Parity distribution and socioeconomic development in Mexico: Implications of the effects of subfecundity on the modernization/fertility relationship

Abstract

The central issue of this analysis is whether the relationship between modernization and fertility is isomorphic across different parities. Results from bivariate and multivariate analyses of the 32 states of Mexico in 1970 reveal parity differentials in the relationship between modernization and fertility. In general, at the bivariate level, significant inverse relationships are obtained between modernization indicators and parities 5 and above. However, at the lower parities both negative and positive, and mostly insignificant results are obtained. Regression analyses reveal that indeed a model based strictly on socioeconomic development is less robust at lower parities, and particularly robust for middle‐range parities. In both bivariate and multivariate analyses, the relationship between an aggregated measure of fertility, the average number of children ever born per woman, and modernization appears to be weakened by the mixed and indeterminant behavior of lower parities in response to modernization. We suggest that these mixed and indeterminant results at the lower end of the parity continuum are due to the combined and opposite effects of modernization on subfecundity and social behavior.