ArticleBMC public health2020
Human fertility in relation to education, economy, religion, contraception, and family planning programs.
Article in BMC public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
81 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 222 citations in OpenAlex.
- Gender equity and sustainable development through the lens of fertility intentions among highly educated women: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Geographic disparities and determinants of fertility outcomes in Bangladesh.Preventive medicine reports · 2026Article
- Parental Education and Children Ever Born Among Women in Bangladesh: Evidence From a Nationally Representative Survey.Public health challenges · 2026Article
- Determinants of children ever born among women in Somalia: a national survey study.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- Beyond education and contraceptive use: do caste, ethnicity, and religion influence fertility behaviour in Nepal? Evidence from six rounds of DHS.BMC women's health · 2026Article
- Sociodemographic determinants of contraceptive intention among young adult women (15-24) in Nigeria: the role of age at first sex and region of residence.Contraception and reproductive medicine · 2026Article
- Psychometric validation of the Farsi version of the Attitudes toward Fertility and Childbearing Scale (AFCS) among married and unmarried Iranian women.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Downplaying reality: is the UN population fund forgetting population growth and family planning?Reproductive health · 2026Article
- Modeling of Maternal Factors Affecting Child Ever Born in Punjab, Pakistan: Indication From Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2017-2018).American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Scars of birth: caesarean delivery and fertility intentions among women of reproductive age in sub-Saharan Africa.Reproductive health · 2026Article
- Investigating the causal effects of religiosity on childbearing among U.S. adolescents using a three-wave longitudinal design.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Use of modern contraceptive methods among women of childbearing age attending maternal and child health services in Abidjan and Agboville (Cote d'Ivoire).BMC public health · 2026Article
- Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Rehospitalization and Financial Burden of Fertile Women in Orthopedic Care.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Structural stigma, parenthood patterns and depressive symptoms among transgender and gender diverse individuals across 30 countries in Europe.International journal of transgender health · 2026Article
- Long-term perspectives of Muslim and Christian religious leaders on an educational intervention about family planning in Tanzania.Global public health · 2025Article
- Lower birth rate, greater female dementia risk: global and regional patterns and public health implications.Future science OA · 2025Article
- Education, socioeconomic status, leisure sedentary behaviors and female infertility: mendelian randomization study.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Determinants of modern contraceptive use among married women of reproductive age in ethiopia: a cross-sectional analysis of the 2019 Ethiopian mini demographic and health survey.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Beyond Education and Contraceptive Use: Do Caste, Ethnicity, and Religion Influence Fertility Behavior in Nepal? Evidence from Six Rounds of DHS.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Fertility and infertility knowledge among physicians caring for women with rheumatic diseases is suboptimal: a cross-sectional survey.Rheumatology international · 2025Article
21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe world population is expected to increase greatly this century, aggravating current problems related to climate, health, food security, biodiversity, energy and other vital resources. Population growth depends strongly on total fertility rate (TFR), but the relative importance of factors that influence fertility needs more study.
methodsWe analyze recent levels of fertility in relation to five factors: education (mean school years for females), economy (Gross Domestic Product, GDP, per capita), religiosity, contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR), and strength of family planning programs. We compare six global regions: E Europe, W Europe and related countries, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab States, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. In total, 141 countries are included in the analysis. We estimate the strength of relationships between TFR and the five factors by correlation or regression and present the results graphically.
resultsIn decreasing order of strength, fertility (TFR) correlates negatively with education, CPR, and GDP per capita, and positively with religiosity. Europe deviates from other regions in several ways, e.g. TFR increases with education and decreases with religiosity in W Europe. TFR decreases with increasing strength of family planning programs in three regions, but only weakly so in a fourth, Sub-Saharan Africa (the two European regions lacked such programs). Most factors correlated with TFR are also correlated with each other. In particular, education correlates positively with GDP per capita but negatively with religiosity, which is also negatively related to contraception and GDP per capita.
conclusionsThese results help identify factors of likely importance for TFR in global regions and countries. More work is needed to establish causality and relative importance of the factors. Our novel quantitative analysis of TFR suggests that religiosity may counteract the ongoing decline of fertility in some regions and countries.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.