift in peak maternal age for childbearing is shown in Figure 2.4.
Figure 2.3a: Cumulative Proportion Entering First Marriage by Ethnicity & Birth Cohort, by Ages 21 years and 29 years 
Figure 2.3b: Cumulative Proportion Entering First Cohabitation by Ethnicity & Birth Cohort, by Ages 21 years and 29 years
Source: Dharmalingam et al. 1996
Figure 2.4: Maternal Age at which Non-Maori Population ASFR has Peaked for Cohorts Born 1910 to 1964 
Source: Pool, Jackson & Dickson, in press
For Maori the path has been much simpler. Early entry into conjugal unions and early childbearing appear to have been a continuing norm, even in the period in which fertility levels dropped to just above replacement. By comparison with Pakeha, the "force" of Maori fertility is still at the younger ages, even though levels of adolescent fertility have declined very significantly from their known peak in 1962.
2.3.3 Changes in Fertility Regulation
Fertility regulation has also undergone a major transition internationally. Until the late nineteenth century couples used what is termed "traditional" techniques of birth control. The traditional techniques included a wide range of primitive barriers, abstinence and, of course, abortion. But perhaps the most important was the use of marriage as a means of governing exposure to intercourse. As has been noted, pioneer Pakeha New Zealanders differed significantly from their British cousins in this regard.
In the early twentieth century there was a shift from these less efficient methods to the more efficient barrier techniques (eg. condom, diaphragm). Then, in the 1960s, a major advance occurred with the widespread use of hormonal methods and the modern intra-uterine device. Finally, as North Americans argue, a third contraceptive revolution has occurred with the development and adoption of less invasive techniques of sterilisation (Marcil-Gratton and Lapierre-Adamcyk, 1989). Pakeha New Zealand has systematically passed through these phases, whereas since the early 1960s Maori shifted radically from the very limited use of traditional or barrier techniques to the most modern efficient techniques. The situation with regard to contraceptive methods used by a large sample of 2,500 New Zealand women aged 20-59 years in 1995 (the only such national survey of this size available) (Marsault et al., in press), differentiated by age and ethnicity, is summarised in Table 2.2.
Today the profile of contraceptive use involves, for most couples, even at first intercourse, recourse to the condom, the pill or both in combination. The pill assumes the major role for birth spacing, whereas sterilisation is the preferred method for the majority of couples once childbearing is completed. But as this is now being delayed, so too we have seen an increase in the age for sterilisation. Prevalence levels approximate those found in North America, but a feature of New Zealand usage is the high level of vasectomies.
2.3.4 Transition in Family Structures
Along with the fertility and family formation changes have come shifts in family structure (Pool, Jackson and Dickson, in press).
In the Second Demographic Transition family structures changed very significantly. There was an increase in sole parenting from 1976 to 1991, but in the 1990s this trend has slowed down. The reason may well be that one of the reasons for conjugal separation, conception at young ages, precipitate marriage and early childbearing has decreased in significance.
As is shown in Figure 2.5, the proportion of households that are two-parent has declined, but this does not signal the end of the family as we know it, but rather is an artefact of a short-term demographic squeeze. At the upper end of the key parenting ages (say 25-55 years) are the last of the early child-bearers of the baby-boom whose children have now "fled the nest", and at the bottom end are the large cohorts of childless couples delaying childbearing until they are in their late 20s or early 30s. They will, of course then have dependent children for at least the next 20 years, and thus this squeeze will diminish.
Finally, contrary to popular perceptions the overwhelming majority of New Zealand children live in families with two parents, or (particularly if they are Maori or Pacific Islander) within an extended family. Moreover, the stereotypical sole parent, an adolescent mother living in social isolation does not fit statistical reality. At younger and older ages the majority of sole parent "families" are situated within more complex household structures, living with older adults. Sole parenting is primarily a mid-family life phenomenon, and even there a minority of such families are a part of other households.
Table 2:2 Contraception Used in the Last 4 Weeks by Age and Ethnicity, New Zealand 1995 Method 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 P M P M P M P M P M P M Partner or woman steralised -- -- 10 18 33 41 49 68 68 79 81 95 Pill 67 51 60 38 35 33 19 17 12 9 6 -- Condom 21 18 22 16 19 16 17 4 7 3 7 -- Injection 5 22 3 16 1 4 1 4 2 6 1 -- IUD 2 7 2 4 6 2 8 6 6 -- 1 5 Other 5 2 2 7 5 4 6 2 4 3 3 -- Total % 100 100 99 99 100 100 100 101 99 100 99 100 No. of women 138 45 166 55 232 49 284 52 264 33 247 19 Source: Survey on New Zealand Women: Family, Employment & Education, Population Studies Centre, University of Waikato, 1995.
- Note:
- 1 Main sample only (data from two over-samples totalling 500 women are not included here).
- 2 P=Pakeha
- 3 M=Maori
- 4 Women exposed to risk aged 50 years, who have had intercourse in the last 4 weeks, and who are not pregnant or infecund for bio-medical reasons
- 2 P=Pakeha
Footnote(s)- 3
- Replacement is when the adult population is reproducing itself, or more precisely reproducing with a surplus to allow for survivorship to adult age. In a low mortality population "exact replacement" is about 2.05-2.10 births/couple.
- 4
- Data from a 21 country survey in Europe and North America; The survey of the Population Studies Centre, Marsault et al., in press, is an Association Member of this study.
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