Posted: 20.12.05 11:16. Post subject: Social norms and the fertility transition

Journal of Development Economics. .
Munshi K | Myaux J
This paper provides a norm-based explanation for two features of the
fertility transition that have been observed in many different settings:
the slow response to external interventions and the wide variation in the
response to the same intervention. Most societies have traditionally put
norms into place to regulate fertility. The characterization of the
fertility transition as a process of changing social norms is applied to
rural Bangladesh, where norms are organized at the level of the religious
group and interactions rarely cross religious boundaries. Consistent with
the view that changing social norms are driving changes in reproductive
behavior in these communities, researchers found that the individual's
contraception decision responds strongly to changes in contraceptive
prevalence in her own religious group within the village whereas
cross-religion effects are entirely absent.J Devt Ec