IUSSP Scientific Panel on Policies in the Context of Low Fertility

This page is only available in English

IUSSP Scientific Panel on Policies in the Context of Low Fertility

Call for papers

International Conference on Low Fertility and Reproductive Health
in East and Southeast Asia
Tokyo, Japan, 12-14 November 2008

Organized byOrganized by the Nihon University Population Research Institute (NUPRI) in collaboration with the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Policies in the Context of Low Fertility and the World Health Organization (WHO)

Call For Papers

In many countries in East and Southeast Asia, fertility is now below replacement level, defined as a total fertility rate (TFR) below 2.1 births per woman. Japan was the first country in the region (indeed, the first in the non-Western world) to experience fertility decline to replacement level. In the ten years between 1947 and 1957 Japan’s TFR fell by more than half, from 4.54 to 2.04––the fastest fertility transition on record at the time. Since then, a number of countries in the region have followed in Japan’s footsteps, and Japan’s TFR has fallen further to about 1.3 births per woman. South Korea’s fertility transition has been even more dramatic than that of Japan. In 2005 South Korea’s TFR of 1.08 was the lowest in the world. It has risen somewhat since then. Currently, in all countries of East Asia except Mongolia, the TFR is below 1.5. In Thailand in 2006, the TFR reached a new low of 1.64. The low fertility that increasingly typifies East and Southeast Asia stems not only from reductions in marital fertility but also from later marriage and less marriage. The new worry in many countries in the region is that fertility is now too low. In South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, governments are trying to raise fertility by encouraging marriage and implementing various measures aimed at increasing the fertility of married couples.

While low fertility has contributed to improvements in infant, child, and maternal survival, it has also brought new challenges relating to sexual and reproductive health. Because of delayed marriage, related behaviors such as premarital sex, premarital pregnancy, and cohabitation before marriage are becoming more common. And as premarital sex becomes more socially acceptable, earlier onset of sexual activity has led to an increase in unsafe sex, rising abortion rates, and a rising incidence of sexually transmitted infections, among young single adults. At the same time, infertility and childlessness are increasing. The rise in infertility appears to be partly due to falling sperm counts, the causes of which are not well understood but are thought to reflect increased exposure to endocrine disrupters in the food supply and elsewhere in the environment. Low fertility is also having profound effects on families, especially on traditional within-family support systems for children and elderly parents. Individuals, families, and governments in the region are not well-prepared to deal with many of these new challenges, which are often neglected in public discourse and in research.

The goal of the conference is accordingly two-fold: 1) to better understand the determinants of low fertility in East and Southeast Asia, including an assessment of the effectiveness of policies aimed at raising fertility; 2) to identify and analyze the sexual and reproductive health issues that characterize low-fertility populations in the region.

Topics for papers presented at the Conference include, but are not limited to, the following:

Factors affecting fertility levels and trends in East and Southeast Asia, such as marriage patterns, urban/rural residence, educational levels, work participation of women and men, occupational status, ethnicity, and government policies and programs;
Factors affecting the timing and prevalence of marriage and cohabitation;
Fertility surveys: present deficiencies and future directions;
Policy responses to low fertility;
Premarital sex, premarital pregnancies, contraception, and abortion, including sex-selective abortion and use of abortion for spacing vs. limiting births;
Causes of rising levels of infertility (e.g., rising age at marriage, falling sperm counts, increased exposure to endocrine disruptors, and falling frequency of sexual intercourse, as well as offsetting effects due increased use of assisted reproductive technology);
Effects on fertility and sexual and reproductive health, including maternal health, of differential access to quality sexual and reproductive health services;
Effects of low fertility on families.

The international organizing committee invites scholars to submit a detailed, 3- to 4-page abstract based on their on-going research. The abstract should include mention of theory, data, methods, hypotheses to be tested, and policy implications, as appropriate, in order to provide the organizers with enough information to judge the proposed paper. The working language of the conference is English, and only abstracts and papers written in English will be considered. Selected papers presented at the conference may be published in a journal (Asian Population Studies) or in a volume issued by NUPRI, IUSSP, and WHO. The conference organizers would like to reserve first right of publication of papers presented at the conference. If this is a problem, please provide an explanation along with the paper proposal.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is 15 April 2008. Please indicate name(s) of author(s), institutional affiliation(s), and e-mail address(es) at the end of the abstract. Applicants will be informed about the decision of the international organizing committee by 15 May 2008. Completed papers should be submitted no later than 15 October 2008.

Abstracts should be submitted electronically, as e-mail attachments (Word files or pdf files), to Dr. Yoshie Moriki at NUPRI (moriki.yoshie@nihon-u.ac.jp).

NUPRI will cover the most economical economy class airfare, 4 nights of lodging, and per diem for one author per paper.