SOUTHEAST ASIA FERTILITY PROJECT
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MEASUREMENT
Children's Economic Roles
The social and economic structure may influence fertility by modifying
the roles of children, especially their economic contribution to the family.
The typical illustration of demographic transition theory describes how
the shift from an agricultural economy to an urban-based one transforms
children from economic assets to liabilities. From this hypothesis has
come a considerable body of research that attempts to measure the actual
and perceived value of children to the household economy (Mueller, 1976;
Nag, White and Peet, 1978; Darroch, Meyer, and Singarimbun, 1981; Caldwell,
1983). The variables identified here are: (1) the labor force activity
of children, aged 10-14, and (2) the degree of school enrollment of young
children, aged 7-15. The level of school enrollment is an indicator of
"mass schooling" which Caldwell (1980) identifies as a key macrolevel determinant
of fertility. For the purposes of this project, we have reversed the direction
of the coding of the variable representing the labor force activity of
children in order to make the direction of the expected effects comparable
to that of the other contextual variables (a higher level of non-participation
in the labor force has an expected negative effect on fertility).