Asia-Pacific Population Journal. Vol. 27, No.1, June 2012

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1 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No.1, June 2012

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3 Asia-Pacific Population Journal i

4 Full text of articles available at: ASIA-PACIFIC POPULATION JOURNAL Vol. 27, No. 1, June 2012 The Asia-Pacific Population Journal is published at least twice a year in English by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The Journal provides a medium for the international exchange of knowledge, experience, technical information and data on population-related issues as a basis for policymaking and programme development. References to dollars ($) are to United States dollars, unless otherwise stated. The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this periodical do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The opinions, figures and estimates set forth in the Journal articles are the responsibility of the authors, and should not necessarily be considered as reflecting the views or carrying the endorsement of the United Nations. On 1 July 1997, Hong Kong became Hong Kong, China. Mention of Hong Kong in the text refers to a date prior to 1 July On 20 December 1999, Macau became Macao, China. Mention of Macau in the text refers to a date prior to 20 December Mention of firm names and commercial products does not imply the endorsement of the United Nations. ESCAP is not accountable for the accuracy or authenticity of any quotations from sources identified in this publication. Questions concerning quoted materials should be addressed to the sources directly. ST/ESCAP/2651 ii

5 CONTENTS Page Introduction: Celebrating 25 Years of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal... 1 Abstracts... 9 Articles Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development: A Review of Progress and Potential By K.S. Seetharam Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population By Leela Visaria Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia By Andrew Mason and Sang-Hyop Lee Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia By Gavin Jones Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change By Ronald Skeldon Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia: New Issues and New Opportunities By Peter J. Donaldson and Geoffrey McNicoll iii

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7 Introduction Introduction Celebrating 25 Years of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal The demography of the Asian and Pacific region has recently achieved two significant milestones. The first is that the population growth rate for the region as a whole is now under 1 per cent (0.9 per cent) per year; and the second is that the total fertility rate has reached the population replacement level of 2.1 births per woman. Although the demographic transition was in evidence in several countries (albeit at various stages) in the region 25 years ago, few would have predicted that it would proceed so rapidly and be so widespread. The rapid transition from high fertility and mortality to generally low levels of fertility and mortality in most countries of the region represents a remarkable success for public policy. It equally reflects the impacts wrought by socioeconomic development of many parts of the region and especially the profound transformation in the role and voice of women. From around the beginning of the 1960s, several Governments began embarking on health and family planning programmes that reached into nearly every household, or at the least every community. Those programmes greatly increased the probability that children would survive to adulthood and they presented families with the knowledge, and in many cases the means, to achieve desired fertility goals. In much of the region this transformation both paralleled and resulted from the empowerment of women to exercise greater choice in their productive and reproductive lives. The international community, particularly intergovernmental organizations, foundations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) assisted national Governments with expertise and funding for their population programmes. National and international NGOs often played a critical role in advocacy and public information campaigns, and in demonstrating programme approaches that were feasible and successful. This special anniversary issue of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal is intended to both mark and reflect on these transformations. This is by no means an easy feat, and readers will undoubtedly be able to identify areas not covered in which equal emphasis may be placed. Nevertheless this anniversary issue of the Journal is distinguished by the quality of analysis and reflection on some of the remarkable demographic trans- 1

8 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 formations that have characterized the previous quarter century in the region. In so doing, it builds upon a number of distinguished contributions to the Journal over the past 25 years and provides an important marker for future analysis and interpretation of the trends that will very likely come to shape the next 25 years. The first article in this volume by K. S. Seetharam reminds readers that 25 years ago the overall population growth rate of the region was 1.8 per cent per annum and the total fertility rate was 3.5. Achievements in mortality reduction have been equally impressive. Expectation of life at birth increased from an average of 45 years in the period to 69 years in the period During the same interval, the infant mortality rate for the region was brought down from 142 deaths per 1,000 live births to only 41 deaths. These represent striking achievements for the region with regard to its demographic composition. In many cases what took countries in Europe over a century to achieve has occurred in little more than two or three generations in much of Asia and the Pacific. As Seetharam makes clear, these changes provide considerable challenges for public policy in the region that now span efforts to reduce fertility rates juxtaposed with those to kick-start fertility in the face of substantial population declines. It is widely recognized that the changing role of women in the region has increasingly shaped fertility patterns in much of the region. Yet, while achievements have been widespread, the article by Leela Visaria in this volume serves to remind that they have not been universal and that improvements in demographic and health indicators have lagged in a number of countries. Subnational analysis also reveals wide disparities in many countries. For example, Visaria notes that the proportion of women who have married before age 18 remains high in some countries in South Asia. In 2008, the maternal mortality ratio was estimated to exceed 300 deaths per 100,000 live births in Bangladesh and Nepal, and 200 deaths in India, Indonesia, the Democratic People s Republic of Korea and Pakistan. Visaria also shows that, while many of the region s women now have access to contraception and can practise choice, the prevalence rate in 2010 was less than 50 per cent in Pakistan and the Philippines and less than 60 per cent in Bangladesh and India, and unmet need remains high in a number of countries throughout the region. In countries that have achieved low fertility and mortality rates, some internal disparities may remain because of the difficulty in reaching some population groups, such as those living in rural and remote areas, ethnic minorities or persons with disabilities. Greater obstacles to providing adequate health services may occur at the national level when religious or cultural norms or discord result in a lack of political will to make reproductive health services widely available. This reluctance to provide reproductive health services may especially affect unmarried youth. Given the immense degree of change over the past 25 years, however, it seems reasonable to expect that the coming decades will see 2

9 Introduction an increasing recognition that reproductive health services are a basic right for all women and men and that Governments have an obligation to ensure that all of their populations have access to those services. There remains much to be done in tackling such disparities however, and through doing so there will undoubtedly be consequences for the future demographic profile and direction of South Asia in particular, as Visaria makes clear. Youth and their transition to the labour force For some subregions, such as South and South-West Asia and islands in the Pacific, growing youth populations will continue to prevail for some decades to come but overall the proportion of the population in the ages from 15 to 24 years in Asia and the Pacific has reached a proportionate peak and will gradually decline over the next two decades. Regional averages disguise important differences at the country level, however. Mason and Lee in their article show that the absolute size of the youth population in China is declining steadily while that in India will continue to grow for another decade. The slowing of the growth of the youth population in terms of absolute numbers represents an opportunity for countries to increase the education opportunities of young people and, therefore, to enhance their contribution to economic growth when they enter the labour force through the demographic dividend. School enrolment figures for countries in Asia and the Pacific indicate that the region has made impressive gains in the recent past in terms of accessibility. Attendance in primary school is today nearly universal. Gross enrolment ratios at the secondary level have increased rapidly and the gender gap in secondary school enrolment has been eliminated in much though not all of the region (2011 ESCAP Population Data Sheet). Mason and Lee show that, while enrolment at the tertiary level is much lower than at the secondary level, it is essentially equal between men and women in East and South-East Asia. In South Asia, however, female enrolment at the tertiary level is only about two thirds that of male enrolment. Gross enrolment ratios at the tertiary level in Japan and the Republic of Korea are high by regional standards but still show a pronounced gender gap. It is probable that the gender gap in net enrolment ratios is smaller. The proportion of the youth population that is employed must be interpreted with caution. It can be low because young people are continuing their education, as may be the case in the countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), or equally because many young people are unemployed, as may be the case for Indonesia and the Philippines, for example. Gender differences are quite pronounced in the proportion of the youth population that is employed. Mason and Lee cite World Bank data that indicate that higher proportions of young women than young men are employed in China, Japan and the Republic of Korea but that employment rates for 3

10 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 young men exceed those for young women in most other countries, often by large margins. The disproportionate number of young people in informal work, in particular girls and young women, is rarely captured in statistics however, so even here the situation may convey a more progressive image than is experienced by younger people themselves. Mason and Lee note that the transition of youth to the labour force is often difficult because of expanding numbers of youth and policy failures that disproportionately affect youth, and because their education and skills may not match the requirements of the labour market. The income from employment that young people can earn depends not only upon their qualifications and skills but also upon capital investment in the economy and flexibility in the labour market. In many cases the mismatch between education systems and economic opportunity is a principal cause of unemployment; in other cases, it is simply a lack of jobs being created. Nevertheless, several of the trends noted by Mason and Lee augur well for the potential of youth in Asia and the Pacific to make increased contributions to the economies of their countries. The absolute number of young entrants to the labour force has stabilized or is declining in many countries, thus potentially increasing opportunity. Today s youth have far more education than those of only a few decades ago, and economies are increasingly knowledge-based, requiring advanced skills and offering the potential for more highly paid jobs. Population ageing and population decline Rapid decline of fertility to low levels and longer expectation of life have resulted in population ageing, or increases in the proportion of population in older age groups. According to the projections prepared by the Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat, the proportion of the population in the ESCAP region aged 60 years and older will increase from 10.4 per cent in 2010 to 19.7 per cent in Where fertility has declined to very low levels, the proportion of the population in older age groups is increasing at historic rates. The proportion of the population aged 60 years and older in 2035 is projected to equal nearly 40 per cent of the total population in Japan, 34 per cent in the Republic of Korea and 28 per cent in China. The ageing of populations in Asia and the Pacific will arguably be the most important demographic transformation to be faced in the twenty-first century. Because female expectation of life exceeds that of males, high proportions of older persons are women, especially in countries with high life expectancy. In the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, 61 per cent of the population older than age 60 are women. This proportion rises to 69 per cent in Japan and 66 per cent in the Republic of Korea. In every country in North and Central Asia, the proportion of women in the population 4

11 Introduction older than age 60 equals 65 per cent or more. It exceeds 70 per cent in Armenia (73 per cent), Georgia (72 per cent), Kazakhstan (74 per cent) and the Russian Federation (78 per cent). The gender dimensions of ageing will require very specific policy responses. Because of past patterns of school enrolment and employment, older women, on average, are less likely to be educated and to have a retirement pension than are older men. These patterns have important implications for social protection and family support systems, with older women being much less likely to have the resources necessary to support themselves into old age, and, in the case of some countries, face legal and institutional forms of discrimination which compound such vulnerabilities. If fertility remains at a low level for a prolonged period, in the absence of net in-migration the total population of a number of countries in the Asian and Pacific region will begin to decline. As of 2011, the populations of Georgia, Japan and the Russian Federation had negative growth rates. According to the United Nations Population Division, the population of Armenia will begin to decline after 2020; that of China, after 2025; and that of the Republic of Korea, after In 25 years, the populations of Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand are expected to be growing only very slowly. The profound transformations wrought by ageing and population decline may be expected to attract increasing attention from demographers and policymakers over the next 25 years and longer. Changing household structure and composition Another area in which quite significant changes are taking place is at the level of the family and/or household. In his article in this anniversary issue, Gavin Jones illustrates how low fertility, later marriage and increasing divorce rates are having impacts on the structure and nature of the family in many countries. Higher rates of school enrolment at secondary and tertiary levels will also affect household structure, as young people are more likely to move away from the household of their parents and to live in institutional arrangements or in private rooms, either in one-person households or households with no related family members. Industrial employment leads to similar changes in household structure. Both internal and international migration affect household composition. When parents of young children migrate, they often leave their children with the children s grandparents or other relatives. The result of all of these trends is that a typical family of two parents and two children will be considerably less common. In addition to the implications for care of older persons cited above, the greater variety of family structures will require other policy changes. For example, more flexibility may be required concerning where children can attend school, which often will not be in the district where their parents are registered. The same would be true for any service or right which is tied to household registration. 5

12 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Jones stresses that an important implication of the greater variety in household composition is that the family will be less able to provide physical care for older members or those with disabilities because: (a) there will be fewer young people per older person; (b) more women, who are the traditional caregivers, will work outside of the home; and (c) many of the children of older persons will migrate to other locations. In addition, the greater variety in household composition, the marital status of household members and their relation to each other may well require legal changes to such fundamental concepts as the guardianship of children, obligations for child support and traditions of inheritance and land ownership. Mobility and development Changing household composition is also being shaped by increased mobility and in particular by changing patterns of migration. In countries that are highly urbanized and where the proportion of the population in young age categories is declining, such as Japan, rates of internal migration are also declining. The spread of economic opportunities throughout the country, combined with a gradual decline in the number of young people, has also reduced rates of internal migration in Thailand, for example. Nonetheless, with only 43 per cent of the population of 4.2 billion persons in Asia and the Pacific currently living in urban areas, significant future transfers of population can still be anticipated with particularly important implications for the sustainability of the region s cities. Ron Skeldon, in his contribution to this anniversary issue, highlights continuities and change in migration patterns over the past 25 years. In particular he notes the dramatic growth of population in the region s towns and cities, from 760 million in 1985 to a projected 2.4 billion in While patterns of circularity are still in evidence, an increasing proportion is permanent and represents some of the most significant shifts of population ever seen in the region. Skeldon further highlights the increasing importance of international migration in the Asia-Pacific region. Although the vast proportion of movement remains within borders, international migration is taking on greater significance in the region, including in the form of foreign exchange transfers through remittances. Skeldon notes, in reviewing trends over the past 25 years, important shifts from Asia to external destinations (such as the Arab States of the Persian Gulf), especially of unskilled migrants, to the increased movement of people within the Asia-Pacific region, including a significant proportion of skilled and educated labour. Despite such trends, Skeldon notes that Governments in the region continue to be highly cautious of the impact of migration, and especially conservative with regard to permanent settlement. Nevertheless, it is likely that the globalization of manufacturing, financial services, education, research and development, tourism and medi- 6

13 Introduction cal care, for example, will all stimulate greater international migration. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has formally recognized the importance of such mobility by agreeing to work towards the free movement of skilled workers within the framework for the envisioned ASEAN Economic Community. As globalization has also resulted in widening disparities among countries in per capita income, it creates an incentive for workers to migrate to economies where wages are higher. As the share of the working age population in many of the wealthiest nations is declining as a result of low fertility levels, these countries increasingly look to migrant workers to perform much of the arduous work in agriculture, construction and domestic service, for example. Owing to the rapid expansion in the volume of international temporary contract labour over the past two or three decades and as this phenomenon necessarily involves the nationals of one country living and working in another, Governments have often found it difficult to respond to many of the issues related to international migration. Most attention has been given to regulating the procedures involved in recruiting and placing a worker from one country in another, and trying to ensure a basis of legal protection for that worker both prior to and during his or her work period abroad. This task is especially difficult when such protection is not widely available to workers who are not migrants. Governments have made less progress concerning the complexities involved in providing transnational health insurance, banking services or the portability of pensions, however. International migration currently has had a significant economic impact on nearly every country in Asia and the Pacific whether this be the country of origin or destination. While Governments have formulated policies to manage temporary labour migration and to smooth the flow of remittances, many have yet to address some of the key social issues arising from international migration. It may be expected that issues concerning the integration of migrants into economies and societies, transnationalism, dual citizenship, the rights of children whose parents are nationals of different countries and statelessness will become more significant. In many cases a single country will not be able to resolve these issues unilaterally or even through a series of bilateral agreements. Subregional organizations should be encouraged to tackle these social aspects of international migration as well as the economic aspects on which they have focused to date. Population and the environment Researchers are devoting increasing attention to the possible impact that climate and other environmental changes are likely to have on migration. Both gradual environmental change, such as that caused by droughts, river bank erosion or the salinization of cropland, or the sudden change caused by natural and human-induced disasters, can lead to 7

14 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 migration. Environmental migration may be voluntary and the result of a calculated decision or it may be forced by a sudden event. Migration and displacement may be short-term or permanent. Some migration is considered as a planned means of adaptation to climate change. While much attention is focused on possible migration caused by environmental change, it is important to recognize that in most of Asia and the Pacific the dominant direction of migration is currently towards, not away from, environmentally high-risk areas, in particular towards megacities in low-elevation coastal zones. Though only touched upon in the present issue of the Journal, it must also be recognized that sizeable proportions of populations that may wish to move away from a high-risk zone cannot do so because of a lack of the resources needed for migration or the difficulty in finding a feasible alternative destination. It may be foreseen that population and environment interlinkages will constitute a greatly expanded area of population research during the next 25 years and longer. Population as public policy and debate The final article by Peter Donaldson and Geoffrey McNicoll both notes and reflects on the increased public discourse on the relationship between population and social and economic development in the second half of the twentieth century. Initially, much of this debate was centred around simplified models that described the impact that large and rapidly growing populations would have on global resources and stability. This was represented as a population explosion or bomb and viewed as the most significant single impediment to economic development. Governments responded with often aggressive support for family planning programmes that, in conjunction with rapid social and economic changes taking place in the region, lowered population growth rates much more quickly than many observers had anticipated or could have foreseen. While population size and growth are no longer key issues for public policy, the trends described above will ensure that population issues remain important and a matter of continuing debate. However, changes that are being seen today, such as late marriage or non-marriage of many young persons, a greater incidence of divorce, extremely low levels of fertility, international migration and international marriage, are challenging the perceptions that societies have of themselves. Demographers and other social scientists have an important responsibility to ensure an informed public discussion on all of these issues and to assist in the formulation of appropriate policies. Such debate is of course welcome and necessary. In celebrating this anniversary issue, the editors of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal hope that the Journal itself will continue to contribute to this dialogue and help in shaping public policy choices on population and development in the Asia-Pacific region as it has done for the preceding 25 years. 8

15 Abstracts Page Twenty-five Years of Transition in 13 Asia s Population and Development: A Review of Progress and Potential The Asian and Pacific region is in the midst of profound transformation, and the process that accelerated since the middle of the twentieth century has had impacts on every facet of human life. Unprecedented growth in population has been recorded during this period, a trend that will continue well into the twenty-first century, albeit at a declining pace. The region, especially since the 1980s, has also seen rapid economic growth and social progress, despite concerns raised by many that population growth would impede development and progress. Yet, change has not been uniform, and a number of factors account for the extreme diversity that exists today among countries and population groups. Still, despite significant challenges, there is promise that the rapid transformation heralds a future that is far more promising than what appeared a mere half century ago. Empowerment of Women and its 33 Impact on Population The data presented in this article from selected Asian and Pacific countries show that in the last two decades women have gained significantly in economic and social spheres, such as literacy, enrolment rates, gender inequality in education, age at marriage and participation in formal economic activities. Along with improvements in these empowerment measures, the region has also experienced substantial reductions in fertility, infant and child mortality, and maternal mortality and reported increases in use of contraception. However, not all countries in the Asian and Pacific region have made enough or equal progress in empowering women. Compared with women in many countries in East and South-East Asia, a significant proportion of young South Asian women remain deprived of education beyond the primary level and marry early, with adverse implications for their own health and that of their children. Youth and Their Changing Economic 61 Roles in Asia The youth population of Asia is in the midst of a remarkable transformation with enormous implications for the future of the region. Rapid population growth of the youth population is beginning to ease and to 9

16 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 decline in China and other low fertility Asian countries. An increase in spending on human capital has accompanied the decline in fertility rates, however, so that incoming cohorts of youth will be smaller but much more educated than in the past. The rise in education and other factors have influenced the transition into adulthood for youth. They are staying longer in school and entering the labour force at a later age supported by a combination of public and private transfers. A willingness to invest in youth has been an essential element to realizing the benefits of the demographic dividend in Asia. Changing Family Sizes, Structures and 83 Functions in Asia Throughout Asia, family change is occurring, although trends vary significantly between subregions and countries. In most cases common elements are rising levels of female education and labour force participation, reductions in gender-based divisions of labour, fertility decline (partly due to postponement of marriage) and increasing rates of divorce. Families are generally growing smaller. The average age at marriage is rising for both males and females throughout Asia, although from a base that varies greatly. Ageing of populations is a nearly universal trend and, although the proportions of older persons living with a child or grandchild are much higher than in the West, they are tending to decline. The relative roles of family, community and State in supporting the older persons is one of the key issues for the future. Migration and Asia: Reflections on 103 Continuities and Change The 25 years since the Asia-Pacific Population Journal was first published have seen momentous change both globally and within Asia. In 1986, Japan was one of the most dynamic economies in the world, with the four Tiger economies of Hong Kong, then still a colony, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan Province of China and Singapore not far behind. The reforms in China, implemented from 1979, were well under way but the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had still a few more years of existence before a series of independent nation States were to appear in Central Asia. The term globalization had yet to make its way into mainstream development discourse but it is Asia s uneven but dramatic development, political social and economic over those 25 years that has moulded and guided population migrations both within and from the region. Equally, it is Asia s changing position in the world as it has come to challenge the West that has contributed to and been a result of these changing population flows. 10

17 Abstracts Repositioning Population Research and 119 Policy in Asia: New Issues and New Opportunities Policy research on Asia s demographic transition over the last several decades has been overwhelmingly concerned with detailing the consequences of rapid population growth and measures to lower fertility. This research can point to significant accomplishments. Looking ahead, the now radically changed demographic landscape calls for a new agenda of policy research. Prominent among emerging population- related problems are: rapid population ageing with its major implications for inter-age transfers; changing marriage and family patterns underlying ultra-low fertility and possible population decline; and demographic adaptation to the new environmental conditions likely to be generated by climate change. As was the case with the demographic transition, Asia s population scientists have the opportunity and arguably the obligation to spread their understanding of these emerging demographic realities and their analyses of how public policy might be brought to bear on them. Asia still needs a vigorous public demography. 11

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19 Articles Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development: A Review of Progress and Potential The Asian and Pacific region 1 is in the midst of profound transformation, and the process that accelerated since the middle of the twentieth century has had impacts on every facet of human life. Unprecedented growth in population has been recorded during this period, a trend that will continue well into the twenty-first century, albeit at a declining pace. The region, especially since the 1980s, has also seen rapid econo mic growth and social progress, despite concerns raised by many that population growth would impede development and progress. Yet, change has not been uniform, and a number of factors account for the extreme diversity that exists today among countries and population groups. Still, despite significant challenges, there is promise that the rapid transformation heralds a future that is far more promising than what appeared a mere half century ago. By K. S. Seetharam* Introduction In this article, a broad overview is presented of the trends in population change across Asia and the Pacific and by subregion since the 1950s, with a focus on developments since 1985 when the first issue of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal was published. Achievements and progress in dealing with the issues of population and development are high lighted drawing upon regional and country-specific experiences, and issues that are emerging are identified. The article also discusses * Former Technical Adviser on Population and Development, ESCAP and UNFPA Technical Support Services. 13

20 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 the evolution of concerns and thinking on population and development in the Asia-Pacific region. In doing so, regional reviews and a synthesis contained in prior issues of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal as well as other sources are drawn upon. Demographic transition, population growth and momentum The global population reached a new milestone of 7 billion in 2011, an increase of 4.5 billion since 1950 (figure 1); it is projected to exceed 9 billion by the middle of the current century, according to recent estimates of the United Nations. During the same period the population of Asia and the Pacific increased from 1.5 billion to 4.2 billion, accounting for about 60 per cent of the growth of the global population. The unprecedented growth of the population and the continuing decline in the rate of growth since the mid-1960s is a manifestation of the rapid demographic transition from high mortality/fertility to low mortality/fertility. This transformation, dating to the mid-twentieth century, occurred at a pace that has no historic parallel (Seetharam, 2002). Figure 1. Population size and growth: Population (in billions) Growth rate (percentage) Year World World Asia and the Pacific Asia and the Pacific Source: World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. Available from unpd/wpp/index.htm. 14

21 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development An increased global population and the continuing decline in the rate of growth have been brought about by two factors: (a) the unprecedented decline in mortality since the 1950s; and (b) the equally impressive decline in fertility that began after a time lag of years. As can be seen in figure 1, the rate of population growth peaked during the period to record levels of 2.3 per cent per year in Asia and the Pacific and 2.1 per cent for the world as a whole. Since then the rate of growth has steadily declined to reach 0.9 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively for Asia and the Pacific and the world. The decline has been much faster in the Asia-Pacific region. Table 1 provides a snapshot of population growth and the differences among the broad subregions of Asia and the Pacific. At first, it can be seen that the share of Asia and the Pacific relative to the global population total increased from 58.8 per cent in 1950 to 61.5 per cent in 1985, and declined slightly to 60.5 per cent in The increase in the region s share is due mainly to increases in the share of countries in South and South-West Asia and South-East Asia, which have more than outweighed the declines in the share of countries/areas in East and North-East Asia and North and Central Asia. For instance, the share of South and South-West Asia that includes Bangladesh, India and Pakistan (three of the world s most populous countries) has increased from 20 to 25 per cent of the global total while that of East and North-East Asia, which includes China and Japan, has declined from 26 to 22 per cent. Also noticeable is the increase in the share of South-East Asia, which includes Indonesia and the Philippines, and the decline in the share in North and Central Asia, which includes the Russian Federation. As a result, 63 per cent of the increase in population between 1950 and 2010 in the Asian and Pacific region has occurred in the South and South- West and South-East Asian subregions, which accounted for 57 per cent of the total population of the region in Table 1 also reveals that the rate of growth has declined consistently in all the subregions since 1950, except in East and North-East Asia and in South and South-West Asia where there was an increase during the period These differences are the result of the timing and pace of declines in mortality and fertility among the subregions as well as the time lag between the onset of decline in mortality and fertility. It should also be noted that the share of the Pacific subregion that includes Australia and New Zealand and small island countries, inclu ding Papua New Guinea and Fiji, has remained constant, and the rate of growth has declined during the same period. Yet there are considerable variations within the subregion, which contains countries with some of the highest annual growth rates, as well as those experiencing population decline. 15

22 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 1. Population size and growth: Population (in thousands) and percentage share Growth rate (percentage) Population Per Population Per Population Per cent cent cent World Asia and the Pacific East and North-East Asia South-East Asia South and South-West Asia North and Central Asia Pacific Source: World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. Available from Note: Asia and the Pacific includes all countries and areas that are members of ESCAP, and the subregions correspond to the classification adopted by ESCAP. 16

23 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development Mortality and fertility transition The overall trends and the subregional differences in the expectation of o life at birth (e o ) for males and females are reflected in figure 2 and o table 2. It can be seen that there have been unprecedented gains in e o in all the subregions and for both males and females except among males in North and Central Asia where the gains have been modest at best. However, there are distinct differences among the subregional trends. o First, the gains in e o have been highest in the subregions (Asia excluding o North and Central Asia) where it was lowest (40< e o <50) in 1950, o whereas in others (North and Central Asia and the Pacific) where e o was already above 60 in 1950 the gains have been modest. Second, the o gains in East and North-East Asia have been most remarkable, where e o for both males and females increased from about 45 years to well above 70 years, and most of this gain took place in a relatively short span of 15 o years between 1960 and Third, gains in e o for females have been greater than that of males; in particular, in East and North-East Asia and South and South-West Asia these gains have reversed the pattern of high female mortality that persisted in some of the countries due to cultural factors that gave preference to boys. Fourth, in North and Central Asia not only were the gains modest but the male-female Figure 2. Trends in e o by sex and by subregion: o Life expectancy at birth East and North-East Asia Males South-East Asia Males South and South-West Asia Males North and Central Asia Males Pacific Males East and North-East Asia Females South-East Asia Females South and South-West Asia Females North and Central Asia Females Pacific Females 17

24 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 o difference in e o which was highest even in 1950 has widened and e o for females exceeds that of males by about 11 years. In all other subregions it is considerably less. Expectation of life at birth for males (62 years) in North and Central Asia is the lowest in Asia and the Pacific, and, quite significantly, has shown only a marginal increase over the past six decades. A significant share of the increase in life expectancy is due to the decline in infant mortality as reflected in table 2. Though comparable estimates are not available, declines in child mortality have also contributed significantly to increases in life expectancy. The table also reveals that, while there is a convergence to low levels of mortality during infancy and early childhood among all regions, the rates remain high in South and South-West Asia. It should be noted, however, that subregional averages mask the significant differences that exist among the countries of the subregions, such as Sri Lanka and Afghanistan in South and South-West Asia; Thailand and the Lao People s Democratic Republic in South-East Asia, as well as among the provinces and population subgroups within the countries. Table 2 and figure 3 highlight the significant reductions in total fertility rates (TFR) for Asia and the Pacific as a whole and for all the subregions except the Pacific where it has stabilized at about 2.5 children per woman since The reductions have been particularly dramatic in all the subregions of Asia where they were high and averaged around 6 children per woman in In particular, in East and North-East Asia TFR declined from about 5.6 in 1950 to well below replacement level of 2.1 in 2010, and in South-East Asia it declined from 6 to near replacement during the same period. For Asia and the Pacific as a whole, TFR attained replacement level by It should also be noted that, in a number of countries where the decline started later, such as in the 1990s (e.g. Cambodia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Lao People s Democratic Republic and Mongolia), the decline in TFR has been particularly rapid. A number of factors have contributed to this trend, the most important of which are the transition in marriage patterns, especially increased age at marriage and the proportion of women who remain unmarried (Jones, 2011). Decreased fertility in marriage, facilitated by the introduction and use of contraception to delay, space and limit the number of children, has been made possible in large part due to the support of national family planning programmes. Other factors, such as improvements in education and employment of women as well as declines in infant and child morta lity, have contributed to the decline through their impacts on age at marriage and non-marriage and marital fertility (see table 3). o 18

25 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development Table 2. Key indices of mortality and fertility, Asia and the Pacific, by subregion, Mortality Fertility Region/subregion Crude death Life expectancy Infart Under 5 Crude Total rate at birth mortality mortality birth fertility rate rate rate rate Both sexes Males Females Asia and the Pacific na East and North-East Asia na South-East Asia na South and South-West Asia na North and Central Asia na Pacific na Asia and the Pacific East and North-East Asia South-East Asia South and South-West Asia North and Central Asia Pacific Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. Available from 19

26 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Figure 3. Trends in total fertility rate (TFR) Asia and the Pacific by subregion, TFR Year Asia and the Pacific South-East Asia North and Central Asia East and North-East Asia South and South-West Asia Pacific Source: Note: World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. Available from unpd/wpp/index.htm. Asia and the Pacific includes all countries that are members of ESCAP, and the subregions correspond to the classification adopted by ESCAP. Age structure transition The transition in mortality and fertility is reflected in the timing and pace of transition of the age structure of the population portrayed in figure 4. It can be seen that the percentage of population aged below 15 has declined consistently in all the subregions from their respective peaks during the 1960s. The decline has been very dramatic in East and North- East Asia and South-East Asia. The transition has been more gradual in South and South-West Asia and in the Pacific. Mirroring this decline is the increase in the percentage of population in working ages, years, which has increased consistently since the mid-1970s in all the subregions, a trend that will continue but will begin to reverse eventually. This increase in the proportion of the working age population provides a unique and one-time opportunity to benefit from the window of opportunity afforded by declining dependency ratios, particularly of childhood ages. 20

27 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development Figure 4: Percentage of population in functional age groups: Percentage of population Percentage East and North-East Asia South and South-West Asia Pacific South-East Asia North and Central Asia 75 Percentage of population Percentage East and North-East Asia South and South-West Asia Pacific South-East Asia North and Central Asia 21

28 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Percentage of population Percentage East and North-East Asia South and South-West Asia Pacific South-East Asia North and Central Asia 22 Percentage of population Percentage 2010 East and North-East Asia South and South-West Asia Pacific South-East Asia North and Central Asia 22

29 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development Figure 4 also reveals the increasing proportion of the population at older ages (65+) in all subregions, as well as the differences among them. It illustrates the relatively low and slower pace of population ageing in South-East Asia and South and South-West Asia in comparison with East and North-East Asia, which is rapidly approaching the levels reached by North and Central Asia, as well as the Pacific (the figure for which is dominated by the demographic profiles of Australia and New Zealand). One of the important aspects of the age-structure transition of the past years has been the increase in the youth population years of age, a trend that has peaked in the Asian and Pacific region, and there are significant differences among the subregions that result from the timing and pace of fertility decline discussed in the preceding section. Figure 4 shows the trend in the percentage of population years, indicating that it reached its lowest levels during the period in all subregions as a result of rapid declines in infant and child mortality and the consequent increase in the proportion of children. Since then, the number as well as the percentage of the youth population increased in all subregions, a trend that reversed rapidly from the 1990s in North and North-East Asia but more gradually in South-East Asia. Since 2000, South and South-West Asia has had the highest percentage of young people and the subregion will continue to have a significant share of young people well into the future as the decline in fertility is taking place more gradually than in other subregions. North and Central Asia presents a unique pictures of wide fluctuations in the percentage share of young people; in the Pacific their share has declined since 1980 and is the lowest among all subregions (again, this figure does not capture the very high proportion of youth in many Pacific island countries). The difference among the subregions in the number and share of young people is an important determinant of both future population increases and the contribution youth can make to economic growth if policies and institutions are in place to maximize the utilization of their potential (see Mason and Lee in the present issue of the Journal). Rural-to-urban transition The population of Asia and the Pacific is also in the midst of a rapid rural-to-urban transition (table 3 and figure 5). The percentage of the population living in urban areas has increased from about 20 per cent in 1950 to 43 per cent in This transition, significant as it is, is also occurring during a period of unprecedented population growth; as a result, the population living in urban areas increased from more than a quarter of a billion (280 million) in 1950 to 1.8 billion in This represents a staggering sixfold increase, as compared with a threefold increase in the total population. During the corresponding period, the rural 23

30 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 3. Urban population size and growth: Region/subregion Rate of growth (percentage) Population Per cent Population Per cent Population Per cent urban urban urban Asia and the Pacific East and North-East Asia South-Eastern Asia South and South-West Asia North and Central Asia Pacific Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2010). World Urbanization Prospects : The 2009 Revision. CD-ROM Edition Data in digital form (POP/ DB/WUP/Rev.2009). 24

31 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development population almost doubled, from 1.2 billion to 2.3 billion. This profound growth of the urban population is due mainly to two factors: the natural growth of the urban population and net rural-urban migration, the latter contributing to a larger share of the total increase. To a limited extent, the reclassification and annexation of rural areas as urban as they gain urban characteristics will also contribute to this trend. There are also significant differences among the subregions as well as among countries with regard to the level and trends in urbanization. Of particular importance is the rapid rural-to-urban shift that has taken place in East and North-East Asia and South-East Asia, particularly since the 1980s, where the population in urban areas has increased eightfold since South and South-West Asia, the least urbanized subregion, is also undergoing a rapid rural-to-urban transition, a trend that will continue for some time (figure 5). Associated with this rapid transition is the increase in the number of megacities (commonly defined as cities with a population of 10 million or more) in Asia and the Pacific. Such cities have increased from 1 in 1950 to 12 in 2009, as well as the concentration of the urban population in these cities, the share of which increased from 4.1 per cent in 1950 to 10.8 per cent in No fewer than seven of the world s most populous cities are in Asia (UN-Habitat, 2011). Figure 5. Percentage of urban population by subregion, Percentage urban Year East and North-East Asia South and South-West Asia Pacific South-East Asia North and Central Asia 25

32 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Population, development and public policy The very complex and changing population dynamics of Asia and the Pacific and its subregions, described in the preceding sections, have both shaped and been shaped by public policy in the form of policies and related programmes and strategies that have sought to balance population change, economic growth and social transformation (e.g. Concepcion, 2003; Robinson and Ross, 2007). Over time there has been a clear shift away from central planning to market orientation, liberalization of trade, removal of barriers that hinder private sector investment, emergence of democratic governance, as well as greater participation in policy processes. These trends, among others, have been central to the economic and social transformation of much of Asia and the Pacific. Public policy, in particular family planning, that brought about the demographic transition contributed to a significant share of economic growth (ADB, 1997; Bloom and Williamson, 1998; McNicoll, 2006; Robinson and Ross, 2007; Mason, 2011). Concerns about the economic implications of accelerating population growth led India to launch its national family planning programme as a public policy in 1952; it was later integrated with maternal and child health. Such examples reinforced and brought into focus the full extent of the implications of high rates of population growth for economic development in low-income countries and more and more countries began to adopt family planning as an integral part of national development plans and strategies to bring down fertility and population growth, though the approach adopted by countries varied significantly. The vast experience of the family planning programmes has been reviewed and the general conclusion was that overall family planning contributed substantially to the rapid decline in fertility that was evident for much of the region (Robinson and Ross, 2007). Still, while many family planning programmes were successful in contributing significantly to the achievement of lowering fertility, the goals came in for criticism for not addressing the needs of women. In commenting on debates, Kabeer (1996) wrote that feminist advocates and activists, for example, have stressed in particular how the attempts of national and international agencies to pursue the objectives of population control have often led to the denial of reproductive choice to women to the extent of violating their basic human rights. While population issues need to be kept at the centre of development policy, such policy needs to give fuller recognition to the intrinsic human dimension of the interrelationship between population and development, and in particular, to the gender dimension of this inter-relationship. Concerns inclusive of the above gradually led to the call for reorientation of family planning programmes, such as contained in the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and 26

33 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development Development in This resulted in a shift from a purely numerical and target-driven approach to one that respected reproductive rights of women and responded to the needs of couples and individuals to make informed choices and decisions on family size. Increased attention to the provision of affordable and accessible services also needed to be provided in the context of a broader reproductive health approach. As a result, many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have reoriented their policies and programmes towards a rights- and needs-based approach in the delivery of an integrated set of reproductive health services. The progress towards this approach has been reviewed periodically (Seetharam and Hayes, 2009). Looking forward: Why population still matters for development These public policy interventions now need to be readjusted to changing demographic trends and contexts, which are providing considerable challenges for the region s development. With changing demographic profiles, concerns are beginning to emerge on the need to reorient health programmes to the health needs of the future, which with the decline in communicable diseases will shift towards non-communicable diseases (United Nations, 2011). Rapid population ageing will not only make this transition occur sooner but also faster, giving little time to make the necessary adjustments, including in the training of health services personnel to deal with the emerging health issues of an ageing population. It should be noted in this context that private health providers are the first to recognize and respond to the emerging needs which are affordable to only a few in the high-income brackets and that any delay in response by the public/government sector would leave the large majority of older persons vulnerable to the chronic health risks associated with old age. During the last two decades, particularly since the adoption of the ICPD Programme of Action (United Nations, 1994), the persistence of high maternal mortality and unsafe abortion has become a central issue in countries where the rates remain high and programmes have focused on improving access to prenatal and postnatal services and delivery care, including emergency obstetric care. The emergence of HIV/AIDS as a pandemic, particularly during the last three decades, also formed a major part of policies and programmes in Asia and the Pacific. Lack of access to reproductive health information and services for young people has been another important focus area of policies and programmes during recent years. Reviews indicate that the results are encouraging as maternal mortality has declined and HIV infection rates have slowed, and in some countries, reversed. Progress is also being made in sexual and reproductive health services for young people, although progress is 27

34 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 slow. Concerns have emerged in recent years that the reproductive health approach has undermined family planning and there are growing calls for repositioning family planning, and continuing population growth is resurfacing as a threat to sustainable development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (House of Commons, London, 2007; PPD, 2008). There is also increasing concern in countries that have completed the demographic transition about the implications of an ageing population for the provision of social security and for living arrangements of older persons. Early results of the National Transfer Accounts project that was developed for a number of Asian countries yielded valuable information on the demographic dividend and the levels and patterns of intergenerational transfers that are taking place in these countries to meet the consumption needs of dependent populations (Lee and Mason, 2011). It is also important to note that the discussion of the impact of population dynamics, which was once limited to economic and social development processes and outcomes, currently covers a broader canvas of income inequality, resource use, environment and climate change. There are also other concerns arising from the demographic transformation and patterns referred to previously. The shortage of young men in the Russian Federation and the broad implications of the transition for societies and global and regional power structure have also been discussed in recent years (Zachariah, 2001; Seetharam, 2003; DaVanzo and others, 2003). While there remains continuing debate about the linkages of population dynamics for development in the Asia-Pacific region, it is clear that, in reviewing the last 25 years, the timely intervention by countries in the region to deal with the population and development issues of the time has contributed significantly to the economic and social progress that the region has witnessed. This will likely remain the case. As the State of the World s Population 2011 report recently noted, with planning and the right investments in people now to empower them to make choices that are not only good for themselves but for our global commons our world of 7 billion can have thriving, sustainable cities, productive labour forces that can fuel economic growth, youth populations that contribute to the well-being of economies and societies, and a generation of older people who are healthy and actively engaged in the social and economic affairs of their communities (UNFPA, 2011). 28

35 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development Acknowledgements The author would like to express his appreciation for the comments and suggestions of Jerry Huguet, Consultant, ESCAP on an earlier draft of the article and for the help of Sirivalla Kosin in reconstructing the data for the ESCAP region (referred to in the earlier article as Asia and the Pacific) and its subregions from the 2010 revision of World Population Prospects (United Nations, 2011) and for preparing the tables and graphs included in this article. The list of members and associate members of ESCAP can be obtained from the 2011 ESCAP Population Data Sheet. 29

36 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Endnotes 1 In this article, ESCAP definitions of Asia and the Pacific are used along with the subregional groupings of countries and areas, which currently consists of 62 members and associate members. 30

37 Twenty-five Years of Transition in Asia s Population and Development References Concepcion, M.B. (2003). Evolution of population concerns: reflections from the Asian and Pacific Population Conferences. Asia-Pacific Population Journal, vol. 18, No. 2, pp DaVanzo, J., O. Oliker and C. Grammich (2003). Too few good men: the security implications of Russian demographics, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, vol. 4, No. 2. House of Commons, London (2007). Return of the Population Growth Factor: Its Impact upon the Millennium Development Goals: Report of Hearings by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, United Kingdom. Kabeer, N. (1996). Gender, Demographic Transition and the Economics of Family Size: Population Policy for a Human-Centred Development. Occasional Paper 7, United Nations Research Institute for Development and United Nations Development Programme, Geneva, Lee, R. and A. Mason (2011). Population Ageing and the Generational Economy: A Global Perspective, Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar. Mason, A. and S.H. Lee (2011). Youth and their changing economic roles in Asia, Asia-Pacific Population Journal, Special Issue, ESCAP (United Nations), Bangkok. PPD (Partners in Population and Development)(2008). Available from declaration EN.pdg. Robinson, W. C. and J.A. Ross (eds.) (2007). The Global Family Planning Revolution: Three Decades of Population Policies and Programmes. Washington, D.C.: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/ World Bank. Seetharam K.S. (2002). Half century of unparalleled demographic change: the Asia-Pacific experience, Asia-Pacific Population Journal, vol 17, No. 4, pp (2003). Population, society, and power: East Asia s future. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, vol. 4, No. 2, pp and G. Hayes (2009). Meeting the goals of ICPD Programme of Action: key challenges and priorities for Asia and the Pacific fifteen years. Asia-Pacific Population Journal, vol. 24. No. 3, pp

38 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 United Nations (1994). Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development. Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5-13 September (Sales No. E.95.XIII.18). (2009). World Urbanization Prospects: 2009 Revision. Available from (2011). Prevention and control of non-communicable diseases: Report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session (A/66/83). UN-Habitat (2011). State of Asian Cities 2010/11. Fukuoka, Japan, UN-Habitat and ESCAP. Zachariah, K.C. (2001). Convocation address, IIPS Newsletter, 2001 July, vol. 42, Nos. 3-4, pp Deonar, Mumbai, India. 32

39 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population The data presented in this article from selected Asian and Pacific countries show that in the last two decades women have gained significantly in economic and social spheres, such as literacy, enrolment rates, gender inequality in education, age at marriage and participation in formal economic activities. Along with improvements in these empowerment measures, the region has also experienced substantial reductions in fertility, infant and child mortality, and maternal mortality and reported increases in use of contraception. However, not all countries in the Asian and Pacific region have made enough or equal progress in empowering women. Compared with women in many countries in East and South-East Asia, a significant proportion of young South Asian women remain deprived of education beyond the primary level and marry early, with adverse implications for their own health and that of their children. By Leela Visaria* Introduction In the last three decades, the literature on women s empowerment has grown exponentially. A large number of books and articles have been written on the concept, measurement, determinants and impact of women s empowerment or autonomy 1 on a range of population and developmental factors (see, among others, Dyson and Moore, 1983; Batliwala, 1994; Jejeebhoy, 1995; Mason, 1997; Sathar and Kazi, 1997; Kabeer, 1999, 2005; Presser and Sen, 2000; Malhotra and others, 2002). 2 According to much of this literature, women s empowerment is a complex, multidimensional concept and therefore is constructed or measured in multiple indices after combining several relational factors. * Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad, India. 33

40 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Typically the factors considered in order to understand and measure women s empowerment relate to the economic security or financial independence they enjoy (which is measured differently by different scholars as women s labour force participation, access to income earned either by self or by the spouse), level of education, decision-making ability and freedom of movement or mobility. Respondents are typically asked several related questions in in-depth cross-sectional sample surveys often conducted in geographically limited area(s) within a country to arrive at multiple indices of empowerment, which often reflect specific circumstances. Intercountry comparative data on measures of empowerment, such as decision-making, freedom of movement and economic independence, are generally not available, especially over time, to discern changes in their values across several countries using the same set of questions. For cross-country comparison, what is possible is to measure empowerment through proxy variables, such as education and employment, and age at marriage. Similarly, in some in-depth studies, the population variable of fertility is measured in terms of husband-wife concordance or lack of it in terms of desire or demand for children or unmet need for contraception (see Mason and others, 2000). 3 However, multi-country comparative analysis has to depend on macro concepts of fertility, such as total fertility rate or contraceptive prevalence rate, and health indicators, such as infant mortality rate, maternal mortality ratio and percentage of births attended by a skilled provider, all of which are measures on which comparable data for many of the countries are estimated and available. In this article data are presented on these indicators of empowerment as well as population parameters over two time periods (for the 1990s and for the 2000s) to examine changes in empowerment indicators and the associated changes in selected population parameters over more or less the same period to discern the impact of empowerment on population development. 4 Since the focus of this article is on national-level analysis, it is not possible to incorporate some of the nuanced understanding that has influenced the measurement of women s empowerment and also the measures of population and development in the present article. Before examining the association between women s empowerment and population variables, limitations in discussing such relationships need to be noted. The concept of women s empowerment is sometimes viewed as an independent variable and sometimes as an outcome variable; in other words, it can be both a cause and an effect. For example, a measure such as the total fertility rate is sometimes considered as a dependent variable and influenced by women s empowerment and sometimes low or declining fertility is viewed as enhancing women s empowerment. Similarly, family size is treated as a women s empower- 34

41 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population ment variable and sometimes as an outcome of their empowerment. Population sex ratio or more specifically female-to-male sex ratio of children is both an empowerment measure and an outcome of empowerment; adverse female-to-male sex ratio is perceived as a result of gender inequality and leading to discrimination practised against girls and women in health care, nutrition and in other ways. The relationship between empowerment and population is not only a two-way process but is also quite dynamic. For example, fertility can fall without an increase in the empowerment of women but as a result of extraneous factors, such as strong family planning programmes or increased availability of immunization services for children because of outreach programmes. These changes driven by factors other than conscious decision-making efforts of women, can lead to enhancement of women s empowerment. Fewer children may give women time to make investments in themselves resulting in empowerment, such as through retraining, skills development and greater opportunities to develop social networks. Another limitation while trying to understand the linkages between women s empowerment and population relates to undertaking an intercountry comparison. Behaviours and attributes that signify empowerment in one context may not do so in another country context. However, by examining macro-level characteristics of women, such as their literacy level or age at marriage or employment status, one is not faced with this limitation, because they have more or less the same connotations across countries. At the same time, it must be recognized that education and employment are useful indicators as first approximations, but are not sufficiently sensitive to capture the nuances of gender power relations and the ways in which they govern women s reproductive behaviour. It has been shown that similar levels of educational attainment of women are observed to be associated with different reproductive patterns that vary with situational contexts of gender power relations (Jejeebhoy, 1995). However, it is not possible in this article to examine such nuanced relationships because the detailed data needed to undertake such analysis for several countries at the same time points are not available. It may also be noted that lack of women s empowerment is generally perceived as a manifestation of gender inequality and there are large variations in gender inequality within a country. However, a macrolevel analysis cannot address or focus on such variations. For large countries such as China or India, intracountry variations both in women s empowerment or autonomy and fertility or mortality indicators can be quite significant. What is examined in the present article are the changes experienced by selected Asian and Pacific countries in both the empowerment measures and the outcome measures, and the direction of change. 35

42 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 In recognizing the complexity of the nature and direction of the relationship between empowerment and population variables, the author uses data on three education measures (percentage of literate women, women aged who are literate, and enrolment of women in secondary school), two employment measures (percentage of women working for wages or in the labour force and percentage of women working in the service sector) and three measures of marriage patterns (singulate mean age at marriage, percentage ever married among those in the and age groups and percentage of women aged who married before age 18) as indicative of women s empowerment. In order to understand the changes in women s empowerment over approximately two decades and their association with some of the fertility and health indicators, the author has limited the analysis to total fertility rate, contraceptive prevalence rate, infant mortality rate, maternal mortality ratio and percentage of births attended by skilled personnel. The selection is by no means exhaustive to fully capture the association between empowerment and population parameters. The availability of comparable data over more or less the same two time periods for several Asian and Pacific countries has been the determining factor in the selection. Data sources In this article, the author has chosen to examine the data for 14 countries which together account for nearly 94 per cent of the total population of the Asia-Pacific region. Within this region, China and India alone account for approximately two thirds of its total population. Population data for the countries are compiled from various sources, such as the national censuses, estimates for the selected years prepared by the Population Reference Bureau, ESCAP, UNESCO and other similar sources. The data on empowerment and population variables are compiled from a range of sources, including the estimates prepared by the World Bank, UNFPA and other United Nations agencies, as well as the Population Reference Bureau. While an attempt was made to compile data for a period around 1990 and for the most recent year, a great deal of variation was observed around these two time periods. Thus, the 1990 data could pertain to any of the years between 1990 and 1992 and the data for 2010 could be for any year between 2006 and Wherever any estimate is outside this range, that is so indicated. It is also likely that some of the estimates are best guesses made by the compilers of the data. Most of the sources used have provided explanations about the limitations of the estimates in their publications but they have not been reproduced here. Table 1 shows the most recent population estimates of all the countries and areas in the ESCAP region along with that for the period around 1990 or about 25 years ago and for 2000 or 10 years ago. The annual rates 36

43 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Table 1. Population of selected ESCAP economies in the period and average annual rate of growth Subregion/country/area Population Population Population Average annual rate circa 1990 circa 2000 circa 2010 of change (percentage) (millions) (millions) (millions) East and North-East Asia China Democratic People s Republic of Korea Hong Kong, China Japan Macao, China Mongolia Republic of Korea South-East Asia Brunei Darussalam Cambodia Indonesia Lao People s Democratic Republic Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand Timor-Leste Viet Nam (continued) 37

44 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 1. (Continued) Subregion/country/area Population Population Population Average annual rate circa 1990 circa 2000 circa 2010 of change (percentage) (millions) (millions) (millions) South and South-West Asia Afghanistan Bangladesh Bhutan India Iran (Islamic Rep. of) Maldives Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka Turkey North and Central Asia Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Russian Federation (continued) 38

45 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Table 1. (Continued) Subregion/country/area Population Population Population Average annual rate circa 1990 circa 2000 circa 2010 of change (percentage) (millions) (millions) (millions) Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Pacific American Samoa Australia Cook Islands Fiji French Polynesia Guam Kiribati Marshall Islands Micronesia (Federated States) Nauru New Caledonia New Zealand Niue Northern Mariana Islands Palau (continued) 39

46 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 1. (Continued) Subregion/country/area Population Population Population Average annual rate circa 1990 circa 2000 circa 2010 of change (percentage) (millions) (millions) (millions) Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu Asia and the Pacific Landlocked developing countries Least developed countries Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Cooperation Organization countries South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries Central Asia Pacific island developing economies Low income countries Lower middle income countries (continued 40

47 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Table 1. (Continued) Subregion/country/area Population Population Population Average annual rate circa 1990 circa 2000 circa 2010 of change (percentage) (millions) (millions) (millions) Upper middle income countries High income countries Africa Europe Latin America and Caribbean North America Other countries/areas World

48 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 of population growth in each of these countries/areas during the periods and are also shown in table 1. 5 Although the absolute population size has increased in all the countries including the 14 selected countries/economies between 1990 and 2010, the rate of growth has significantly slowed down in most of them in the last 10 years compared with the 15-year period before that. In fact, the annual rate of population growth during the period was below 2 per cent in all but four countries where also it was only a little above 2 per cent. In six economies, the annual rate of growth has ranged between 0.5 and 1.3 per cent. Population growth is expected to slow down further not only in these low growth economies but elsewhere also. Education Education of women is viewed as a critical component in their empowerment process. This was recognized by the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which categorically stated: Education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process (United Nations, 1994), and called for universal enrolment in primary school for girls by A number of scholars have also asserted that when women are educated, there is a significant improvement in their status within the family and in society (Ramachandran, 2000; Shu, 2004). Provision of education for women also leads to gender equity, which is accepted as a developmental goal by every country in the region. Education of women is also strongly associated with both lower fertility and infant and child mortality. In developing countries, it has been observed that each additional year of schooling is associated with a 7-9 per cent decline in under-5 mortality. Education exercises a stronger influence in early and later childhood than in infancy (Cleland and van Ginniken, 1988). Similarly, in most countries, the inverse relationship between women s education and their fertility and use of contraceptive methods is also well established. Keeping girls in school longer delays their marriage, empowers them with knowledge to delay childbearing, limits the number of children they have and increases the likelihood that women will seek health care for themselves and their children. Data presented in tables 2 and 3 point to some interesting differences in educational attainment among women between the major countries and areas of the ESCAP region. The education variables considered are the percentage of women aged who are literate and the percentage of girls who are enrolled in secondary school. The data for women are compared with that of men for the same characteristics. The points to be noted are: while more than 90 per cent of young women aged in 42

49 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Table 2. Percentage of women and men in age group who are literate Subregion/ Women Men country/area Earliest Year Latest Year Earliest Year Latest Year (%) (%) (%) (%) East and North- East Asia China Democratic People s Republic of Korea Macao, China Mongolia South-East Asia Brunei Darussalam Cambodia Indonesia Lao PDR Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand Viet Nam South and South- West Asia Bangladesh Bhutan India Iran (Islamic Republic of) Maldives Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka Turkey North and Central Asia Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Russian Federation Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Pacific Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Vanuatu Source: Population Reference Bureau. The World s Women and Girls 2011 Data Sheet. Washington, D.C.,

50 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 3. Gross secondary school enrolment ratio, circa 2010 (selected countries) Country Girls Boys Bangladesh China Democratic People s Republic of Korea n.a. n.a. India Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Malaysia Nepal Pakistan Philippines Republic of Korea Sri Lanka Thailand Viet Nam Source: 2011 ESCAP Population Datasheet. economies in South-East Asia and China were already literate about 20 years ago (around 1990), the situation in South Asian countries was very different. Between 25 and 33 per cent of women in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan were literate barely 20 years ago. The only exception was Sri Lanka, where the pattern has been similar to that of South- East Asia. By the period , the countries to South Asia had made great improvements in provision of schooling to women and there was an almost 20-percentage point gain in years. In India and Bangladesh one out of two women aged were reported to be literate. In Nepal and Pakistan, these proportions were 68 and 61 per cent, respectively. In the ESCAP region where data have been given, two interesting countries are Malaysia and Sri Lanka. In multi-ethnic Malaysia progress in women s education started several decades ago and is quite impressive, suggesting that the traditional barriers, if any, in providing equal educational opportunities to boys and girls weakened quite early. In Sri Lanka, the opportunities for education of girls began to increase in the 1960s, unlike in the other South Asian countries, and in that sense culturally Sri Lanka is rather unlike the rest of the countries on the Indian subcontinent. In South-East Asia, the provision of education was already well established and there were no sex differentials in accessing schooling. That was not the case in South Asia 20 years ago. Gender differentials persisted in that subregion, but by the middle of the decade, 44

51 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population the gender gap narrowed significantly. In Bangladesh, the gender gap has practically disappeared, thanks to the efforts to enrol girls in primary schools. Islam and Dogra (2011) attributed the strides that Bangladesh has made in closing the gender gap in education to the Government of that country, which played a critical role in providing modern education, particularly to women, and to the non-governmental organizations that helped bring about changes in the role of traditional religious schools. In Bangladesh, where more girls than boys attend religious schools, the introduction of curriculum reform in the 1980s mandated teaching modern subjects, such as science, mathematics and English, in madrasas or religious schools. The Government of Bangladesh also started the scheme of offering cash incentives and stipends for girls that led to registering and opening of many new madrasas, thereby significantly increasing access to education among girls (Asadullah and Chaudhury, 2008). While more and more young girls are becoming literate in South Asian countries, thanks primarily to the policies and the efforts of their Governments, keeping girls in schools beyond primary level of education is proving difficult as the data in table 3 show. In Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan fewer than one in two girls were enrolled in secondary schools around 2010; in India the percentage of girls enrolled in secondary schools was about 56. Elsewhere it was more than 70 per cent. The South Asian countries have a long way to go in providing girls with secondary-level education. It is sometimes argued that the dominant patriarchal structures and values of many of the Asian societies that have persisted for centuries keep women in subordinate status and deny girls higher education because of factors associated with their safety outside the enclosed domestic sphere. While some Asian countries have managed to shed these traditional values, those in South Asia continue to be largely gender stratified, characterised by patrilineal descent, patrilocal residence, inheritance and succession practices that exclude women, hierarchical relations in which the patriarch or his relatives have authority over family members (Jejeebhoy and Sathar, 2001). In a large country such as India, there are significant variations between states; in the southern states much higher proportions of girls are enrolled in secondary schools compared with the northern states where the hold of tradition continues to be much stronger. Within the ESCAP region, one notable example is that of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has succeeded in providing its young women with not only secondary but also university education. The Government of that country, following the 1979 revolution, has made great strides to provide women with higher education. In fact, females constituted 62 per cent of all students in Iranian universities in This has had a considerable beneficial impact on the status of women and is a central feature of social change in Iranian society. Higher education has 45

52 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 empowered Iranian girls from all socioeconomic backgrounds, and their rising expectations are an accelerating force for development in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian girls and women who began to spend more years in schools and universities are delaying marriage and childbearing and becoming major fertility decision-makers in the domestic sphere, including about questions such as family size and the use of contraception, to achieve their goals (Abassi-Shavazi and others, 2009). Economists have typically estimated rates of return to schooling or education and have found that the returns are higher in developing countries, reflecting the relative scarcity of education. The social benefits of women s schooling are significant, especially in developing countries. When the proportion of women with secondary schooling doubles, the fertility rate has been estimated to decline from 5.3 to 3.9 children per woman (Subbarao and Raney, 1995). Women with more education also tend to be healthier, participate more in the formal labour market, earn more income, have fewer children and provide their children with better health care and education, all of which factors eventually improve the well-being of all individuals and help lift households out of poverty. These benefits also transmit across generations. It is rarely the case that the children of educated women would remain illiterate so that the intergenerational gains are enormous for society over time. Education is also viewed as a critical path to gender equality. Women s participation in employment As argued previously, economic empowerment or financial independence is one of the most important measures of women s empowerment. The one measure for which data are available for most countries to assess women s economic empowerment is their participation in work or the labour force. While accepting a strong possibility that in spite of working women may not always have control over their earnings in some settings, work away from home does give women some freedom and is thus a proxy for economic empowerment. Data on labour force participation for the selected countries of the ESCAP region for two time points 1990 and 2010 are given in table 4. Also shown in the table is the proportion of working women engaged in the service sector as opposed to the agricultural or industrial sectors. In contrast to the 1980s, women s participation in work has increased significantly in almost all countries. However, as shown in table 4, there were significant differences in women s work within the ESCAP region in the initial period, and these continue to persist. More than 70 per cent of women were reported as working in China, Thailand and Viet Nam with little change between 1990 and Women s participation in work was closer to 50 per cent in several other countries, such as 46

53 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Table 4. Women s labour force participation rate and percentage engaged in service sector Country Labour force Percentage of those participation rate working, engaged in service sector in 2010 Bangladesh China n.a. Democratic People s Republic of Korea n.a. 55 n.a. India n.a. Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Malaysia Nepal Pakistan Philippines South Korea Sri Lanka Thailand Viet Nam Source: Population Reference Bureau, The World s Women and Girls: 2011 Data Sheet. Washington, D.C., Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Republic of Korea and Sri Lanka. In these countries the increasing work participation of women has been viewed as part of the general employment boom created by the export-led economic expansion. This is evident in the fact that nearly two thirds of the working women in these countries were reported to be engaged in the service sector and not in agriculture. In fact, it is even argued that the Asian economic boom of the 1990s was fuelled by the productive contributions of women. Women were engaged in large numbers as paid labour in export-related activities, such as electronics, food processing and textiles as well as in services. In addition to these aspects, a large segment of women from countries, such as the Philippines, Viet Nam and to some extent Sri Lanka, have migrated to the Arab States of the Persian Gulf; as well as Singapore and Hong Kong, China, for work and remit their earnings home. These dual work opportunities have kept women s share in employment high in all these economies (ESCAP, 1999). In Bangladesh women s participation in the labour force is quite high but they are mostly engaged in agriculture and unskilled manual work. It is argued that income poverty has forced many women in Bangladesh to work outside the home, especially in activities such as road construction. In recent years, employment opportunities for women in Bangladesh have increased due to easy access to 47

54 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 microfinance and the country s growing apparel industry; many women from rural areas commute to urban centres such as Dhaka for employment to augment household income. Also some women migrate to the Arab States of the Persian Gulf as domestic workers. Women s work outside the home and especially in the service sector is closely correlated with increases in education beyond the primary level. Those countries in South-East Asia and East Asia that invested in the education of girls were able to tap that resource by engaging women in export-oriented production. Reduction in gender inequality in education has made women almost equal to men in terms of wage rates for those engaged in paid employment, which in turn appears to have had an impact on their fertility behaviour as well as health-seeking behaviour. Where women work in the tertiary or service sector they have been found to have had fewer children and to have invested in the education of their daughters. The relationship between women s work and fertility works through a number of factors. For working women motherhood and work often proves incompatible because they cannot devote time to the children when away from home and thus the opportunity cost of children becomes high. This trade-off is especially evident where gendered roles in family and child-raising responsibilities remain strong. Moreover, the employment helps in increasing the age at marriage or delaying marriage. Exposure to the outside world increases women s ability to make decisions related to not only finances but also the number of children to have and when to have them. Age at marriage Marriage among adolescent girls typically signifies that they are out of school early, not engaged in remunerative economic activity and are exposed to the risk of childbearing. In many Asian countries social customs discourage sexual relations before marriage, but teenage girls once married are engaged in socially sanctioned sexual relations. Early marriage has worrisome implications for the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent girls. As shown in table 5, within the ESCAP region, there are two distinct patterns in the age at marriage among women. In China and other countries and areas in East Asia, the singulate mean age at marriage was above 21 years of age and closer to 23 years even two decades ago. However, in the three South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India and Nepal the singulate mean age at marriage was closer to 18 years in the 1990s. There has been some increase in the mean age at marriage since then; yet, it is nowhere near the pattern observed in the rest of the region. In South Asian countries marriage for women takes place early, and it is almost universal and arranged by parents or elders in the family; young girls have hardly any say in selecting their spouse. As evident from 48

55 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population table 5, more than 85 per cent of girls aged in South Asian countries were already married. This proportion reached per cent by age 34 (not shown in the table). Elsewhere in the region less than 65 per cent of young women aged years were married. Table 5. Marriage patterns among women in selected ESCAP countries Country Singulate Percentage Percentage Percentage women mean ever ever aged who age at married married were married marriage before age 18 (years) Time period 1990/ / / s Bangladesh China Democratic People s Republic of Korea n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. India Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Malaysia Nepal Pakistan Philippines Republic of Korea Sri Lanka Thailand Viet Nam Source: World Marriage Patterns 2000 (wall chart). Monitoring the Situation of Children and Women, Available from Another statistic that conveys the picture in an even more telling manner is the percentage of women in the age group who were married before age 18. As shown in table 5, the proportion of women aged who had married while in their teens has declined in all the major countries between 1990 and and had reached close to or below 20 per cent in Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam. This trend implies that in these countries girls remaining single for an extended period before marriage were able to pursue higher education, become economically independent and empowered to take decisions affecting their lives on their own. The exceptions are the four South and South-West Asian countries of India, Bangladesh, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Nepal, where even late in the decade , 47 to 66 per cent of women years of age had been married while in their teens in spite of the enactment of laws that prohibit marriage before age 18 for women in these countries. 49

56 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Early marriage generally implies that young brides move into joint families where they have hardly any autonomy and decision-making role on most matters, including seeking health care in the event of an illness. Early marriage for women, when coupled with subordinate status within the household, implies that they have little or no control over their reproduction. Marriage for young girls results in premature sexual relations, pregnancy and entering motherhood even before they are physically and psychologically mature to shoulder such responsibility. A review of the literature on adolescent sexual and reproductive behaviour in India, for example, shows that adolescent mothers give birth to low birth weight babies, experience higher rates of infant and maternal mortality, a higher rate of obstetric morbidity and higher incidence of spontaneous abortion compared with women who have children when they are in their twenties (see Jejeebhoy, 1998). Fertility and contraceptive use As is evident from table 6, fertility has fallen in all the selected countries of the ESCAP region in the past 25 years. Fertility decline had started earlier than 1985 in China, the Democratic People s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea and Thailand so that by 1985, the total fertility rate (TFR) had come down to less than 2.7 children per woman. In China Table 6. Total fertility rate and contraceptive prevalence rate in selected ESCAP countries Country Total fertility rate for Contraceptive prevalence period around rate for period around Bangladesh China Democratic People s Republic of Korea n.a. India Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Malaysia n.a. 45 Nepal Pakistan Philippines Republic of Korea Sri Lanka Thailand Viet Nam Source: Population Reference Bureau, The World s Women and Girls 2011 Data Sheet. Washington D.C.,

57 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population and Thailand, this decline was partly in response to the countries strong family planning programmes. In Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, TFR hovered around 4 in 1985, indicating that the downward trend had already begun before that. Whereas in South Asia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the exception of Sri Lanka, TFR in the 1980s was more than 6 children per woman. Although comparatively late to start, fertility has started declining in these countries quite rapidly, as is evident from the fact that by 2010 TFR in India and the Islamic Republic of Iran had dropped below 3 from more than 6 barely 25 years previously. In Bangladesh TFR has also halved, from 5.1 to 2.4. Elsewhere, TFR has reached the below replacement level of 2.1, with the exception of the Philippines, where the decline has been rather slow, perhaps as a result of adherence to Catholic norms and practices. Fertility has declined in Pakistan, which was the last country to experience the declining trend, but with a TFR of 3.6 in 2010, Pakistan has the highest fertility among the 14 countries for which data are presented in table 6. Evidently fertility has fallen in response to several factors and in varying sociocultural settings. National family planning programmes, by making available various methods of contraception (including sterilization) to limit fertility, have been quite effective in some countries. The desire to have fewer children, however, is influenced by a range of factors. Urban living, increased levels of education among women and the influence of media in shaping values have been found to be significantly associated with the desire for smaller family size. Some qualitative studies have also shown that aspirations to provide children with a better quality of life compared with what their parents had has a strong influence on bearing fewer children. Economic factors also have played an important role in this regard. Parents in rural areas have realized that increasing fragmentation of land among several children, with sons generally inheriting land, makes the resulting small parcels of land unviable to meet the food needs of the family and therefore result in a desire for fewer children. One of the very strong factors associated with the decline in fertility is the drop in infant and child mortality. Vernon (2008) observed a very high positive correlation between fertility and infant mortality among the South Asian countries over the period of The coefficient of determination was close to Couples desire several children if they perceive that not all would survive. Once the decline in infant mortality is established, desire for a higher number of children diminishes. The contraceptive prevalence rate in 1985 was greater than 40 per cent in East and North-East Asia whereas in Bangladesh and India barely 1 in 3 women used any method of contraception and in Nepal and Pakistan only 1 in 10 used contraception. By 2010, the situation had improved 51

58 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 significantly throughout the region, with the exceptions of Pakistan and the Philippines. In the Philippines, the contraceptive prevalence rate increased from 48 per cent in 1985 to only 51 per cent in It is difficult to attribute one cause to this virtual stagnation in the use of contraception (Casterline and others, 1997). The unmet need for family planning was found to be quite high at about per cent; a major factor for unmet need was the differential power between women and their husbands on reproductive matters (Rosalia, 2011). Unmet need for family planning is estimated to be fairly high in India as well. In fact, it has been estimated that, if unmet need is met, TFR would be close to the replacement level of fertility in most regions of India, barring the North Indian states where TFR would fall from almost 4 to (IIPS, 2007). Most women today desire fewer children than their parents had. If affordable family planning services are available easily, regardless of their place of residence, religion or economic status, replacement or below replacement level fertility would almost certainly become the norm in most countries of the ESCAP region. Child health and maternal health In table 7 two time-point data on the infant mortality rate (IMR) and on the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) are presented for the selected Asian countries. As may be seen in the table, during the period /09, all countries made great progress in lowering IMR. Barely 20 years ago, almost 1 in 10 babies died before completing their first year of life in Bangladesh, Nepal and to a lesser extent in India. This rate has been halved, indicating that some of the national public health programmes along with improvement in health care have made a significant impact on reducing deaths among infants. Yet, compared with several countries in the region, their IMR continues to be quite high. In East and North-East Asia, IMR has reached a level that is quite close to what is observed in some of the developed countries. The relatively high IMR in South Asian countries is often attributed to the fact that many children are either pre-term or low weight babies and are therefore at greater risk of dying. Low birth weight children become susceptible to infections and often continue to grow underweight. According to some estimates, close to half of under-5 children in Bangladesh, India and Nepal are underweight, suggesting that they suffer from undernutrition or from malnutrition as well. A child s health is inextricably linked to that of the mother. A malnourished mother in her teens suffering from a high level of anemia is likely to produce a low birth weight child. In South Asia, as discussed previously, the proportion of women who are married while still very young, thus becoming mothers during their teens, and having little education, is significantly higher compared with that in the other countries. Young mothers have 52

59 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Table 7. Infant mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio in selected ESCAP countries Country Infant mortality rate Maternal mortality ratio Bangladesh China Democratic People s Republic of Korea n.a. n.a India Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Malaysia Nepal Pakistan Philippines Republic of Korea Sri Lanka Thailand Viet Nam Sources: Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific, 2011, Bangkok: ESCAP, 2011; and Trends in Maternal Mortality: : Estimate Developed by WHO,UNICEF, UNFPA and the World Bank. Geneva, World Health Organization, much less freedom or independence, and their less empowered status acts as a hindrance also in acquiring knowledge of health care and accessing that knowledge. Although not shown in the table, data from sample surveys carried out in many countries have convincingly shown that where IMR continues to be high, mortality during the post-neonatal phase is a worrisome phenomenon. Environmental factors, including sanitation and hygiene, as well as behavioural factors are associated with post-neonatal deaths among infants. On the other hand, neonatal mortality to a great extent reflects the health status of mothers. Mothers who have little or no control over resources within the household are at a higher risk of inadequate weight gain during pregnancy, having a high level anaemia, and when quite young in age and small in stature delivering pre-term babies, thus risking the life of both the child and themselves. The case is similar with regard to maternal mortality in the region. Although the maternal mortality ratio has been halved in most of the countries in two decades, it is still unacceptably high and above 250 per 100,000 women in Indonesia and in the countries of South Asia, except for Sri Lanka. In the Philippines the 2008 estimate of MMR was 94 per 100,000 or much higher than some of the other neighbouring countries. 53

60 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Compared with what has been observed in the other Asian countries, the South Asian MMRs are almost six to eight times higher. Such pronounced differentials between countries are clearly associated with the empowerment or autonomy women have in the various countries. A number of studies on causes of maternal mortality have shown that postpartum haemorrhage is one of the leading causes of death among mothers. Further, anaemia has been observed to be a very important contributing factor to increasing the risk of infection and leading to death. An effective family planning programme helps reduce both maternal and infant mortality. Effective use of contraception can lower the risk of pregnancy and need for abortion in cases of unwanted pregnancy. If the high-risk groups such as adolescents can access contraception, maternal mortality among them can be reduced. Births attended by skilled personnel To partly overcome this dual problem of preventing infant death and maternal mortality, it is often suggested that all women should receive comprehensive antenatal care during pregnancy. Further, a skilled person should be present during the process of childbirth, preferably in an institutional setting, where emergency obstetric care would be easily available in case an unanticipated complication arises during delivery. Table 8 shows that in the early 1990s 9 out of 10 women in Bangladesh and Nepal delivered their babies at home with the help of traditional birth attendants. In India and Pakistan, the percentage of women having access to a skilled provider was 32 and 19, respectively. During the same period in the 1990s, on the other hand, 9 out of 10 women in such countries as China, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand had access to a skilled provider during childbirth. Such a contrast between the subregions is quite stark and reflects the priority of the countries in making pregnancy and childbirth safe for women. In the intervening period and by the end of 2007/08, the situation in the South Asian countries had not improved significantly. Even now only one in five Nepalese women and one in four in Bangladesh deliver their babies with the help of a skilled provider. These countries are predominantly rural; skilled personnel are concentrated in urban areas, partly explaining the non-availability of skilled providers to rural women. The situation in India and Pakistan is somewhat better but in these two countries only 53 and 40 per cent of women respectively were reported to deliver their babies with the help of a skilled provider. It is the rural, illiterate and poor women who have limited or no access to a skilled provider. Clearly, the South Asian countries have a long way to go in order to ensure that women have access to good quality obstetric care in case any emergency develops during the process of childbirth or in the period immediately following the birth. 54

61 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Table 8. Percentage of births attended by skilled personnel in selected ESCAP countries Country Year Percentage Year Percentage of births of births attended attended by skilled by skilled providers providers Bangladesh China Democratic People s Republic of Korea India Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Malaysia Nepal Pakistan Philippines Republic of Korea Sri Lanka Thailand Viet Nam Source: World Health Organization and United Nations Children Fund, Building a Future for Women and Children: The 2012 Report. Geneva, Conclusion The major countries of the Asian and Pacific region typically fall into three categories on any population, health or development indicator. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore can be compared favourably with any European or North American developed country and are therefore not considered in this article. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam have made major strides in many of the empowerment and health and population indicators. In the third category are the countries in the South Asian subregion consisting of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, which still have some way to go to improve their population indicators, health status and women s status. The Islamic Republic of Iran is an interesting case where the population indicators have significantly improved in the last 20 years along with female literacy but women s participation in the labour force continues to be very low. In this article comparative data are presented for two time periods to examine the interrelation between population and women s empowerment among the major countries in the two latter categories. 55

62 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 The data presented do show that, compared with the preceding two decades, towards the end of the 2000s throughout the region women gained significantly in the economic and social spheres. Several countries in the region have reported increased female literacy and enrolment rates, improved gender equality in education, increased age at marriage, reduced fertility, a reduction in infant and child mortality rates, a decline in maternal mortality and expanded access to reproductive health services, including family planning. The participation of women in formal economic activities has also registered a noticeable improvement. In spite of these notable gains, the data also point to the fact that not all countries in the ESCAP region have made enough or equal progress in empowering women. In several countries, a significant proportion of young women, even today, do not receive education beyond the primary level to enable them to make decisions and enjoy freedom of mobility. Marriage at an early age along with gender inequity and preference for boys over girls continue to be practised in some countries, which hampers women s autonomy. These factors have adverse implications for women s health and that of their children. They prevent women from exercising their rights and choice in matters of childbearing, and use of contraceptives to achieve the number of children that they want or desire. One empowering factor that has not been discussed is women s representation in the political sphere, which is typically poor in most countries in the region and thus deprives women of the chance for their voices to be heard in the development process. The data presented here and some of the cross-sectional sample surveys carried out in several of these countries have established linkages between women s status or empowerment variables and population variables. Thus, it has been shown that women s education and employment influence their fertility. The inverse relationship between these variables has been found to be statistically significant in almost all the countries where this has been examined. At the same time, the studies have also demonstrated that low fertility has an empowering effect on women; it frees women from repeated childbearing, increases their chances of employment and enables them to take better care of their children and themselves. Further, while the relationship between education and fertility and employment and fertility is quite strong, the impact has been potent in the presence of other enabling factors, such as a strong family planning programme or easy access to contraceptives. It must be recognized that the relationship between empowerment of women and fertility and also infant and child mortality is a two-way process; each in some manner influences the other. However, at the national level it has not been easy to fully explore or understand the mechanisms that mediate this relationship. 56

63 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Endnotes 1 The literature on women s empowerment often uses the terms autonomy and empowerment synonymously. 2 In the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women (1985), the Jakarta Declaration for the Advancement of Women in Asia and the Pacific (1994) and the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action (1995), the goal of achieving the economic and social empowerment of women by every country is enshrined and discussed at length. 3 Using data from India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand, Mason and Smith (2000) noted that men in highly gender-stratified settings often control whether their wives would use contraception. However, when there is concordance between the spouses in the demand for children, contraceptive use increases. 4 In view of the fact that not all countries collect data on many of these variables during the same year, effort has been made to compile statistics around the same time period. 5 Bangladesh and India, among other countries, have conducted censuses during 2011, and the provisional count of their populations is available. However, for the sake of consistency, population estimates for 2010, prepared by ESCAP, are given in table 1. 57

64 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 References Abbasi-Shavazi, M. J., P. McDonald and M. Hosseini-Chavoshi (2009). The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction. New York, Springer. Asadullah, M. N. and N. Chaudhury (2008). Holy alliances: public subsidies, Islamic high schools, and female schooling in Bangladesh, in Girls Education in the 21 st Century: Gender Equality, Empowerment, and Economic Growth. L. Fort and M. Temborn eds. Washington D.C.: World Bank, pp Batliwala, S. (1994). Women s Empowerment in South Asia: Concepts and Practices. New Delhi: FAO and Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education. Casterline, J. B., A.E. Perez and A.N. Biddlecom (1997). Factors underlying unmet need for family planning in the Philippines, Studies in Family Planning, vol. 28, No. 3, pp Cleland, J.G. and J.K. van Ginneken (1988). Maternal education and child survival in developing countries: the search for pathways of influence, Social Science and Medicine, vol. 27, No. 12, pp Dyson, T. and M. Moore (1983). On kinship structure, female autonomy, and demographic behavior in India. Population and Development Review, vol. 9, No. 1, pp Jejeebhoy, S. (1995). Women s Education, Autonomy, and Reproductive Behaviour: Experience from Developing Countries. Oxford. Clerendon Press. (1998). Adolescent sexual and reproductive behavior: a review of the evidence from India. Social Science and Medicine, vol. 46, No. 10, pp and Z. Sathar (2001). Women s autonomy in India and Pakistan: the influence of religion and region. Population and Development Review, vol. 27, No. 4, pp Kabeer, N. (1999). Resources, agencies, achievements: reflections on the measurement of women s empowerment. Development and Change, vol. 30, No. 3, pp (2005). Gender equality and women s empowerment: a critical analysis of the third Millennium Development Goal. Gender and Development, vol. 13, No. 1, pp

65 Empowerment of Women and its Impact on Population Malhotra, A., S.R. Schuler and C. Boender (2002). Measuring women s empowerment as a variable in international development. Background paper prepared for the World Bank Workshop on Poverty and Gender: New Perspectives. Mason, K. O. and H. L. Smith (2000). Husbands versus wives fertility goals and use of contraception: the influence of gender context in five Asian countries. Demography, vol. 37, No. 3, pp Presser, H.B. and G. Sen (eds.) (2000). Women s Empowerment and Demographic Processes: Moving Beyond Cairo. New York: Oxford University Press. Ramachandran, V. (2002). Education and the Status of Women, Indian National Commission for Co-operation with UNESCO, Department of Education, MHRD, Government of India, pp (2009). Towards gender equality in education: Education For All Mid Decade Assessment. Available from Accessed on 4 June Sathar, Z.A. and S. Kazi (1997). Women s autonomy, livelihood and fertility: a study of rural Punjab. Islamabad, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. Shu, X. (2004). Education and gender egalitarianism: the case of China. Sociology of Education, vol. 77, No. 4, pp Subbarao, K. and L. Raney (1995). Social gains from female education: a cross-national study. Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 44, No. 1, pp United Nations (1994). Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5-13 September 1994 (Sales No. E95XIII.18). Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) (1999). Empowerment of women in Asia and the Pacific, Note by the secretariat presented at the fifty-fifth session of the Commission on emerging issues and developments at the regional level: socio-economic measures to alleviate poverty in rural and urban areas, April, Bangkok. Vernon, J. (2008). The demography of South Asia from the 1950s to the 2000s: a summary of changes and a statistical assessment. Population (English edition), vol. 63, No. 1, pp

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67 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia The youth population of Asia is in the midst of a remarkable transformation with enormous implications for the future of the region. Rapid population growth of the youth population is beginning to ease and to decline in China and other low fertility Asian countries. An increase in spending on human capital has accompanied the decline in fertility rates, however, so that incoming cohorts of youth will be smaller but much more educated than in the past. The rise in education and other factors have influenced the transition into adulthood for youth. They are staying longer in school and entering the labour force at a later age supported by a combination of public and private transfers. A willingness to invest in youth has been an essential element in realizing the benefits of the demographic dividend in Asia. By Andrew Mason and Sang-Hyop Lee* Growth in Asia s youth population, defined as those in the age group, has been quite remarkable in recent decades. The youth population peaked at just over 750 million in 2010, according to the most recent estimates (United Nations, 2011). This represents nearly a threefold increase from 1950, when the youth population slightly exceeded 260 million. Why did this happen? How have youth and the rest of society been affected by this unprecedented change? The source of this growth is widely understood by population experts. In the 1950s and 1960s, infant and child mortality rates declined substantially so that a larger share of every birth cohort was surviving to adulthood. As these larger cohorts entered the reproductive ages, they produced even larger cohorts of children who, as they grew older, * Andrew Mason ( amason@hawaii.edu); and Sang-Hyop Lee ( leesang@ hawaii.edu; both in the Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa and East-West Center. 61

68 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 increased the size of youth cohorts. Fertility decline put an end to this period of rapid growth in the child and youth populations. At first the youth population grew more slowly, and now it is actually beginning to decline as fertility rates have dropped below the replacement level about two births per woman in many Asian countries. The United Nations medium-fertility scenario for Asia projects that the youth population will be about 600 million in 2060, a 20 per cent decline from its current level. The rise in the youth population was nearly a universal phenomenon in Asia. Even the youth population in Japan increased by about 25 per cent between 1950 and the mid-1960s before it began to decline. Regionwide trends, however, conceal important diversity. Figure 1 was constructed to highlight Asia s two giants, China and India. The youth population of China peaked in 1990 at 250 million and is projected to drop to under 120 million by 2060 less than half of its peak value. India continued to experience significant growth in youth population after 1990 when its youth population was smaller than that of China by 70 million. Now about 15 million more youth live in India than in China. The gap is expected to increase to almost 100 million by 2060 because the decline in the youth population in India is projected to be much more modest than in China. Figure 1. Population aged 15-24, China, India and the rest of Asia: Population (thousands) Year China India Rest of Asia Source: World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. Available from un.org/unpd/wpp/index.htm. 62

69 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia The youth population for the rest of Asia runs more or less parallel to the youth population of India, although there is considerable diversity within the rest of the Asia group. East Asian countries and some South- East Asia populations, such as Thailand, are experiencing substantial declines in their youth populations. Against this backdrop of rapid and diverse growth in youth populations, we want to discuss three features of the lives of youth: schooling, employment and economic dependency. These three features are critical to understanding the role of youth in current and future economic change. Then we consider the role of youth in the demographic dividend and how policies towards youth may influence the success with which countries can capitalize on the demographic dividend. The discussion draws on standard sources of information but also newly developed National Transfer Account estimates of labour income, public and private transfers and other economic flows to youth (Lee and Mason, 2011). Education One of the most important trends that has affected youth in Asia is the rapid increase in school enrolment and human capital investment. This has meant delayed entry into the labour force for Asia s youth, as discussed in the next section. It has also meant that when youth enter the labour force they are healthier and much better educated than preceding generations. Increased human capital benefited those who received it and also led to more rapid economic growth in those countries which invested more in their youth. The extent of human capital investment has varied around the region, however, with very substantial increases concentrated in East Asia and several South-East Asian countries. In other parts of Asia, though, human capital investment has lagged. A widely used measure of schooling, the enrolment ratio, provides clear indications about the differences and trends in schooling. In most of Asia, primary school enrolment is very high, but secondary enrolment ratios capture important regional differences in schooling (table 1). Two measures are reported. The gross enrolment ratio is the total number of students divided by the population in the age group targeted by that schooling level. The net enrolment ratio excludes students who are younger or older than the targeted age groups from the numerator. The gross enrolment ratio exceeds the net enrolment ratio depending primarily on the extent of delayed enrolment and grade repetition. There are very strong regional differences, with secondary school enrolment being much higher in high income East and South-East Asia than in low income South Asia. In Japan and the Republic of Korea, secondary schooling is nearly universal. In India and the rest of South Asia, only about half of all secondary school-age children are enrolled. Of 63

70 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 1. Gross and net enrolment rate in 2009, secondary school, Asia, by subregion and in selected Asian countries Subregion/ Gross enrolment rate Net enrolment rate country Combined Male Female Combined Male Female East and South- East Asia Developing East and South-East Asia South Asia China a India (2008) a Indonesia Japan Philippines (2008) Republic of Korea Thailand Source: World Development Indicators Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Recalculated based on UNESCO Institute for Statistics database. a The net enrolment ratios for China and India are estimated based on regional averages that the gross enrolment ratio exceeds the net enrolment ratio by 9.7 per cent for East Asia and South-East Asia and by 13.6 per cent for South Asia. every 10 children of secondary school age, about 6 are enrolled in secondary school in the Philippines and about 7 are enrolled in China, Indonesia and Thailand. Gender differences are quite varied around the region. In South Asia boys are more likely to be enrolled in secondary school than girls. In the two South-East Asian countries (the Philippines and Thailand) and in China girls are more likely to be enrolled in secondary school than are boys. In Japan and the Republic of Korea the gender differences at the secondary level are small. In many respects, tertiary school enrolment ratio patterns are similar to those for secondary school enrolment ratios (table 2). Only the gross enrolment ratios are available and it should be kept in mind that the net ratios are often much lower than gross enrolment ratios at the tertiary level. The tertiary enrolment ratios are much lower is South Asia than in East and South-East Asia. They are very high in Japan and particularly in the Republic of Korea. Again, the pattern of gender disparity is similar to that for secondary schooling. Young women have lower tertiary enrolment ratios in India and higher tertiary enrolment ratios than young men in the Philippines and Thailand. In Japan and the Republic of Korea, the educational advantage of males over females is somewhat greater at the tertiary than the secondary level. 64

71 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia Table 2. Gross enrolment rate in 1999 and 2009, tertiary education, Asia, by region and in selected Asian countries Circa 1999 Circa 2009 Adolescent fertility Combined Male Female Combined Male Female rate (2009) East and South-East Asia Developing East and South-East Asia South Asia (1999 & 2008) China 6.6 n.a n.a India (2000, 2007) Indonesia (2001, 2009) Japan Philippines (1999 & 2008) Republic of Korea Thailand Source: World Development Indicators Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Recalculated based on UNESCO Institute for Statistics database. Enormous growth in the tertiary schooling enrolment has occurred in some countries. China still had a relatively low tertiary enrolment ratio, at 25 per cent, in 2009 but the ratio more than tripled between 1999 and Progress in Indonesia has been rapid, and the experience of the Republic of Korea is particularly interesting. A tertiary enrolment rate of 100 per cent in the Republic of Korea is perhaps unique in the world and it reflects a tenfold increase since This rapid growth can be explained by substantial increases in both the demand for and supply of post-secondary education. Schooling requires the time of those who are enrolled and, thus, competes with other important activities, such as childbearing and work. Below we will explore the labour force changes that have accompanied changes in schooling, but here we briefly point to the important differences in childbearing by young women. The last column of table 2 shows the adolescent fertility rate, the number of births per 1,000 women aged For the seven countries shown, the correlation between the tertiary enrolment ratio and the adolescent fertility rate is The exact causal mechanisms are unclear, but increased schooling clearly accompanies lower fertility. 65

72 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Human capital and fertility An important and well-established idea that developed from the economic theory of fertility is the trade-off between the quantity and quality of children (Becker, 1960; Becker and Lewis, 1973; Willis, 1973). The basic idea is that, as economies develop and incomes rise, parents will choose to spend more on each child, resulting in a higher cost or price of children. As children become more expensive, parents choose to have fewer of them. Many other forces are surely at work in such situations. Economic development and structural change, improvements in mortality, increased competition in a globalized world and many other factors may lead to increased investment in children. Likewise, fertility decline may be partly a consequence of the higher cost of children, but also a consequence of the changing roles of women, urbanization, the development of alternative systems of support, improvements in contraceptives and reproductive health services and so forth. The exact causal mechanisms that have led to a reduction in fertility, slower growth in youth populations and greater investment in human capital are difficult to identify, but the close empirical relationship between fertility and human capital spending are clear in comparisons across countries and in time series estimates for Asia. To show this we relied on estimates of spending on education and health per child relying on National Transfer Account (NTA) data, applying methods first used in Lee and Mason (2010). For each country we constructed a synthetic cohort measure by summing per capita spending by single years of age for ages 0 to 26 for education and for ages 0 to 17 for health. The low cut-off age for health spending is used to insure that spending related to childbearing is not counted as human capital spending on the mother. To facilitate comparison across countries all values are expressed relative to the average annual labour income of a prime age adult years. The value tells us the number of years a prime age adult would have to work to provide the human capital spending required by a child during the childhood years given prevailing cross-sectional patterns. Consumption and health-care spending are measured in a comprehensive fashion and include both public and private health-care spending on children. The trade-off between the number of children and spending on human capital is documented in figure 2 by plotting lifetime human capital spending per child against the total fertility rate (TFR) using estimates for 23 countries in a recent year for which NTA estimates are available. These estimates are updates of values reported in Mason and Lee (2011). The strong trade-off between fertility and human capital spending is very evident in the cross-section. In the high fertility countries, those with a TFR in excess of 5 births per woman, the lifetime human capital investment per child is equal to about 100 to 200 per cent of a year s 66

73 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia Figure 2. Human capital spending per child (synthetic cohort estimates) versus the total fertility rate Human capital (percentage of annual labour income (30-49)) Total fertility rate Africa East Asia South and South-East Asia Latin America Europe and USA Human Capital Predicted Note: The data are for 23 countries in a recent year for which National Transfer Account estimates are available. Asian economies for which estimates are available are China;, India; Indonesia; Japan; Philippines; Republic of Korea; Taiwan Province of China; and Thailand. worth of prime age adult labour income. In low fertility countries, the lifetime human capital spending per child ranges from a low of more than 300 per cent up to almost 600 per cent of a year s worth of prime age adult labour income. The trade-off between fertility and human capital spending is summarized by the elasticity or the percentage change in human capital spending with respect to the percentage change in fertility. In the cross-sectional data the estimated elasticity is -0.71; in other words, a 1 per cent decrease in fertility is accompanied by a 0.71 per cent increase in human capital spending per child. Human capital spending in Asia is broadly consistent with the pattern in other regions of the world, but the trade-off appears to be somewhat stronger in Asia. Estimates are available for three Asian countries with TFRs in the 2-4 range. Of these, India and Indonesia have human capital spending somewhat below the regression line, while the Philippines lies just above the regression line. Among the five Asian economies with below replacement fertility, Japan and Taiwan Province of China stand out with their very high spending on human capital. Human capital spending in China is somewhat below the regression line. Human capital spending in the Republic of Korea and Thailand are quite close to the regression line representing the trade-off between fertility and spending. 67

74 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Times series estimates are available for Japan at five-year intervals from 1984 to 2004 and Taiwan Province of China annually from 1981 to 2003, as shown in figure 3 (Ogawa and others, 2009). In this figure the natural log of TFR and human capital are graphed with separate regression lines for Japan (dashed line) and Taiwan Province of China (solid line). There is clearly a very strong trade-off between human capital and fertility in the time series data. The estimated elasticity is -1.9 for Taiwan Province of China and -1.6 for Japan, significantly greater, in absolute value, than in the cross-sectional relationship. At least for these two economies, there is strong support for the pattern observed in crosssectional data. The implication is clear. Fewer youth will be entering the workforce in the future because of fertility decline, but they will benefit from much greater human capital investment. Figure 3. Human capital spending and the total fertility rate for Japan ( ) and Taiwan Province of China ( ) ln (human capital spending) ln (Total fertility rate) Japan Taiwan Province of China Source: N. Ogawa and others (2009). Declining fertiity and rising cost of children: what can NTA say about low fertiity in Japan and other Asian countries? Asian Population Studies, vol. 5, No. 3, pp Youth and work One of the most important defining characteristics of youth is their involvement in work life. Work competes with schooling for the time of the young. Hence, in more developed Asian countries with higher levels of school enrolment, youth employment should be reduced. The extent to which youth are working is not determined exclusively by school enrolment, however. Attitudes towards gender, age at marriage 68

75 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia and rates of childbearing, and market conditions also have an important bearing on youth employment. In table 3 important measures of work for youth, labour force participation, employment and unemployment in 2009 (except as noted) are compared by subregion and for selected countries. The labour force participation and employment patterns for males are broadly consistent with enrolment rates reported above. Young men in East and South- East Asia are less likely to be in the labour force and less likely to be employed than young men in South Asia. Young Korean males have particularly low rates of employment and labour force participation in keeping with their very high enrolment rates. Young Chinese stand out for have relatively high rates of employment in comparison with their rates of school enrolment. The contrast with India is striking both combined employment rates and enrolment rates are higher for young men in China. The employment patterns for young women are more varied and less clearly related to enrolment patterns. In East Asia, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, the employment rates of young women are close to Table 3. Labour force, employment and unemployment rates for young people aged in 2009 in Asia and selected countries Labour force Employment to Unemployment participation population rate Male Female Male Female Male Female East and South- East Asia Developing East and South-East Asia South Asia China India Indonesia Japan Philippines Republic of Korea Thailand Source: World Development Indicators, Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Note: The employment rate is the number of persons years of age employed divided by the population The unemployment rate is the number in the labour force but not employed divided by the labour force. The labour force participation rate is equal to the employment rate times 1 minus the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate for India was obtained using 2005 data. 69

76 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 or exceed those of young men, while in South and South-East Asia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, young women are much less likely to be employed than young men. The transition from school to work is often difficult because of the lack of strong employment creation in many countries and because of several youth-specific factors. These factors include the growing numbers of new entrants into the labour force, market and policy failures that disproportionately affect youth and the lack of skills required to match the changing nature of labour demand. A high youth unemployment rate is a major concern to many Governments, in large part because youth are more vulnerable to economic shocks and the level of youth unemployment is much higher than that of adults. The table shows that about 16 to 23 per cent of the youth work force is unemployed in Indonesia and the Philippines. High youth unemployment rates are not found in Japan and Thailand, however, while the rates in India and the Republic of Korea are intermediate. Unemployment rates should be interpreted with caution for many reasons, however. Youth employment often takes the form of part-time, temporary, or unpaid household work; hence, estimates based on surveys may substantially underestimate the true rate of unemployment. A close investigation of the labour market for Asian youth might also reveal important market segmentation by urban and rural residence and by education, a result of market and policy failures reducing youth flows between different segments of the labour market. Patterns of youth employment are very dynamic; they have changed very substantially in the past few decades and may change even more in the future. Figure 4 shows labour force activity rates for males and females and years of age in seven Asian countries, primarily relying on the International Labour Organization s 2010 revision of economically active population estimates and projections for the period of The most prominent feature of the trend is that young men and women are delaying their entry into the labour market to a much greater extent than in the past they are in school longer and in the workforce less. There are important differences in timing and magnitudes when we look at individual countries. The Republic of Korea, for example, is much further along in its transition away from high levels of youth employment, while in Indonesia and the Philippines the trends for the youth labour force are much less clear, although employment rates for young men aged in Indonesia increased after the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98. The contribution of youth through their work depends both on their rates of employment and their rates of productivity. Delaying entry to the workforce and staying longer in school should lead to lower labour 70

77 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia Figure 4. Activity rates of men and women aged and 20-24, in selected Asian countries 100 Female LFPR (%) China India Indonesia Japan Philippines Republic of Korea Thailand 100 Female LFPR (%) China India Indonesia Japan Philippines Republic of Korea Thailand Source: Economically Active Population: ILO Estimates and Projection of the (fifth edition). Geneva: International Labour Organization,

78 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 income during the early years and higher labour income in later years. We see some evidence of this in the labour income patterns in Asia, but it is also a very mixed picture (table 4). The Republic of Korea and Taiwan Province of China stand out as having a high school-enrolment level and low labour force participation. This leads to low labour income for those who are years old, but relatively high labour income per person and quite high labour income per labour force participant for those years old. In comparison, the South and South-East Asian countries have lower schooling, higher school enrolment and lower income per labour force participant in the age group. Table 4. Labour income for youth as a percentage of labour income for year olds, eight Asian economies Labour Labour force income per Labour income participation labour force per person rates participant East Asia China (2002) Japan (2004) Republic of Korea (2000) Taiwan Province of China(1998) South and South-East Asia India (2004) Indonesia (2005) Philippines (1999) Thailand (2004) Source: NTA database Accessed on 3 November, Neither China nor Japan fit this pattern, however. Labour income per labour force participant at ages is much lower in both countries than in the other Asian economies for which estimates are available. In the case of China this probably reflects low human capital investment, but not in case of Japan. There are many structural issues in Japan that have affected employment and labour income of young adults there. Economic transition for youth One of the defining features for youth is economic dependency on families and on the public sector. The process of becoming economically 72

79 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia independent is multidimensional, gradual and for individuals subject to fits and starts. The average patterns, however, are quite regular, as illustrated by estimates for Taiwan Province of China in 1998 (figure 5). These are cross-sectional rather than cohort estimates, so they are only suggestive about the actual transitions that occur for any cohort of youth. In the cross-section, it may be seen that average labour income rises from essentially zero at age 15 to almost 95 per cent of the average Figure 5. Economic transition to adulthood: per capita consumption, labour income and age reallocations for youth aged 15-29, Taiwan Province of China, Consumption Labour income Public transfers Private transfers Asset-based reallocations Source: Note: All values are expressed relative to the mean of per capita labour income of adults years of age. 73

80 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 labour income earned by adults years old in that year. Consumption over the age range was quite stable in Taiwan Province of China and very high at about 75 per cent of the average labour income of a prime age worker. After age 21 consumption declined modestly as education spending dropped. Those 24 years and older were producing more through their labour than they were consuming, and by this measure could be described as financially independent on average. The transition to economic independence can also be addressed by considering the economic mechanisms on which youth rely to satisfy material needs in excess of what they are providing through their own labour. Three mutually exclusive, exhaustive possibilities are plotted in figure 5: net public transfers, net private transfers and asset-based reallocations. Net public transfers consist of the value of cash and in-kind public transfers received less taxes paid. A very broad definition of public transfers is used that includes public cash transfers and all public consumption. Net private transfers include inter-household transfers to and from household heads at each age, but these amounts are relatively small in almost all societies. The important part of net private transfers is intra-household transfers from parents and grandparents to their co-resident children. The final economic mechanism for funding consumption in excess of labour income is asset-based reallocations defined as asset income less savings. Asset-based reallocations are typically trivial at young ages, but may become more important as children become adults. Young adults may accumulate debt (credit cards or student loans) or rely on assets that they have received early in their adult life at the time of marriage or as a bequest, for example. For dependent youth in Taiwan Province of China those younger than 24 years of age net private transfers were much more important than net public transfers at all ages. Asset-based reallocations were unimportant. Taiwan Province of China is unusual in that net public transfers and net private transfers both dropped to zero at about age 24. Net public transfers turned slightly negative at that age, while net private transfers were zero at age 24 and turned negative at age 25. After age 25, young adults in Taiwan Province of China were making net private transfers and net public transfers to others and they were relying to some extent on assets to fund their own consumption and the support they were providing to others. Young adults in Taiwan Province of China were not going into debt, however. They were saving but relying on private asset income in excess of private savings. Looked at from a variety of perspectives, then, those in their late twenties in Taiwan Pro vince of China were financially independent on average. They earned more than they consumed, they paid more in taxes than they received in benefits and they provided more to their family members than they received. Several features of the transition in economic dependency observed in Taiwan Province of China are common to all or nearly all Asian economies for which estimates are available (table 5). The first is that in every 74

81 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia Table 5. Economic measures of the transition from dependency, selected Asian economies Asset-based Cross-over age Net public transfers Net private transfers reallocations Lifecycle Public Private transfers transfers East Asia China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Taiwan Province of China South and South-East Asia India, Indonesia, Philippines, < Thailand, <0.01 < Source: Notes: Cross-over age is the age that corresponds to the value closest to zero. Age reallocations are expressed relative to per capita labour income of persons Values for each five-year age group are simple averages of single-year per capita values. 75

82 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 country, except China, labour income did not equal consumption until age 24 or older. Economic independence is not achieved until relatively late even in countries where school enrolment rates are low and labour force participation rates are high at young ages. Second, with the exception of Taiwan Province of China, net public transfers reached zero at an earlier age, ranging from 19 to 22, than net private transfers, ranging from 26 to 29. Third, in every economy net private transfers were a much more important source of support than net public transfers for those in their late teens and early twenties. Fourth, in none of the economies were asset-based reallocations an important source for funding the gap between consumption and labour income for youth. The largest net inflow is for Japanese in the age group. Their asset-based inflows amounted to 4 per cent of the labour income of a prime age adult. The timing of the transition to economic independence does not appear to be closely related to the level of development. The cross-over ages in the lower income countries of South and South-East Asia are often greater than the cross-over ages in the higher income economies of East Asia. Among the measures of economic dependency, net public transfers appear to be most closely related to development. In particular, those in their late teens in Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan Province of China and Thailand received greater net public transfers than they did in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. This pattern is closely related to the high levels of public spending on human capital in the low fertility economies noted above. Youth and the demographic dividend One of the most widely noted features of demographic change is the demographic dividend. Asia is frequently cited as having been successful at capturing the demographic dividend. The evidence presented above suggests several reasons why some Asian countries might have been particularly successful high rates of investment in human capital, relatively low rates of youth unemployment and high rates of employment among young women, in part because they delayed marriage and childbearing. The demographic dividend is defined in different ways by different scholars but the central idea is that rapid growth in the share of the population in the working ages has led to more rapid economic growth. This idea is represented by a simple identity. If total income is designated by Y, population by N, and labour by L, then: Y Y L. (0.1) N L N 76

83 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia Per capita income is equal to the product of income per worker (Y/L) and the share of the population that is working (L/N). The dividend can be represented in growth terms by: gr[ YN] gr[ YL] gr[ LN] (0.2) where gr[z] indicates the growth rate of the argument z. The support ratio L/N can be measured in different ways but our preference is to capture observed age-variation in labour force participation rates, unemployment rates, hours worked and productivity in the measure of L, the effective labour force. Likewise, we measure the effective number of consumers N by incorporating age variation in consumption that reflects differences in physiological needs, tastes, institutions and other factors. In our formulation the support ratio is given by: L N x 0 x 0 y ( x,0) Pxt (, ) l cx (,0) Pxt (, ) (0.3) where y, (x, 0) is per capita labour income at age x in base year 0, c(x,0) is per capita consumption at age x in a base year 0 and P(x,t) is the population age x in year t. 1 The support ratio has been analysed and discussed fairly extensively elsewhere and is not repeated here. To give an idea of the magnitude and timing of the support ratio, however, table 6 summarizes recent calculations of the support ratio for 10 major Asian countries during the first dividend phase or the phase during which the support ratio is rising. Estimates for all Asia-Pacific countries are available from Mason and Lee (2011). The key point is that the rise in the support ratio has provided a significant assist to economic growth throughout Asia in the last quarter of a century or more. For countries in East Asia, the first dividend phase is coming to an end (China) or has already ended (Japan, Republic of Korea and Thailand). A recurring and important theme in the literature is that the demographic dividend is not automatic and favourable changes in population age structure do not guarantee more rapid economic growth. A frequent point is that rapid growth in the support ratio is advantageous only if sufficient employment opportunities are available to successfully absorb new workers into the economy. Rapid growth in the support ratio and rapid growth in the number of labour force entrants are not equivalent concepts. This is clearly true in a mechanical sense: the support ratio rises because the total number of 77

84 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 6. Growth in the support ratio during first dividend phase, selected countries Minimum Maximum Total Annual Support Year Support Year Span gain gain ratio ratio (%) (%) Bangladesh China India Indonesia Japan Pakistan Philippines Republic of Korea Thailand Viet Nam Source: Mason and S.-H. Lee (2011). workers is rising, not just the number of young workers, or because the total number of non-workers is declining, or some combination of the two. Over the demographic transition, growth in the working age population and decline in the child population are both playing an important role in producing the first demographic dividend. To drive home the point that growth in the support ratio has an ambiguous connection to growth in the youth population, we have plotted the growth rates of the two series for 1950 to 2050 for China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, the Republic of Korea and Thailand (figure 6). There appears to be no contemporaneous relationship between the two series. The simple correlation is only Looking at countries one by one does not alter the basic conclusion that rapid growth in the support ratio is not related in simple fashion to growth in the youth population. This seems like a puzzling finding, but a more intensive examination sheds some light. Figure 7 plots the growth of the support ratio against the growth in the youth population for India from 1950 to The dividend period for India is marked by growth in the support ratio and occurs between 1973 and The dividend period is preceded by a period during which the youth population is growing at a particularly high rate. In India, the annual growth in the youth population exceeded 4 per cent in the late 1960s and then began a relatively steady decline. When the first dividend hit its peak, the youth population was growing at a relatively modest pace. 78

85 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia Figure 6. Demographic dividend and the youth population in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Republic of Korea and Thailand: Support ratio, annual growth rate y = x R 2 = Youth population, annual growth rate Figure 7. Growth in the support ratio and the youth population, India: Support ratio, annual growth rate Youth population, annual growth rate Source: Calculations by authors. 79

86 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 The detailed pattern varies from country to country, but in general an acceleration can be seen in the youth population before the demographic dividend occurs and then steady and sometimes rapid deceleration in growth in the youth population during the dividend period. Concluding remarks What lessons are to be drawn from this analysis? From a policy perspective the relationship between the growth of youth and the support ratio implies that the greatest need for addressing the key economic issues of youth occurs before the demographic dividend begins to have an impact. Improving educational systems, labour markets and employment opportunities is a pre-condition for realizing the demographic dividend. Many researchers have emphasized the importance of human capital to economic progress (Romer 1989; Mankiw, Romer and Weil, 1992; Barro, 2001). The Asian miracle is based on a combination of factors, particularly the high savings rate interacting with high levels of human capital accumulation... (Stiglitz, 1996). An abundance of well-educated people goes along with a high level of labour productivity because it implies larger numbers of more skilled workers and greater ability to absorb advanced technology. The decisions made on education and health during youth has enormous consequences for their own future prospects as well as for the economy. Early entry into the labour market might limit some Asian youth from accumulating the human capital they need in order to get good jobs. However, high levels of schooling do not guarantee economic success. Jobs must be available that match the skills of a more educated workforce. The difficulties youth face in making the transition to the workforce may mean that the potential benefits from earlier investments are not fully realized. Broadening job opportunities is a key for success in increasing employment for everyone and benefiting youth in particular. 80

87 Youth and Their Changing Economic Roles in Asia Endnotes 1 The labour income and consumption weights are normalized by dividing by mean labour income of those aged Consumption of those in that age group is then scaled to equal 0.6 times labour income for those years old. Thus, the support ratio does not reflect differences between countries in the levels of consumption and labour income profiles at the prime working ages. 2 Values in table 6 are slightly different because the table values are based on average consumption and average labour income profiles for Asian developing countries while the values in figure 6 are based on the profiles of India. 81

88 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 References Barro, R.J. (2001). Human capital and growth. American Economic Review, vol. 91, No. 2, pp Becker, G. (1960). An economic analysis of fertility. In Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp and H.G. Lewis (1973). On the interaction between the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 81, No. 2, pp Lee, R. and A. Mason (2010). Fertility, human capital, and economic growth over the demographic transition. European Journal of Population, vol. 26, No. 2, pp (principal authors and editors ) (2011). Population Aging and the Generational Economy: A Global Perspective. Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar. Mankiw, N.G., D. Romer and D.N. Weil (1992). A contribution to the empirics of economic growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 107, No. 2, pp Mason, A. and R. Lee (2011). Population aging and the generational economy: key findings. In Population Aging and the Generational Economy: A Global Perspective. R. Lee and A. Mason, eds., Cheltenham, United Kingdom and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp and S.H. Lee (2011). Population, wealth, and economic growth in Asia and Pacific region. Asian Development Bank Working Papers, No Ogawa, N. and others (2009). Declining fertility and the rising cost of the children: what can NTA say about low fertility in Japan and other Asian countries? Asian Population Studies, vol. 5, No. 3, pp Romer, P.M. (1989). Human capital and growth: theory and evidence. NBER Working Paper Series No Stiglitz, J.E. (1996). Some lessons from the East Asian miracle. The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 11, No. 2, pp Willis, R. J. (1973). A new approach to the economic theory of fertility behavior. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 81, No. 2 (Part 2), pp. S14-S64. 82

89 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia Throughout Asia, family change is occurring, although trends vary significantly between subregions and countries. In most cases common elements are rising levels of female education and labour force participation, reductions in gender-based divisions of labour, fertility decline (partly due to postponement of marriage) and increasing rates of divorce. Families are generally growing smaller. The average age at marriage is rising for both males and females throughout Asia, although from a base that varies greatly. Ageing of populations is a nearly universal trend and, although the proportions of older persons living with a child or grandchild are much higher than in the West, they are tending to decline. The relative roles of family, community and State in supporting the older persons is one of the key issues for the future. By Gavin Jones* The Asian and Pacific region is very large, and even if discussion is restricted to the subregions of East, South-East and South Asia, as it will be in this article, we are talking about 56 per cent of the world s population. Family change is occurring rapidly throughout Asia, though trends differ greatly between subregions and countries. Common elements in most cases are rising levels of female education and labour force participation, decline in gender-based division of labour, fertility decline (partly resulting from postponement of marriage) and rising rates of divorce. Cohabitation is increasing in some East Asian countries, though clear evidence is lacking for most countries. Both rising levels of education and economic (and advertising) pressures to maintain or increase consumption worked to propel women into the labour force. Ideological changes have led to increased demands for equality in the market-place and in the home. Improved contraception has both loosened the tight connection between sexual gratification and marriage and enabled married women to postpone childbearing. * Director, JY Pillay Comparative Asia Research Centre, c/o Global Asia Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Gavin Jones<arigwj@nus.edu.sg>. 83

90 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Asian family structures Family structures differ markedly between Asian countries, but is it possible to detect general patterns in the three major subregions of East, South-East and South Asia. Rigidly patrilineal kinship systems characterize northwest China, India and the Republic of Korea, with patrilocal residence. In such systems, daughters were effectively lost to their parents when they married (Das Gupta, 2010, p. 128), and women had no role as sister and daughter, but only as wife and mother. In the Indian system, husbands and wives should not be too emotionally attached, as this could threaten the unity of the patriarchal family (Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell, 1982). The South-East Asian subregion (except northern Viet Nam, which is strongly influenced by the Confucianist tradition) is characterized by bilateral kinship systems. This system in South-East Asia provides for flexibility in post-marital residence, and continuing close relations between a woman and her natal family. It also makes for a desire for children of both sexes; it is noteworthy that the only South- East Asian country that suffers from distorted sex ratios at birth due to misuse of prenatal diagnostic techniques for non-medical purposes is Viet Nam, which is the one country in South-East Asia where much of the population does not follow a bilateral kinship system (Jones, 2009: 13; Guilmoto, 2012). South-East Asian kinship systems also facilitate the option of divorce if a marriage turns out to be unsatisfactory. South Asian marriage systems have turned out to be remarkably enduring. While the location of most marriages in East and South-East Asia on the continuum from parent-arranged to self-arranged marriage has shifted decisively towards the self-arranged end, very little such change has occurred in South Asia, as will be made clear below. Smaller families The size and composition of households is a dynamic process, changing over the life cycle as children are born, grow up and leave the family. Migration affects household composition, as does the decreasing prevalence of extended family forms where these were once more prominent. Smaller nuclear families do not necessarily mean fewer family relationships, since South-East Asian families tend to be (in the words of Castillo (1979), referring to the Filipino household) residentially nuclear but functionally extended. Household composition, then, is not the same as family composition. Absent members are not necessarily uninvolved in family matters, especially in this age of the ubiquitous cell phone. Indeed, maintenance of the role of absent members, including those who live overseas for lengthy periods, both in household functioning and decision-making is increasingly observed and accepted as part of the reality of a globalizing world with mobile populations (see, for example, Douglass, 2011; Parrenas, 2008). 84

91 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia Whether we focus on the residential household or the family, however, the declines in fertility that have taken place in almost all Asian countries clearly make for smaller family size. Even in the case of Indonesia, where fertility is still slightly above replacement level, the declining size of households over time is quite clear (Jones, 2002, pp ). In Thailand, average household size declined from 5.8 in 1970 to 4.6 in 1990, and was expected to continue falling steadily to 3.3 in Extended family contacts will, of course, widen the network of interaction, but not to anything like the extent in the past, when an average individual in Thailand had 5 siblings, 6 children, 30 nieces and nephews, 10 uncles and aunts, 60 first cousins, 120 first cousins of his parents and 720 second cousins (Mason, Phananiramai and Poapongsakorn, 1993, p. 70). Along with smaller families go many changes in familial relationships. For example, extended education and delayed marriage are leading to later home leaving and in general a delay in reaching the milestones that signify adulthood and independence (Xenos and others, 2006). Many issues have to be negotiated between parents and children in this evolving context. Declining fertility and greater longevity are also leading to rising proportions of older persons in almost all Asian populations, although the share of the older persons varies widely, as will be discussed below. Family sizes of children Fertility in South and South-East Asian countries, with the exception of Singapore and Thailand, is still well above that in East Asian countries, which have an average TFR of just over one child per woman. However, fertility rates are still trending downwards in South and South-East Asia, so even for these countries, the implications of very low fertility are worth considering. In countries where fertility has fallen to really low levels TFR below 1.5 half of all women have at most one child (Le Bras, 1979). Does this mean that most children are growing up as only-children? Not necessarily. For one thing, children are born to a cohort of women whose average number of children is currently higher than suggested by the cross-sectional snapshot provided by period fertility rates. This aside, many women are not marrying at all and not only in East Asia. The proportion of women not marrying before reaching the end of their reproductive period is now about 15 per cent in Myanmar and Singapore, above 10 per cent in Japan and Thailand, and considerably higher than this for the tertiary educated. Moreover, some of those who marry are not having children. Although an increasing proportion of adults are remaining childless, it is important to bear in mind that no children grow up in no-children families. Among women who have children, many are having just one, but many others are having two or more. Taking into account childless women, this can still average out at just above one child per woman. As Preston (1976, p. 105) and Le Bras (1979) noted, women with large families contribute disproportionately to the average family size of children. 85

92 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 There are other aspects of delayed marriage to keep in mind. One has to do with the maturity of the marriage partners. Five decades ago, when half of Malay girls in Malaysia were married before they reached age 17, they were unlikely to be emotionally mature at the time they married. However to some extent that did not matter, as co-residence with one or other set of parents most commonly the bride s parents meant a period of apprenticeship into many aspects of married life. Now many are marrying as late as their thirties, and women as a whole are typically bearing their first child at an age that is four or five years older than had been the case in their mothers generation, and some of them are having their first (and sometimes only) child in their mid to late thirties. There are a number of possible implications. Women may be psychologically more mature when they are bearing their children, but they and their husbands may be more settled in child-free ways, and therefore the adjustment necessary when the first child comes along is greater than would be the case for couples who married at a younger age. There is also a somewhat greater risk of birth abnormalities occurring when the mother and/or father are older. Further, the window of opportunity for having a second child is very small when childbearing is postponed to these ages. Benefits and costs of small family size There are significant differences between the families of five or six children typical of earlier generations and those averaging two children, in the way children are raised and in the social dynamics within the family. Typically, in large families, the older children play a role from a young age in assisting with the raising of their younger siblings, and perhaps later in financing their education. With low fertility, parents attention is focused on just one or two children. This has positive implications for human capital, as the investment of money and time by the parents will no doubt assist their one or two children to achieve better results in school and in career-related activities. Indeed, all the evidence points to the trade-off between quantity and quality of children having been resoundingly resolved in favour of quality in the East Asian countries (Montgomery and others, 2000), and that this is a major reason for the very low fertility they are now experiencing. The smaller cohorts of children should also enable government investment in education to achieve more per child. South-East and South Asia have higher fertility than East Asia, but here too the trend is clearly towards the quality side of the quality-quantity trade-off. Are there downsides to small family size? In China, parents as well as the Government fear the so-called syndrome: when two only children marry, they will be responsible for four parents and eight grandparents. This can be interpreted in two alternative ways: a great deal of attention focused on the one child by two parents and four 86

93 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia grandparents, or as a weighty responsibility placed on the one child for the care of two parents and four grandparents as they age. The young couple can only live with one set of parents, which means that the other half of their parent and grandparent families will be empty nesters. What proportion of families is in this situation? The proportion has certainly risen substantially, though exactly how much needs to be carefully studied. The issue is not unique to China. There are many single child families throughout East Asia, despite the absence of a one-child policy, though as noted previously, in the other East Asian countries ultra-low fertility is due to a much larger extent than it is in China to non-marriage, and therefore it is due to a larger proportion of potential couples having no children at all (Frejka, Jones and Sardon, 2010, figures 4 and 5). The issue of self-centredness of only-children is also frequently raised the little emperor syndrome. It seems to be frequently speculated in China that divorce rates will rise with the clash of wills and personalities when two little emperors marry each other. Inherently plausible as these speculations may be, they require evidence and research to back them up. Marriage and divorce Marriage is an area of endless fascination for social scientists, and Asia shows remarkable diversity in marriage systems and marriage patterns. While in general, average age at marriage is rising for both males and females throughout Asia, this rise is from a base that varies greatly. Marriage patterns in East and South-East Asia have been changing dramatically over time, with the abandonment of the traditional universal marriage norms and a sharp rise in age at marriage and in proportions not marrying at all (figure 1; for more detail, see Jones, 2007; Jones and Gubhaju, 2012). However, between East and South-East Asian countries, and even between different ethnic groups within one country, such as Malays, Chinese and Indians in Malaysia, there are wide differences. In broadly comparing East Asia, South-East Asia and South Asia, the changes in South-East Asia as a whole are not as great as those in East Asia (excluding China), while most of South Asia remains firmly locked in an entirely different pattern of universal, arranged marriage (see table 1). Socioeconomic change is undoubtedly responsible for much of the change in marriage patterns, but it is hard to explain the very high level of singlehood in Myanmar and the lack of change in Viet Nam in these terms. Within East Asia, Chinese marriage patterns differ widely from elsewhere; although average age at marriage for women is rising in China, marriage is concertinaed at ages in the twenties, and by age 30, only a tiny proportion of Chinese women remain single. By contrast, in Japan, Myanmar, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand and 87

94 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 1. Percentage of women never married at ages 35-39, various Asian countries, Subregion/country/area East and South-East Asia China n.a Hong Kong, China Indonesia Japan Myanmar n.a. Philippines n.a. Republic of Korea Singapore Taiwan Province of China Thailand n.a. South Asia Bangladesh India n.a. Islamic Republic of Iran n.a Pakistan n.a. 3.0 Source: Jones, 2010, Table 2. Figures for Islamic Republic of Iran are from population censuses; the figure given for 1980 is from the 1976 census, for 1990, from the 1986 census, for 2000, from the 1996 census, and for 2005, from the 2006 census. among the Chinese population of Malaysia, delays in marriage have been such that substantial proportions of women remain single in their late thirties, an age beyond which not much childbearing takes place. Indonesia has seen gradually rising age at marriage but this has reversed according to the 2010 population census. In turning attention to South Asia and South-West Asia, the Islamic Republic of Iran is showing a strong shift towards a delayed marriage pattern, with the proportion of women single at ages not much below that in the Republic of Korea. However, in the Indian subcontinent, the lack of change in arranged marriage patterns in the face of very considerable socioeconomic change is striking. Evidence from a large survey (the India Human Development Survey IHDS in 2005) indicates that: Marriage decisions remain within the purview of the family, and less than 5% of the IHDS respondents had a primary role in choosing their husbands. However, nearly 62% of the respondents felt that they were consulted in this decision. (Desai and Andrist, 2010, p. 675). Consultation clearly did not go to the extent of arranging for the spouses-to-be to meet; among the respondents who felt they had a choice in partner selection, about 55 per cent met their husbands on or around the day of the wedding. The persistence of early and arranged 88

95 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia marriage in India was seen by Desai and Andrist (2010, p. 681) as part of a script in which gender is performed by women through a symbolic display of segregation, modesty and chastity, and early marriage is part and parcel of culture in action. Late marriage, extended adolescence and the role of singles If adolescence is defined as the period between attaining sexual maturity and marriage, then it is a lengthening period in most young Asians lives, although in South Asia, with the exception of Sri Lanka and to some extent Pakistan, early marriage remains the norm. In most of Asia, there is a continued tradition of living at home until married. Therefore, young people are living at home longer, in an unmarried state. In many countries, this tendency is strongly reinforced by the high cost of owning or renting housing and the convenience of living at home without paying board (on Japan, see Retherford and Ogawa, 2006, pp ; on Singapore, see Jones, 2012). In East and South-East Asian countries, only in the last few decades has extended singlehood become really common, so those who are remaining single into their thirties are a pioneering group, whose roles in family and society are still being negotiated (Maeda, 2008; Situmorang, 2007; Tan, 2010; Ibrahim and Hassan, 2009). Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand are exceptions in that, over a fairly long period, substantial proportions of men and women have been remaining single, and this has led to adjustments of societal expectations, such that most singles do not feel much pressure to marry from family and friends. When examining the role of singles in the family, there may be a need to look beyond the immediate family and study their role in their extended family for example, to know more about how working singles may be contributing financially to the education of cousins, nephews and nieces. Divorce In East Asian countries, divorce rates have been rising steadily since 1980, particularly in the period since 1990 in the case of Hong Kong, China; Japan; and the Republic of Korea (see table 2). The rise in the Republic of Korea was particularly sharp between 1995 and 2000 the period in which the Asian financial crisis occurred. In China, freeing up of divorce regulations in 2001 and 2003 may have contributed to the sharp rise in divorce rates in the period In Taiwan Province of China, as in other East Asian societies, an increase in divorce has taken place in the context of a decreased prevalence of marriage. The chance of re-marriage after divorce has declined (Yang and Tsai, 2009), indicating a growing acceptance of and perhaps preference for singlehood. Japanese divorce rates have risen to such an extent that Japan can no longer be considered as a society characterized by low levels of marital dissolution. Synthetic cohort estimates indicate that about one third of 89

96 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 2. General divorce rates (number of divorces per 1,000 population aged 15+), OECD and East Asian countries: Countries in the Organization for Economic Coopeation and Development (OECD) Australia France Germany United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United States of America n.a. n.a. Russian Federation East Asian countries/areas Hong Kong, China n.a Japan Republic of Korea China n.a. n.a. 1.0 a 1.3 b Thailand n.a. n.a. Singapore Source: Calculated from data on numbers of divorces and on age structure from various issues of the United Nations Demographic Yearbook. a b Japanese marriages are likely to end in divorce (Raymo and others, 2004). It has been argued that traditional marriage stability in Japan, while it did not necessarily have much to do with whether a marriage was happy, at least gave some assurance that children would be cared for, and that wives could expect economic security. With the awareness of increasing fragility of marriage, decisions about whether to marry and about whether to raise children when single motherhood is a possibility, come more into play (Bumpass and others, 2009, p. 223). Trends in divorce in East Asia appear, then, to be going the way of the West, and partly for the same reasons (Dommaraju and Jones, 2012). Substantial increases in divorce rates in East Asian countries signify a significant change in circumstances and attitudes to divorce, because in the past divorce carried a considerable social stigma, and the pressure to remain in a disharmonious marriage for the sake of the children and also for the sake of appearances and family honour, was very strong. It would appear that factors such as increasing economic independence of women and pressures (and widened range of personal contacts) in big city environments in which an increasing proportion of East Asians live, are influencing divorce trends. 90

97 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia The data about divorce in South-East Asia are unfortunately fragmentary and not very reliable. Rates are rising in Thailand and in Singapore (see table 2), where they are somewhat higher for the Malay population than for the rest of the population (Department of Statistics, Singapore, 2010). In Malaysia, divorce rates for Malays fell dramatically over the decades following the 1950s (Jones, 1997) but have begun to rise again since the turn of the century (Tey, 2011). Divorce rates for Indian Malaysians are intermediate between those for Malays and the much lower rates for Chinese Malaysians. As for South Asian countries, little data are available on divorce, largely because divorce is a rare event and data systems have not been oriented to systematic presentation of data on the subject. In most of South Asia, divorce is not a feasible way out of a disharmonious marriage, because the options of returning to the natal family or of earning an independent income, are not generally open to a divorced woman. Nevertheless, based on Demographic and Health Survey data on the percentage currently divorced (not an ideal measure of the prevalence of divorce, as it is affected by the rates of remarriage) there is some evidence that divorce rates were higher in Bangladesh than in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and some evidence from the Matlab area of Bangladesh suggests that there at least divorce rates have declined over time (Dommaraju and Jones, 2012). Ageing and the family It is well known that the trend towards an older population is an inexorable one in most parts of the world. The projected trends in selected Asian countries are shown in table 3. Japan has the oldest age structure of any country in the world (23 per cent of the population aged 65+), and countries such as China, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand are well along in the ageing process, with between 8 per cent and 11 per cent older persons. In South Asia, Sri Lanka and some states of India have as high as 8 per cent of the population aged 65+. By contrast, older persons constitute only about 2 per cent of population in Afghanistan and 4 per cent in Nepal. We need to know much more about changing patterns of residence of older persons and other aspects of intergenerational exchange. There is little doubt that issues related to population ageing will be central not only to national policy reactions to ultra-low fertility but also to family-level adjustments needed to cope with radically altered population structures. At an aggregate level, the issues can be well illustrated by trends in ageing support ratios, that is, the ratio of the population aged to the population aged 65+. Admittedly, the age limits used 91

98 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Table 3. Trends in percentage of elderly population (aged 65+) in selected Asian countries Country China India Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Japan Pakistan Philippines Sri Lanka Thailand Viet Nam Source: World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. Available from unpd/wpp/index.htm. for this calculation do not accurately reflect the actual dependency situation, which depends on the ages at which people actually enter and withdraw from the labour force and on the proportion of older persons requiring various kinds of support (in the case of physical support, usually quite small). However, as a general indicator, the ageing support ratio does give the sense of the trends which are so dramatic that modification of these ages will not alter the picture greatly. As shown for selected countries in table 4, and graphically for the major subregions of Asia in figure 1, the median ages of all the populations being considered have risen sharply since 1980, and the ageing support ratios have fallen sharply. Both these trends are expected to continue until However, East Asia is much further along in these trends than is South Asia, which is 35 years behind East Asia in falling below an ageing support ratio of 8. The decline in ageing support ratios will be particularly sharp over the coming decade from 2010 to 2020 in Japan and Singapore, whereas the decade of the 2020s will see the sharpest fall in the support ratios in China and Thailand. In the 40 years between 2010 and 2050, the ageing support ratio will halve in Japan and will fall by much more than this in the other countries. Such declines will require major adjustments of policies with regard to income support programmes, orientation of health services to give much more weight to gerontology and labour market policy, including retirement ages. It will also require a rethinking of the underlying rationale for policies throughout the region, which is that families should be responsible for the care of dependent older persons. 92

99 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia Table 4. Median ages and potential ageing support ratios, selected Asian countries: Country Potential ageing support ratio (population aged 20-64/65+) China India Japan Malaysia Pakistan Thailand Median age (years) China India Japan Malaysia Pakistan Thailand Source: Computed from World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. (medium projection). Available from Figure 1. Median ages and potential ageing support ratios (population 20-64/65+), major subregions of Asia, East Asia Potential support ratio Median age Potential support ratio Median age 93

100 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 South Asia Potential support ratio Median age Potential support ratio Median age South-East Asia Potential support ratio Median age Potential support ratio Median age 94

101 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia It should be noted that living arrangements of the older persons do differ considerably in Asia from those in Western countries, with a much higher proportion living with a child or grandchild (see table 5). Table 5. Percentage distribution of the population aged 60 years or older, according to household composition Country Year Living independently With With With of others child or other nongrandchild relative relative Total Alone Couple France c Italy c Japan Philippines b n.a. n.a. Republic of Korea a Singapore Thailand b n.a. n.a. United States of America Sources: United Nations (2005), table II.4; Kim (2004), table 7.7; Knodel and Chayovan (2008), table 5.1; Abejo (2004); and Yap (2007), table 3. a Includes living with non-relatives. b Does not include living with grandchild. c Living with other adults, but not with partner or children. Although the percentage of Japanese and Korean older persons living with a child or grandchild has been gradually declining, it does not appear likely to reach levels as low as in France or the United States. Demographic trends do, however, raise many issues about whether the family can be relied on as in the past to provide care for those older persons who need it. There are a number of aspects to the problem. The first is the sharply declining ratio of potential carers to the number of older persons, as indicated by trends in the potential support ratios. The number of living children of older persons has been declining through movement of smaller birth cohorts into the main caring ages. As documented by Schroder-Butterfill and Kreager (2005) in a study in East Java, Indonesia, de facto childlessness may differentially affect the poorest and most vulnerable groups. The second aspect is that a high proportion of the potential carers (usually women) are now drawn into the paid workforce (consistent with government policy in these countries), and are therefore not available for full-time caring work. The third aspect is that, despite the general improvement in health status of older persons at any given age, the rising proportion of older persons and the rising proportion of older persons who are old-old (i.e. 75+) will 95

102 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 inevitably mean a rising load of frail and disabled older persons who need full-time care. The ratio of older persons who suffer from senile dementia to non-working women at various ages is projected to rise substantially in Japan over the coming two decades (Ogawa, 2006, figure 11). This suggests that Japan will not be able to rely on the traditional family support network to care for its infirm older persons; the rise in the burden placed on middle-aged Japanese women providing in-home nursing care would simply be too great. For three reasons then, there will be less possibility of the family providing intensive care for disabled or frail older persons. These reasons are the lowered proportion of children per older person, the increased labour force participation of women (the traditional carers) and the movement of children of older persons to other localities. These trends have major implications for policy on elderly care. Despite the tradition in Asian families of caring for family members in various kinds of need and official rhetoric about the key support role of the Asian family as an underlying (and by implication, unchanging) characteristic of Asian societies, this traditional reliance on family will be subjected to intensive pressures. Governments will almost inevitably be forced to step in. Another trend at the family level is migration of adult children away from their parents locality. This differs by country and subregion. We need to bear in mind that co-residence is not the only indicator of close caring relationships. Assistance can notionally be divided into three categories: financial assistance, emotional support and physical support. The first two of these do not require co-residence, particularly in the age of the cell-phone. In Thailand, there has been an extraordinary rise in the proportion of older persons living in houses with a telephone from 15 per cent in 1994 to 76 per cent in Moreover, while the proportion of older persons living in the same house as a child in Thailand is slowly declining, the proportion is considerably higher if those living in close proximity are included (Knodel and Chayovan, 2008, p. 41). The care needs of older persons should not be exaggerated. The great majority of older persons do not need care; for example, in Thailand, more than 80 per cent of those in their seventies and even 65 per cent of those older than 80 years, say that they can care for themselves (Knodel and Chayovan, 2011, table 1). The positive contributions made by the elderly in society and in the family, for example through taking care of grandchildren (Knodel and Chayovan, 2011, pp ) and through serving as mentors and confidants of their grandchildren as they enter adolescence (Tan and Rahimah, 2011) and need to be recognized and supported (Ananta and Ariffin, 2009; Tengku-Aizan and Nurizan, 2008). Indeed, in Singapore, grandparents role in caring for children is promoted through policy working mothers are eligible for S$ 3,000 grandparent caregiver tax relief if their parents or in-laws look after their children younger than age 12. The challenge, of course, in harnessing 96

103 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia the capacities of grandparents to develop a special relationship with their grandchildren, is to avoid burdening them with what are sometimes exploitative child-minding arrangements (Teo and others, 2006, chap. 9). Implications for planning and development The family is seen in Asian countries (and indeed in most countries of the world) as the key institution on which a stable society is built. Thus changes in family form and function are normally suspected of threatening the social order. The greatest concern tends to be about ageing, and whether the family will continue to have the capacity to provide the necessary physical, social and emotional support for older persons as their share of the population increases. Delayed marriage also leads to disquiet, though not, in most countries, to specific policies to encourage marriage. However, it raises important issues about the role of singles in society, as well as such practical issues as their access to contraception, which proves to be divisive in many Asian countries. Family policy in Asian countries tends to be conservative in promoting the generally accepted family values in these countries. The model is one of universal marriage in which children are raised in an intact family until they marry and leave home. This remains overwhelmingly the main family form, and there is a great deal to be done to enhance the quality of life for mainstream families of this kind. One key need is to develop policies that will facilitate marriage and enable women and men to combine work with childrearing to avoid the low fertility trap that East Asian countries have perhaps entered into, but also to enable women to realize the potential resulting from their higher levels of education, without succumbing to the exhaustion of the double shift. At the same time in countries such as Bangladesh, India and Indonesia, stricter enforcement of legal minimum ages at marriage is needed in order to lower the proportion of girls being married younger than that age. There are also other family forms in Asian societies, including childless couples, those cohabiting without entering formal marriage, blended families following remarriage, the various kinds of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) pairings (Das Gupta, 2009), single parents postdivorce raising a child or children and singles continuing to live with parents until into their thirties. The reality of considerable pluralism in family types and functions needs to be recognized. It is important that those who are not in mainstream family relationships are not made to feel ostracized and discriminated against by policy. Concerning the role of singles in family and society, there is perhaps little that government policy can or should do. The modifications will work themselves out over time; this process already appears to be in evidence in countries such as Japan, Singapore and Thailand in lessened pressures on singles to marry. However, there is certainly a need to 97

104 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 consider widening the options available to singles through housing policy and aspects of labour legislation to ensure that singles are not unduly disadvantaged by policies designed to encourage childbearing. Difficult balancing acts may be required here. For example, in the interest of improving the work/life balance of couples with children, such employees working in essential services may be favoured in getting time off for important holidays, sometimes leaving their single colleagues resentful. Moreover, other colleagues will be required to take up the slack when those with children have to take childcare leave. With regard to elderly care, increased strain will be placed on families whose characteristics and circumstances are changing in ways that will make it increasingly more difficult to deal with these strains. For example, in India, the percentage of older persons is expected to have doubled by 2037, to 10.5 per cent. In Thailand, this percentage is expected to increase by 2.5 times over the same period, to 20.5 per cent. Although the percentage of older persons in India in 2037 will be only half that in Thailand and only a third that in Japan, even with this smaller increase India faces significant challenges. The policy emphasis in all countries must be on active ageing, financial independence and a positive attitude towards the contribution that older persons make within families. Nonetheless, an increasing role of Government in elderly care cannot be avoided. The retirement age in many countries also needs to be increased, as it currently reflects the life expectancy situation that existed decades ago, and will be increasingly untenable in terms of providing income maintenance for the rapidly increasing number of retirees. The extent to which Governments need to replace the role of the family in elderly care, and the capability of Governments to do so, will vary across the region, and mixed models combining replacement roles and shared responsibility will have to emerge. 98

105 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia References Abejo, Socorro D. (2004). Living arrangements of the elderly in the Philippines. Paper presented at 9 th National Convention on Statistics, EDSA Shangri-La Hotel, Manila, 4-5 October. Ananta, Aris and Evi Nurvidya Ariffin (2009). Older Persons in South- East Asia: An Emerging Asset. Singapore: Institute of South-East Asian Studies. Bumpass, Larry L., Ronald R. Rindfuss, Minja Kim Choe and Noriko O. Tsuya (2009). The institutional context of low fertility: the case of Japan. Asian Population Studies, vol. 5, No. 3, pp Caldwell, John C., P.H. Reddy and Pat Caldwell (1982). The causes of demographic change in rural South India: a micro-approach Population and Development Review, vol. 8, No. 4, pp Castillo, Gelia (1979). Beyond Manila: Philippine Rural Problems in Perspective. Ottawa: International Development Research Center. Dasgupta, Romit (2009). The queer family in Asia. In Inter-Asia Roundtable 2009: Gender Relations in the 21st Century Asian Famil., Singapore: Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Das Gupta, Monica (2010). Family systems, political systems and Asia s missing girls : The construction of son preference and its unravelling. Asian Population Studies, vol. 6, No. 2, pp Department of Statistics, Singapore (2010). Statistics on Marriage and Divorce, Reference Year Singapore: Department of Statistics. Desai, Sonalde and Lester Andrist (2010). Gender scripts and age at marriage in India. Demography, vol. 47, No. 3, pp Dommaraju, Premchand and Gavin Jones (2012). Divorce trends in Asia. Asian Journal of Social Science, vol. 39, No. 6, pp Douglass, Mike (2011). Global householding and international migration research paradigms, emerging dynamics and public policy in East and South-East Asia. Paper presented at Workshop on Householding in Transition: Emerging Dynamics in Developing East and South-East Asia, National University of Singapore, July. 99

106 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Frejka, Tomas, Gavin Jones and Jean-Paul Sardon (2010). East Asian childbearing patterns and policy developments. Population and Development Review, vol. 36, No. 3, pp Guilmoto, Christophe (2012). Son preference, sex selection and kinship in Vietnam. Population and Development Review, vol. 38, No. 1, pp Ibrahim, Rozita and Zaharah Hassan. (2009). Understanding singlehood from the experiences of never-married Malay Muslim women in Malaysia: some preliminary findings. European Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 8, No. 3, pp Jones, Gavin W. (1997). Modernization and divorce: contrasting trends in South-East Asia and the West. Population and Development Review, vol. 23, No. 1, pp (2002). The changing Indonesian household. In Women in Indonesia: Gender, Equity and Development, Kathryn Robinson and Sharon Bessell eds. Singapore: Institute of South-East Asian Studies. (2007). Delayed marriage and very low fertility in Pacific Asia. Population and Development Review, vol. 33, No. 3, pp (2009). Women, marriage and family in South-East Asia., in Gender Trends in South-East Asia: Women Now, Women in the Future, Theresa Devasahayam, ed. Singapore: Institute of South-East Asian Studies. (2012). Population policy in a prosperous city-state: dilemmas for Singapore. Population and Development Review, vol. 38, No. 2, pp and Bina Gubhaju (2012). Marriage trends in South-East Asia. in South-East Asian Demography, Lindy Williams and Philip Guest, eds. Ithaca: South-East Asia Program, Cornell University. Kim, I. K. (2004). Different patterns of the living arrangements of the elderly in urban and rural Korea. Paper presented at the World Congress of Sociology, Beijing, 7-11 July. Knodel, John and Napaporn Chayovan (2008). Population ageing and the well-being of older persons in Thailand: past trends, current situation, and future challenges. Papers in Population Ageing Series, No. 5, Bangkok: UNFPA Thailand and Asia and the Pacific Regional Office. 100

107 Changing Family Sizes, Structures and Functions in Asia (2011). Intergenerational family care for and by older people in Thailand. Paper presented at Conference on Shifting Boundaries of Care Provision in Asia: Policy and Practice Changes, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, March. Le Bras, H.(1979). Child and Family. Paris: OECD. Maeda, Eriko (2008). Relational identities of always-single Japanese women. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, vol. 25, No. 6, pp Mason, Andrew, Mathana Phananiramai and Nipon Poapongsakorn (1993). Households and their characteristics., in The Economic Impact of Demographic Change in Thailand, , Burnham O. Campbell, Andrew Mason and Ernesto M. Pernia, eds. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Montgomery, Mark R., Mary Arends-Kuenning, and Cem Mete (2000). The quantity-quality transition in Asia. Population and Development Review, vol. 26 (supp), pp Ogawa, Naohiro (2006). Population aging and policy options for a sustainable future: the case of Japan. Genus, vol. 61, No. 3-4, pp Robert D. Retherford and Rikiya Matsukura (2006). Demographics of the Japanese family: entering uncharted territory. In The Changing Japanese Family, Marcus Rebick and Ayiumi Takenaka, eds. London: Routledge, pp Parrenas, R.S. (2008). The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization. New York: New York University Press. Preston, Samuel H. (1976). Family sizes of children and family sizes of women. Demography, vol. 13, No. 1, pp Raymo, J., M. Iwasawa and L. Bumpass (2004). Marital dissolution in Japan: recent trends and differentials. Demographic Research, vol. 11, No. 14, pp Retherford, Robert D. and Naohiro Ogawa (2006). Japan s baby bust: causes, implications and policy responses. In The Baby Bust: Who Will Do the Work? Who Will Pay the Taxes?, Fred R. Harris, ed. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, pp

108 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Schroder-Butterfill, Elisabeth and Philip Kreager (2005). Actual and de facto childlessness in old age: evidence from East Java, Indonesia. Population and Development Review, vol. 31, No. 1, pp Situmorang, Augustina (2007). Staying single in a married world: never-married women in Yogyakarta and Medan. Asian Population Studies, vol. 3, No. 3, pp Tan, JooEan (2010). Social relationships in the modern age: never-married women in Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, vol. 41, No. 5, pp Tengku-Aizan, H. and Y. Nurizan (2008). National policy for the elderly in Malaysia: achievements and challenges. In Ageing in South- East and East Asia: Family, Social Protection and Policy Challenges, H.G. Lee, ed. Singapore: Institute of South-East Asian Studies. Teo, Peggy, Kalyani Mehta, Leng Leng Thang and Angelique Chan (2006). Ageing in Singapore: Service Needs and the State. London: Routledge. Tey, Nai Peng (2011). Understanding marriage and divorce trends in Peninsular Malaysia. In Changing Marriage Patterns in South-East Asia: Economic and Socio-cultural Dimensions, Gavin W. Jones, Terence H. Hull and Maznah Mohamad, eds. London: Routledge. United Nations (2005). Living Arrangements of Older Persons around the World, New York: United Nations, ST/ESCAP/SER.A/240. Xenos, Peter, Sulistinah Achmad, Hui Sheng Lin, Ping Keung Luis, Chai Podhisita, Corazon Raymundo, and Shyam Thapa (2006). Delayed Asian transitions to adulthood: a perspective from national youth surveys. Asian Population Studies, vol. 2, No. 2, pp Yang, Ching-li and Hung-Jeng Tsai (2009). Changes in fertility and marriage rates in Taiwan. In Women in Taiwan: Sociocultural Perspectives, Ya-Chen Chen, ed. Indianapolis: University of Indianapolis Press, pp Yap, Mui Teng (2007). Living arrangements among the elderly in South- East Asia. Paper presented at ESCAP Seminar on the Social, Health and Economic Consequences of Population Ageing in the Context of Changing Families, Bangkok, July. 102

109 Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change The 25 years since the Asia-Pacific Population Journal was first published have seen momentous change both globally and within Asia. In 1986, Japan was one of the most dynamic economies in the world, with the four Tiger economies of Hong Kong, then still a colony, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan Province of China, and Singapore not far behind. The reforms in China, implemented from 1979, were well under way but the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had still a few more years of existence before a series of independent nation States were to appear in the Central Asia. The term globalization had yet to make its way into mainstream d evelopment discourse but it is Asia s uneven but dramatic development, political, social and economic over those 25 years that has moulded and guided population migrations both within and from the region. Equally, it is Asia s changing position in the world as it has come to challenge the West that has contributed to and been a result of these changing population flows. By Ronald Skeldon* Urbanization and migration The very first article in the first issue of Asia-Pacific Population Journal in March 1986 was by Rafael Salas, the then Executive Director of what is now called the United Nations Population Fund, on population and urbanization (Salas, 1986). Its emphasis was as much on advocating policies to reduce population growth in general as on attempts to restrict or divert migration away from cities. Salas was rightly sceptical about the efficacy of closed-city policies or of diverting migrants to growth poles, and urbanization has certainly continued apace since then. United Nations figures show that some 29 per cent of Asia as a whole was classified as urban in 1985, a proportion that rose to 42 per * University of Sussex, United Kingdom. 103

110 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 cent in 2010 and is expected to reach 53 per cent by East Asia, unsurprisingly, is the most highly urbanized part of Asia, with just over half of its population living in towns and cities in What could be described as South-Central Asia, containing some of the poorest countries in the ESCAP region, is the least urbanized subregion, with just under one third of the population living in urban places in These regional figures, too, hide a great range of levels of urbanization, from 83 per cent in the Republic of Korea to 14 per cent in Sri Lanka in Even accepting quite different definitions of urban across the countries of the ESCAP region, perhaps the most enduring characteristic of the region remains its diversity in terms of levels of development, cultures, environments, political systems and, of course, migration and urbanization. In terms of absolute numbers, the urban population increased from 760 million in 1985 to 1.6 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach almost 2.4 billion in As fertility has declined throughout Asia, this shift in population to urban areas is increasingly brought about by migration and by boundary reclassification. While the latter is difficult to estimate and needs to be calculated on a country-by-country basis, the importance of internal migration from rural to urban areas seems an incontrovertible part of the process and an important element of continuity with the period before Of course, rural-to-urban migration is not the only internal flow: urban-to-urban, rural-to-rural and even urban- to-rural, often associated with suburbanization or the urbanization of the urban periphery, are also significant. Nevertheless, the movement of people from village to city has been one of the most profound transformations witnessed during the period since the Journal was established. For China, where the process was particularly spectacular, it represented simply the largest peacetime movement of people in history (Murphy, 2002, p. 1). Much of this migration may have been circular in that people returned to their villages for longer or shorter periods during or after their time in the city. Nevertheless, over time and certainly over the last 25 years, a massive displacement of population to the urban sector occurred that has led to intense rural depopulation in the most advanced economies in the region, such as Japan and the Republic of Korea. Circulation persists as migration systems evolve over time, although the nature of that circulation changes as the loci of circulation shift from village to migrant community in the city. Thus, circulation may be the dominant type of population migration in the least developed economies and longer-term displacements, even permanent migration, become more important in advanced economies. However, circular movements persist in advanced economies, perhaps even increasing in absolute number of movers, as they decline as a proportion of total migrants. The shifting balance of migrant patterns and types at national and subnational levels remains an understudied aspect of migration in general. 104

111 Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change It is not simply the urban population or the proportion urban that is important but the distribution within type of cities. The last 25 years have seen the emergence of increasing numbers of large or megacities in Asia. In 1985, 5 of the top 10 largest cities in the world were in Asia, 3 of them in the most developed economies of Japan and the Republic of Korea. In 2010, 7 of the 10 largest cities in the world were in Asia, only one of which, Tokyo, was in a country belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Fully 10 of the 16 largest cities in 2010 were in Asia as were 15 of the 30 largest cities. Urbanization and development have spread much further throughout Asia as it has progressively gone through a shift away from agriculture towards manufacturing and then to services. This transition can perhaps be most clearly seen in the case of the Republic of Korea (DeWind and others, 2012) and, at a lower level of development, the urbanization of China associated with its transition to the manufacturing centre of the world through an export-led economy. Hence, within the diversity of the ESCAP region emphasized above, the trend exists of the diffusion of a developmental system outwards from Japan and the so-called Tiger economies to incorporate much of coastal China and South-East Asia and into an arc stretching down the western side of India. This diffusion is neither continuous in space or in time but appears inexorable as societies pass through mortality, fertility, gender and economic transitions from agriculture to industry in association with the redistribution of their populations. Integral to these transitions are shifts in the spatial patterns of migration that can be conceptualized as a mobility or migration transition (Zelinsky, 1971; Skeldon, 1997; 2012). The broader demographic and economic and social transitions might be considered to be the drivers of migration but the movement of population itself reinforces change in demographic and economic variables. Returning migrants can help to spread ideas about the small family norm, the importance of education or of specific business practices learned from experience in towns, which accelerate the diffusion of development. 3 Nevertheless, any conclusions on the impact that migrants can have on development are still largely tentative, and a pressing need exists for a rigorous systematic review of the evidence available to assess the importance of a migration impact : that is, to establish how robust the evidence is in order to establish whether a migration impact effect can indeed be separated from the other wider developmental changes that are going on in any economy or society. International migration and development Global and regional patterns Although the vast majority of migrants in Asia, as well as globally, move within the borders of their own country as internal migrants, the whole discussion of migration has been dominated over the last 25 years 105

112 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 by those who move from one country to another as international migrants. However, it is difficult to estimate the number of international migrants, both from Asian countries and globally, and the best estimates available are based on the stock of the foreign-born by country. 4 From these estimates, the number of migrants in Asian countries around the year 2000 was 30.3 million, and this figure rose to 32.3 million for the years around Disaggregation of the global stock data can give estimates of migration from Asian countries, although these estimates are so far available only for 2000 (Parsons and others, 2007). In taking only the migration from the East Asian and Pacific and the South Asian regions (as defined by the World Bank), it is found that these two regions accounted for 24.8 per cent of the total number of global migrants of 175 million in 2000, or about 43.5 million migrants. Some 55.5 per cent of the migrants who left East Asian economies went to Australasia, Canada, Europe or Japan and the United States of America. Another 34 per cent moved within the East Asian region itself. In the South Asian region, only 17.8 per cent of the migrants were to be found in the most advanced countries of the global north and 42.1 per cent moved to other countries within the same region. An additional 19.8 per cent of the migrants from South Asia moved to the oil-rich countries of the Middle East compared with only just 4.2 per cent of migrants from East Asian countries. Migration is as old as humanity and Asian peoples have long traditions of movement for trade, conquest and settlement. However, since the middle of the last century and the creation of independent States, international migration has become subject to very specific conditions of entry and exit. While indentured labourers represented a significant flow out of both China and India during colonial times, the recruitment and the migration of labour have continued into the modern era. Labour migration has been and in some countries remains a fundamental part of their development. In the mid-1980s, most migration was labour migration and most of it was to destinations outside the ESCAP region and particularly to the oil-rich countries of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf. A quarter of a century later, while the same statement could be made with some justification, it would require qualification. Those States remain a major destination for workers from the ESCAP region, with perhaps 13 million temporary Asian contract workers living in Western Asia around International migrants accounted for 86.5 per cent of the total population of Qatar in 2010, 70 per cent of the population of the United Arab Emirates and 68.8 per cent of the population of Kuwait. 6 The majority of these migrants are unskilled workers from South Asia involved in the construction industry or women from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, in particular those working as domestic servants. However, their numbers also include smaller numbers of skilled engineers, teachers and medical personnel. 106

113 Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change In the early to mid-1980s, virtually all Asian ESCAP countries were involved in the sending of workers overseas. By the early twenty-first century, the pattern had changed, though some countries such as those in South Asia plus Indonesia and the Philippines were still dominated by the trade. The Philippines, for instance, currently sends overseas every year over 1 million workers at many skill levels through its Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and has developed far-reaching measures to protect its labour force overseas (see, for example, Asis and Baggio, 2008). However, other countries had virtually ceased to supply labour migrants, such as the Republic of Korea where the annual outflow of workers peaked in 1982 at almost 200,000 workers but was down to fewer than 40,000 just 10 years later. Thailand, too, saw a marked decline in the number of overseas workers, from just over 200,000 in 1999 to under 150,000 five years later (Chalamwong, 2006). The emergence of Asian destinations Associated with this shift in origins of contract migrant labour was perhaps the most important single change to have occurred in Asian migration over the last 25 years: the emergence of significant destinations for migration within Asia itself. This does not mean that every Asian economy has emerged as a destination for migration. A difference has emerged between such economies as Indonesia, the Philippines, Viet Nam and the South Asian countries, which are seen as essentially continuing as origins of migration, and those such as Japan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Taiwan Province of China, which are seen primarily as destinations for migration. Some countries such as Thailand are seen as countries of both origin and destination. The arrival of foreigners in the Asian region is, of course, nothing new, but the shift from emigration to immigration of the last decades is of a different magnitude. It is linked to the declining fertility that ultimately has led to a slowing in the growth of the labour force and of the population as a whole. The annual growth of the cohorts of young adults between 15 and 24 years old has been declining in Japan since the period ; in the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand since the period ; in Bhutan; Hong Kong China; as well as Myanmar; and Sri Lanka, from the decade (Hugo, 2009, p. 43). Perhaps most significantly, that cohort declined in China during the 1990s; it grew very slowly during the first decade of the twenty-first century and is projected to decline from the decade Although changing demography provides the context in which this shift in migration has occurred, it has not been the only or necessarily the most important factor. A number of factors need to be considered, of which three are of fundamental importance: 107

114 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 (a) The double-digit growth in the economies of most of East and South-East Asia driven initially by export-oriented industrialization from the 1970s, which itself was a driver of fertility decline, underlay this transformation: a transition predicated upon the increased globalization of global economies based on the law of comparative advantage, which in Asia lay in the potential size and availability of relatively cheap labour; (b) This economic growth was dependent upon improvements in human capital through rising levels of education and particularly the education of women who entered labour-intensive industries being established in and around Asian cities. Rising levels of education achieved three main goals. First, having an educated labour force made Asian countries and areas attractive for foreign investment. Second, the incorporation of women into the labour force increased the age of marriage and facilitated the spread of the small family norm, which contributed to the decline in fertility. Third, it increased the aspirations of the population and made some low-skilled jobs increasingly unattractive to local workers; (c) The emergence of political stability in the region, enhanced by the reforms implemented in China from the late 1970s, and the end of the cold war from the early 1990s. The combination of these factors led to increasing pressure to import skilled workers in order to support the activities being established, as well as unskilled workers to build the activities in the first place and increasingly to undertake the kinds of things that local workers were unwilling to do. This pressure was exacerbated by the slowing in the growth of domestic labour forces that was leading to increasing job vacancies, either real or perceived, that required the importation of labour. A turnaround in migration from the emigration of workers mainly to the previously mentioned Gulf countries to immigration was first examined for Asian economies in the early 1990s in the essays in Abella (1994). This turnaround had parallels with what had occurred in Western and Central Europe from the 1960s and in Southern Europe from about two decades later (see King, 1993). Hence, the changing migrations in and from Asia are very much an integral part of global processes and patterns. Despite the emergence of significant destinations of misration within Asia, few countries are making provisions to allow long-term settlement. The migration is assumed by Governments to be the temporary movement of labour with few rights in destination areas. Nevertheless, a clear distinction is generally drawn between skilled and unskilled labour. Skilled labour is needed, desired and encouraged. Also, it is likely that these representatives of a transnational capitalist class (Sklair, 2001) will move on at the end of their contract to new opportunities, be moved on by their company, or retire to their home country or to another country of their choice. Given their relatively small numbers, they are 108

115 Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change not seen to be a problem for destination Asian States. Unskilled labour, on the other hand, is a very different proposition. Although this form of labour is needed, it is not desired and Governments seek to manage it in such a way that the migrants never become permanent members of society. Temporary workers may become a permanent sector of the labour force but individual migrants are not to become permanent residents of the country. Contracts are rigorously enforced so that workers return home upon termination. Workers are not allowed to bring their families, female workers may be expelled if they become pregnant and HIV tests are applied to workers on a regular basis, with expulsion the result if they are found to be positive. A path to citizenship is not an option and the issue of migrant rights for this group of migrants, particularly those of female domestic workers, has become an issue of bilateral and multilateral concern. Nevertheless, change is occurring. The door to permanent residence and even citizenship is opening to certain categories of skilled migrants and their families in countries such as Singapore, for example. The Republic of Korea has been engaged in discussions on developing an immigration policy for a number of years but so far without creating a government agency with responsibility for immigration, which is currently spread around a number of government ministries. Both Japan and the Republic of Korea have turned to recruit ethnic Japanese or Koreans who were born outside the country in order to fill labour shortages, a strategy that is important in countries that have long stressed their ethnic homogeneity. Japan has so far brought more than 350,000 neikkejikin (people who emigrated from Japan and their descendants), mainly from Brazil and Peru, as semi-skilled workers, and the Republic of Korea has imported almost 170,000 josunjok (Koreans in China) as unskilled labour (IOM, 2008, pp. 43 and 84). Malaysia, with between 2 and 3 million migrants, the vast majority being from neighbouring Indonesia, of whom half to one third are in an irregular situation, often turns a blind eye to those who form a critical part of the labour force and who make up a largely invisible minority in many rural areas. Yet it is a small number of migrants who may be at the cutting edge of future change in parts of Asia. The marked rural-to-urban migration referred to previously in this article has drained the rural areas of Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan Province of China to the extent that few women of marriageable age remain in those areas. One avenue for sons remaining on the land is to look for a bride overseas; over the last 25 years increasing numbers of Filipina, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese women have moved to these three developed Asian economies as wives (see Constable, 2005). Laws to deal with the rights of interracial children or with divorced wives may pave the way towards the development and acceptability of more multicultural societies and the eventual incorporation of co-ethnic and ethnically different migrants as members of society. 109

116 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Nevertheless, a sense of perspective is required. Despite the emergence of immigration as a major policy issue in Asia over the last 25 years, and with a few exceptions, the impact that immigration has had on the populations as a whole has still been quite limited. In Japan and the Republic of Korea, foreigners make up less than 2 per cent of the total population, well below levels in the majority of OECD countries. Certainly, in the much smaller Malaysia, migrants make up about 8 per cent of the labour force with that proportion rising to more than 40 per cent in Singapore. Any overall assessment of the impact of migration must be measured in more than simple proportions of immigrants. The greatest impact may still lie in the hundreds of thousands of Asian workers who leave their homes to work overseas and send back remittances. Yet the 25 years since the foundation of the Journal may have seen a tipping point as dynamic growth in Asia has generated areas of attraction for regional and global migrants. That real impact, however, is likely to lie in the future, a theme to which we will return in a later section of this article. Continuity and change in emigration The case for a turnaround in migration from emigration to immigration, perhaps better developed in some economies such as the Republic of Korea and others in East Asia, than others in South Asia, should not obscure the fact that emigration from most Asian economies has continued and often increased. The nature of that emigration has, however, changed; rather than being totally dominated by labour migrants, it has become more oriented towards skilled migration, including students, and those moving as settlers, or long-term immigrants. These movements have been mainly directly towards the most developed economies in North America, Australasia and Europe. In part, this shift was brought about by significant changes made to the immigration policies in the countries of the developed world itself that dated to the 1960s and 1970s but did not make a major impact on actual migration flows for a decade or more after they came into focus. In part, they reflected the emergence of new middle-income groups in Asia that wished to participate in more open economies and societies with an interest in seeing their children educated at top global universities. These flows dating from the 1970s began from the periphery of the Chinese world but spread to incorporate most of the economies of Asia by the end of the century. In 2010, for example, three countries dominated the annual intake of settlers to Canada: the Philippines, India and China together accounted for 97,027 of the total intake of 280, The total settler intake from Asian countries represented precisely half of the total, up from around 37 per cent in the late 1970s and less than 3 per cent in the late 1950s (Kritz, 1987). Immigrants to Australia in 2010/11 were also dominated by migrants from Asia, with 107,800 migrants out of a total intake of 213,409, or just over 50 per cent, up from 32.2 per cent 110

117 Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change in the late 1970s and 4 per cent in the early 1960s. 8 Again, China (14,611) and India (10,566) were the leading Asian countries of origin. In terms of immigration to the United States of America in 2010, Mexico unsurprisingly was by far the most important source of migrants (138,714 migrants) but Asia was the most important source (410,209 migrants) after the Americas (427,037). Among Asian countries, China (67,634), India (66,185), the Philippines (56,399) and Viet Nam (30,065) were the most important sources. 9 Asians accounted for some 39 per cent of the annual intake, which was almost exactly where it had been in the late 1970s but up from 8 per cent in the late 1950s. Since the mid-1980s immigrants from Asia have increased their participation in moves, both relatively and absolutely, to Australia and Canada, while the basic pattern to the United States of America has been relatively stable. In recent years, temporary channels of entry have become important channels into the most advanced economies. In 2010, 383,929 temporary residents entered Canada, of whom 182,276 were foreign workers and 96,000 were foreign students, compared with the 280,681 who entered as permanent residents. In the United States of America in 2010, 1.04 million obtained legal permanent residence, whereas 4.95 million were admitted as temporary workers or as students. In 2010/11, 213,409 were added to the Australian population in terms of permanent settlers compared with 464,955 who arrived as temporary entrants. The principal source countries of these temporary migrants, and particularly the temporary worker subcategory, show a different distribution from that of the permanent migrant intake. While Asians are still important, they are not as dominant as in the permanent intake with other northern sources, which are as, if not more, important. This pattern to a large extent reflects the global flows of the highly skilled, which are still dominated by the most advanced economies, plus a small number of developing economies such as China, India, Mexico and the Philippines (Docquier and Marfouk, 2006). The exception clearly refers to students, which are again dominated by Asians. Some 45 per cent of the 218,161 foreign students present in Canada on 1 December 2010, for example, came from just three countries: China, India and the Republic of Korea. In the United States of America in 2010/11, those same three countries were again the main source areas, accounting for 46 per cent of the 723,277 international students. 10 In Australia, these three countries accounted for 43 per cent of the 332,700 student-visa holders in June In the 25 years since the beginning of the Journal, migration in and from Asia has undergone significant change but a change that has not between uniform across that vast continent. Labour migration to the countries of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council) has continued as have massive interactions between rural and urban areas. Changes have been reflected in the emergence of significant destinations for international migration within Asia itself, particularly in East and South-East Asia. The continuity of 111

118 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 labour migration has also been reflected in the persistence in movements from the newly independent States of Central Asia towards the Russian Federation, movements that were once within the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but with the emergence of a new destination for regional migration in Kazakhstan. The far eastern part of the Russian Federation has also emerged as a destination for legal and irregular migrants from China. Nevertheless, perhaps the most significant continuity as well as change has been the intensification but changing composition of global flows from the subregion. From the far eastern part of the Russian Federation and the Central Asian countries, ethnic Russians have migrated to the Russian Federation, the Ukraine and beyond, but by far the most important global migrations have been from the most rapidly developing economies in East Asia. As settlers, skilled migrants and students, these migrants have transformed the immigration patterns of the countries of North America and Australasia in particular over the last 25 years. The flows of once unskilled labour migrants to these destinations have been transformed through the development of Asia to flows containing some of the wealthiest and most influential of global migrants. How these migrations will evolve in the future is of concern to us all. The future of migration in Asia Simply because of its size as well as rapid economic growth, it is the future course of China that will determine so much of what will happen in Asia and the world, including migration. However, we also need to look beyond China. A projection of the 20 largest economies in the world in 2050 places China firmly at the top as the largest economy, followed by the United States of America, India, Brazil, Japan and the Russian Federation. Indonesia is estimated to become the tenth largest economy, just behind the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Korea and Viet Nam also make it into the top 20 economies (PwC, 2011). Should such a projection be even remotely close to the future reality, it implies a major shift of global power from west to east (see also Morris, 2010). Global, regional and local patterns of migration will adjust accordingly. One area where projection can be fairly robust is in demography. The slowing in growth of China s population and labour force has already been discussed above and the era of surplus population is coming to an end. As in the case of the economies on the periphery of the Chinese world to the east and south, pressures to import labour are likely to grow. Reports already exist of 2 million job vacancies in the south eastern coastal region in 2004, a deficit which spread north of the Yangtze River in 2005 (Wang, Cai and Gao, 2005). China is already a country of immigration (Pieke, 2011; Skeldon, 2011) with supposedly thousands of Vietnamese smuggled across the southern border as cheap labour for Chinese factories. In the north of China, Koreans from the Republic of Korea have moved into coastal cities to engage in white-collar and 112

119 Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change business activities, with 100,000 in Beijing s Wanjiang District alone in 2007 (Spencer and others, 2012). Refugees from the Democratic People s Republic of Korea, although not recognized as such by the Chinese, have also entered the north-eastern part of the country in considerable numbers, where an ethnic Korean population of long standing already exists. In addition, many skilled migrants have entered from the most advanced economies, a considerable proportion thought to be from the Chinese ethnic communities overseas, in order to provide key support to China s rapid economic development. Official figures indicate that, in 2007, some 2.85 million foreigners entered China for employment purposes, of whom more than half a million were workers in joint ventures or wholly-owned foreign firms (see Skeldon, 2011). The immigration to China is as yet small compared with the outmigration. Yet, if China ages in the way its smaller and highly developed neighbours have done, the need to import workers is likely to rise. One of the key issues facing most Asian countries is how far to open the door to foreigners. As emphasized in a previous section, no Asian economy has opened its borders to immigration and all implement exclusionary policies to a greater or lesser degree. However, the sustainability of this approach is in the context of continued economic development and a rapidly ageing society will be one of the future challenges facing the management of migration in Asia. Even if borders are to be opened to some extent, the question remains where workers will be found as neighbouring countries and potential sources of supply are passing through their own demographic transitions. Perhaps one indicator is the presence of over 20,000 Africans in southern China. The majority of these are irregular migrants and generally traders, but China s increasing involvement in that continent with over 1 million Chinese in Africa (Ma Mung Kuang, 2008; Brautigam, 2009) is likely to result in linkages that will lead to increasing numbers of Africans in China. These flows also need to be set within another trend that is affecting countries as they develop: the decline in the number of internal migrants. In Japan, the annual number of migrants within prefectures declined from 4.04 million in 1970 to 2.6 million in 2008, and the number of migrants moving from one prefecture to another every year declined from 4.4 million in 1970 to 2.5 million in The absolute number of young adults years old, that is, those most likely to migrate, declined over the same period from 28.1 million in 1970 to 23.7 million in Other economic factors, too, may need to be taken into consideration in the face of this decline but evidence is emerging from other advanced economies such as the United States of America and elsewhere, of long-term secular declines in internal migration (Frey, 2009; Bogue and others, 2009; Bell and Muhidin, 2009). In Asia, such a phase seems a long way off as yet, but, as seen previously in this article, migration in the region is part of global processes and the implication of such a 113

120 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 decline, in Japan at least, is to see international migration begin to substitute for internal migration as the pool of domestic labour declines. Links between internal and international migration will become increasingly clear, forcing analysts to reconceptualize migration and mobility within integrated national and transnational fields (Skeldon, 2006; King and Skeldon, 2010). The future of migration in Asia will bring surprises. Nevertheless, the future is likely to be urban, with international migration increasingly heading towards metropolitan areas and characterized by intense mobility of migrants among large cities. As had been the case over the previous 25 years, these will be continuities but also change. The role of environmental change is likely to be added to the main drivers of migration but in ways that are more complex than often thought (GOS, 2011). People are increasingly moving towards more hazardous areas in and around cities, for example. Marginal areas, including small islands, are likely to see increasing rates of depopulation. Whatever the outcomes, migration will be a major policy concern throughout Asia and it is to be hoped that the Journal will continue to present assessments of the shifts in patterns and volume of population movements over its next 25 years. 114

121 Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change Endnotes 1 All figures for urban populations are taken from World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision. Available from 2 Ignoring the 100 per cent figures for the city-economies of Hong Kong, China; Macao, China; and Singapore. 3 The ideas passed back to communities of origin are often called social remittances. See Levitt (1999), for example, who has stimulated much research into the topic. 4 These data are published by the Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, and are available by country for the years 2000 and See International Migration 2002 (wall chart) (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.03.XIII.3; the wall chart for 2006 (Sales No.E.06. XIII.6); and the one for 2009 (Sales No. E.04.XIII.8). 5 Figure cited at the opening of the United Nations Interregional Workshop on Strengthening Dialogue to Make Migration Work for Development in the ESCAP and ESCWA Regions, Beirut, June Figures from the United Nations Population Division, Canadian figures are from Canada Facts and Figures. Immigration Overview: Permanent and Temporary Residents 2010, Ottawa, Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Available from ois_yb_2010.pdf. 8 Figures for Australia from Immigration Update , Canberra, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Available from publications/statistics/immigration-update/update pdf. 9 United States of America figures are from the 2010 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, Office of Immigration Statistics, Homeland Security. Available from gc.ca/english/pdf/research-stats/facts2010.pdf. 10 The figures for international students in the United States of America come from Open Doors, New York, Institute of International Education, at: org/research-and-publications/open-doors/data/international-students/leading-places-of-origin/ These figures are from the Annual Statistical Yearbook of Japan, Tokyo, Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, various years. 115

122 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 References Abella, M. I. (ed.) (1994). Turning points in labor migration, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, vol. 3, No. 1, special issue. Asis, M. M. B. and F. Baggio (eds.) (2008). Moving Out, Back and Up: International Migration and Development Prospects in the Philippines. Quezon City: Scalabrini Migration Center. Bell, M. and S. Muhidin (2009). Cross-national comparison of internal migration, New York, United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Reports, Research Paper 2009/30. Available from Bogue, D. J., G. Liegel and M. Kozloski (2009). Immigration, Internal Migration, and Local Mobility in the U.S. Cheltenham: Elgar. Brautigam, D. (2009). The Dragon s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chalamwong, Y. (2006). Country Report Thailand, paper presented at the Workshop on International Migration and Labour Market in Asia, Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training and the OECD, Tokyo, 17 February. Constable, N. (2005). Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. DeWind, J., Eun Mee Kim, R. Skeldon and In-Jin Yoon (2012). Korean Development and Migration, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 38, No. 3, special issue. Docquier, F. and A. Marfouk (2006). International migration by educational attainment, , in International Migration, Remit ta nces and the Brain Drain, Ç. Özden and M. Schiff, eds. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, pp Frey, W. H. (2009). The great American migration slowdown: regional and metropolitan dimensions, Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, Washington, The Brookings Institute. Available from frey.aspx GOS (2011). Foresight: Migration and Global Environmental Change. Final Project Report. London: Government Office for Science. 116

123 Migration and Asia: Reflections on Continuities and Change Hugo, G. (2009). Emerging demographic trends in Asia and the Pacific: the implications for international migration, in Talent, Competitiveness and Migration, Bertelsmann Stiftung and Migration Policy Institute, eds. Washington, D.C.: Transatlantic Council on Migration, pp IOM (2008). Situation Report on International Migration in East and South-East Asia. Regional Thematic Working Group on International Migration including Human Trafficking. Bangkok: International Organization for Migration, Regional Office for Southeast Asia. King, R. (ed.) (1993). Mass Migration in Europe: The Legacy and the Future. London: Belhaven. and R. Skeldon (2010). Mind the gap: integrating approaches to internal and international migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 36, no. 10, pp Kritz, M. M. (1987). The global picture of contemporary immigration patterns. In Pacific Bridges: The New Immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands, J. T. Fawcett and B. V. Cariño, eds. New York: Center for Migration Studies, pp Levitt, P Social remittances: a local-level, migration-driven form of cultural diffusion. International Migration Review, vol. 32, No. 124, pp Ma Mung Kuang, Emmanuel (2008). The new Chinese migration to Africa. Social Science Information, vol. 47, No. 40, pp Morris, I. (2010). Why the West Rules - For Now. The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future. London: Profile Books. Murphy, R. (2002). How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parsons, C. R., R. Skeldon, T. L. Walmsley and L. Alan Winters (2007). Quantifying international migration: a database of bilateral flows. In International Migration, Economic Development and Policy, Ç. Özden and M. Schiff, eds. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, pp Pieke, F. N. (2011). Immigrant China, Modern China, published online 16 November. Abstract available from content/38/1/40.short. 117

124 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 PwC (2011). The world in The accelerating shift of global economic power: challenges and opportunities, Available from www. pwc.com/en_gx/gx/world-2050/pdf/world-2050-jan pdf. Salas, R. M. (1986). Population and urbanization. Asia-Pacific Population Journal, vol. 1, No. 1, pp Skeldon, R. (1997). Migration and Development: A Global Perspective. London: Longman. (2006). Interlinkages between internal and international migration in the Asian region, Population, Space and Place, vol. 12, No. 1, pp (2011). China: an emerging destination for economic migration, Migration Information Source (May),. Available from (2012). Migration transitions revisited: their continued relevance for the development of migration theory. Population, Space and Place, vol. 18, No. 2, pp Sklair, L. (2001). The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell. Spencer, Jim, Petrice R. Flowers and Jungmin Seo (2012). Post-1980s multicultural immigrant neighbourhoods: Koreatowns, spatial identity and host regions in the Pacific rim. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 38, No. 3, pp Wang Dewan, Cai Fan and Gao Wenshu (2005). Globalization and internal labor mobility in China: new trend and policy implications, Beijing, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Available from Zelinsky, W. (1971). The hypothesis of the mobility transition, The Geographical Review, vol. 61, No. 2, pp

125 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia: New Issues and New Opportunities Policy research on Asia s demographic transition over the last several decades has been overwhelmingly concerned with detailing the consequences of rapid population growth and measures to lower fertility. This research can point to significant accomplishments. Looking ahead, the now radically changed demographic landscape calls for a new agenda of policy research. Prominent among emerging population-related problems are: rapid population ageing with its major implications for inter-age transfers; changing marriage and family patterns underlying ultra-low fertility and possible population decline; and demographic adaptation to the new environmental conditions likely to be generated by climate change. As was the case with the demographic transition, Asia s population scientists have the opportunity and arguably the obligation to spread their understanding of these emerging demographic realities and their analyses of how public policy might be brought to bear on them. Asia still needs a vigorous public demography. By Peter J. Donaldson and Geoffrey McNicoll* To those who support population research and to many who engage in it, the main objective of that research is to inform public policy. Knowing more about the course of demographic change can assist in adapting to that change and, at least at the margin, in attempting to influence it for the better. Admittedly, population is a slow-moving target: its timescale of change is typically measured not year to year but in decades or * Peter J. Donaldson is President and Geoffrey McNicoll, Senior Associate, at the Population Council. 119

126 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 generations. However, that feature should not make it a second-order consideration, simply part of the policy background. Quite the opposite: emerging demographic realities need to be anticipated and responded to early if policy interventions are to be well considered and effective. One task of the population researcher is to transmit a wake-up call when circumstances appear to require new policy directions. In this article, the population research-to-policy link is looked at in the context of Asia s demographic transition over the last several decades, and it contains speculation on how an analogous link might be forged for the decades ahead. We ask: what has population research accomplished for public policy and what should it be doing now? The last half century has witnessed profound change in the region s demographic regimes, occurring at a pace unprecedented in the history of the world. The policy landscape has also been transformed and with it the research agenda for population studies. Researchers and policymakers together face new realities. Our account is necessarily highly selective, both in what we have chosen to emphasize in the past and in our speculations about the future. A transformed Asian demography Asia s role as the world s economic dynamo is so familiar that the astonishing transformation it represents is often forgotten, along with its recency too. The forerunners of this change the miracle economies of East Asia that emerged in wake of Japan took off only in the 1960s. In China and India, the policy shifts that transformed Asia s two giants date from barely a generation ago the reforms launched in China in the late 1970s by Deng Xiaoping, and, little more than a decade later, economic liberalization in India. Asia has its laggards as well, where economic initiative has been frustrated by political conflict or ideological rigidity. This diversity limits the value of region-wide generalization. Paralleling the economic success story has been Asia s equally striking demographic transition. Steady advances in life expectancy from the 1950s onward were soon accompanied by widespread declines in birth rates. Asia-wide, life expectancy gained 20 to 30 years from 1950 to 2005, and fertility fell by more than half now averaging 2.3 children per woman (United Nations, 2011). More remarkable still, fertility in most of East Asia, notably in China, has fallen well below replacement level. In the 1950s, none of this seemed inevitable or, to many, even likely. 1 Declining mortality was to be expected with the spread of public health measures and improving economic conditions. The rapid population growth that resulted appeared self-evidently to be a drag on development perhaps even a threat to social order. A birth-rate response to changing economic conditions and improved survivorship, however, 120

127 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia might be slow in coming. For many analysts and onlookers this pointed to a needed role for the State in encouraging the spread of birth control. By the 1980s, when the first issue of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal appeared, fertility decline was already well under way, attributed at least in part to that State-led encouragement. An Asian model of family planning programmes was well established. It was avowedly voluntary, in accord with international covenants, but tied to local administrative systems that could help to inform and marshal potential clients. Sometimes the voluntarism lapsed notably in the emergency period in India in the mid-1970s. In that regard, of course, China went its own way. Asia s population growth has not halted, but its end is in sight. In the latest medium-variant United Nations projections, East Asia s population will peak by 2025, and that of South and South-East Asia by 2065 (United Nations, 2011). (In view of the still massive rural populations in much of the region, this does not signal any near-term halt in city growth.) However, if the last half century has seen one population problem solved, others have begun to emerge. They are, in their own way, just as serious in their implications and just as demanding of research and policy response as was rapid population growth for an earlier generation of researchers and policymakers. Prominent among these emerging problems are: Population ageing. This is the most obvious change wrought by the new low mortality/low fertility regimes, resulting initially from a lowered proportion of young people, later from a steadily rising proportion of older persons. Traditions requiring a family to support its older members are coming under increasing strain, leaving individuals themselves and ultimately the public sector to shoulder a rising share of this burden. Changing family structure. Low fertility is typically linked to greater female autonomy and participation in the formal labour market and to a retreat from marriage. The new patterns of family life may entrench very low fertility, presaging a long-run downward trend in population size. In some countries, strong son preference combined with sex-selective abortion has led to a significant gender imbalance. Adapting to new environmental conditions. Prospective changes in climate are expected to affect river flows, agricultural zones, sea level and the scale and frequency of extreme weather events. Mounting evidence of the magnitude of these likely effects and the difficulty of halting the underlying process of atmospheric warming directs attention to problems of adaptation, not least in the demographic realm. Put simply, populations will need to reorganize themselves to accommodate environmental change. 121

128 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Other emerging population-related problems could readily be added to such a list. Moreover, familiar continuing trends, such as urbanization and international migration, will plausibly take on heightened significance and call for renewed research attention. In short, population issues seem certain to remain high on Asia s research and public policy agenda. The record of policy research on Asia s demographic transition Since the 1960s, policy research on Asia s population has been overwhelmingly concerned with fertility and birth control. The accompanying process of urbanization, as socially transformative as the fertility transition, offers a contrasting picture of research and policy. We look at the record in these two cases. Fertility decline Declining mortality in Asian countries produced many evident benefits but the rapid population growth it led to also created problems for the development effort. These were investigated through simulation exercises on simple economic-demographic models. The arithmetic effects of lower fertility in allowing greater capital-deepening was formalized in the neoclassical growth models of the 1950s; the economic gains from lower child-dependency in the population were quantified in the classic study by Coale and Hoover (1958), which was focused on India. This research gave theoretical backing for policies aimed at bringing down birth rates. But what kind of policy action? In various Asian countries and areas household surveys probing contraceptive knowledge, attitudes and practice yielded evidence of a latent demand for family planning services. Pilot programmes helped to demonstrate the efficacy of various designs for meeting that demand. Particularly influential in this respect were several formal programme experiments, enabling comparison of treatment and control areas. These became widely known and referred to by their locations: Taichung (Taiwan Province of China), Koyang (Republic of Korea) and, much later, Matlab (Bangladesh). 2 Accounts of many of the first-generation research and demonstration projects can be found in the early numbers of Studies in Family Planning ( ). These reports, along with similar presentations in national medical journals and regional conferences, and personal exchanges among the relatively small band of early family planning enthusiasts, helped to spread information about programme activities and contraceptive methods 3 and to proselytize among those who were uncertain of the appropriateness or likely impact of programme efforts. 122

129 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia Many of the early projects were overseen by scientists and medical practitioners at elite universities, which added to their influence among national political leaders. Over time, the research agenda also attracted the participation of distinguished international population scientists (think of Ronald Freedman s research), adding their expertise and credibility to the family planning movement. Especially important were the data showing the demand for and acceptability of contraceptive services. Although the validity of these data was sometimes questioned, they proved persuasive in policy discussions. In broad outline, this description illustrates how the link from population research to policy action is meant to work. It begins with efforts to understand the system, then proceeds to test and evaluate policy interventions, and ends with scaling up effective interventions to nationwide programmes. In actuality, of course, the story in this case was more complicated and policy development less direct. The detrimental economic effects of rapid population growth were questioned by some researchers. By the 1980s, many economists had become scornful of the early simulation studies. They saw little hard evidence that population growth did much harm a conclusion presented in an influential 1986 report by the United States National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council, 1986; Preston and Donaldson, 1986). In later years the economic case for birth control was restored to favour when other researchers found evidence that a substantial part of East Asia s economic success could be attributed to the age-distribution and life cycle-saving effects of lowered fertility (Bloom and Canning, 1999; Lee, Mason and Miller, 1999). The effectiveness of family planning programmes was another matter of controversy. Greater contraceptive use obviously led to fewer births, but the critical issue was whether the driving force for that expanded use was the family planning programme or a heightened demand for birth control that would have been satisfied by other means in the absence of the programme. Historically, it was noted, fertility transitions had taken place without programme involvement, even in the face of government opposition. This supply-versus-demand debate was played out in the research literature, for the most part leaving pro ponents of each side unconvinced by the other. 4 In fact, a plausible explanation of fertility decline would acknowledge a significant family planning programme effect, working by extending access to modern birth control methods and in part by promoting smaller-family ideals, but would leave a major place for the effect of other social and economic forces. Much of the policy research underlying family planning programmes was supported by grants from foreign, mainly American, sources. These offered funding levels and flexibility that Governments of developing countries usually could not provide. Some later critics saw political motivations behind that support (see Connelly, 2008), but in many Asian 123

130 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 countries elite opinion at least needed no prompting to favour government support for the provision of contraceptive services (Caldwell, 1998). The experience of China calls for separate mention. Work by social scientists in that country in the early years made the economic case for slower population growth, but these writings (for example, those of the eminent economist Ma Yinchu) were denounced by Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Attention to the population problem did not re-emerge until the early 1970s, in the waning years of the Cultural Revolution. From that point the State moved decisively to lower fertility, initially through the intensive later-longer-fewer campaign, followed at the end of that decade by adoption of the country s stringent one-child policy. In supporting that policy, influential expert voices came not from population experts in the social sciences but from defence industry systems theorists. These experts, prominently Song Jian, took a limits to growth view of the population carrying capacity of China and applied formal control theory techniques to the design of social policy (Greenhalgh, 2008). What is referred to as the Cairo Agenda the Programme of Action adopted at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development was in some respects a reaction against both population researchers and policymakers. The economic development argument for reducing fertility, at the time already weakened, was mentioned but sidelined, and the Asian model of family planning programmes was in effect rejected. It was seen as insufficiently respectful of women s reproductive rights. In the new agenda, demographic targets were ruled out and programme managers were encouraged to restate their objectives as being primarily concerned with reproductive health and rights. By that time, however, most Asian countries were well on the way to completing the demographic transition and their fertility was responding more to market forces and burgeoning consumerist values than to family planning programme goals. Most Asian population scientists moved on to study other policy-relevant topics. The implications of the Cairo Agenda were and are far more consequential for Africa than for most of Asia. Urbanization Among the societal changes accompanying the demographic transition urbanization is perhaps the most striking (see Dyson, 2010). In this case, however, while the research base is substantial, the scope for policy action is comparatively meager. From an economic perspective, urbanization is simply the reallocation of labour to sectors of the economy where its productivity is greater. Economies of location and scale largely dictate where and how urban settlements grow, and faster overall economic growth brings faster urbanization. For population researchers, attention has been primarily on tracing the pace and patterns of change. 5 The sheer speed of city growth over recent decades has certainly warranted that attention. 124

131 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia Dhaka has grown tenfold (to some 14 million) since the independence of Bangladesh in 1971; in China, Shenzhen has expanded from a settlement of 60,000 in 1980 to a megacity of 10 million today (United Nations, 2010). Asia s world cities cities tied into global economic and cultural networks and exchange relations once Tokyo alone, now, by one estimation, include Hong Kong, China; Singapore; Mumbai; Bangkok; Shanghai; and Seoul (Gugler, 2004). Interest in urbanization on the part of government planners was always strong. Indeed, on a day-to-day basis, urbanization has been perhaps the demographic factor that was most immediately a cause of concern and often alarm on the part of Governments. How has the research-topolicy link worked in this case? The answer must be: not very well. The inflow of urban migrants is in large measure a byproduct of overall development performance. A Government s ability to manage that inflow is very limited, mostly to be found in measures directing the allocation of public and private investment. Governments typically have wanted to see population growth directed to smaller cities and towns on the assumption, true or not, that very large cities experience diseconomies of scale. Yet serious investment reallocation away from major cities, even if warranted by efficiency considerations, was politically difficult in the face of the pressing infrastructure and service needs of those cities. 6 Authoritarian Governments, almost by definition, have more scope to influence urban trends. This is seen in occasional efforts to close cities against rural migrants by requiring, say, proof of employment to gain formal residency. Jakarta, briefly in the 1970s, attempted to introduce such a measure but it was soon abandoned as ineffective. Similar policies were discussed in the Republic of Korea about the same time (Kim and Donaldson, 1979). On a far larger scale is China s still-existing hukou system of civil registration, under which individuals registered as rural residents find it all but impossible to change their status. Most rural migrants working in the city, and even their city-born children, cannot formally register as urban dwellers. Such migrants have been critical to the success of the manufacturing export sector but have no right to benefit from the city s State-subsidized schools, housing and health services. They are estimated to number about 160 million (Chan, 2011; Whyte, 2010). There was no research foundation supporting such stringent regulatory measures. Quite the opposite: social scientists were uniformly critical of them. The restrictive policies were simple regulatory responses to perceived urban problems, adopted with scant attention to side effects or longer-run consequences. The research-to-policy link was missing. Asia s urban transition is nowhere near complete. The United Nations estimated that Asia s 2010 population was 42 per cent urban. Over the next 40 years, this share is projected to rise to 65 per cent a doubling of the urban population from 1.76 billion to 3.38 billion (United Nations, 125

132 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No ). (The rural population over the same period is expected to shrink by half a billion.) Yet many of the problems posed by this massive anticipated expansion will likely differ more in scale than in kind from those already being faced. At least as they concern governance and service delivery, we are in familiar territory. What is new is the emerging vulnerability of some major cities to environmental change (see the later discussion). Research and policy in the new population landscape Three major new features of the demographic landscape now or soon to be confronting Asia s policymakers were noted previously: the rapidly growing numbers and proportions of older persons; the changes in family patterns that are seemingly entrenching very low fertility; and the looming prospect of markedly more challenging environmental conditions. We look at the research agenda in each of these areas, along with the related policy debates already begun or likely to emerge. Rapid expansion in proportions of older persons Life expectancy above 75 years and fertility of about 1.5 births per woman, the prevailing demographic regime in many East Asian countries, yield eventual age distributions with one quarter or more of the population over 65 years old. Ultra-low fertility, like that of Japan (about 1.3), produces still more extreme population ageing one third or more of the population older than 65 years. In most of Asia these older persons proportions are still well in the future: currently East Asia s 65+ age group makes up just 9.5 per cent of the total. (The equivalent share in Europe is 16 per cent.) Within a generation, however, the proportions of older persons will have passed 20 per cent. South and South-East Asia s age-group 65+ still accounts for only 5-6 per cent of the population, reflecting the slower fertility transition in those subregions, but these fractions too will steadily rise. Top-heavy age distributions are not unknown today they are seen, for example, in farming communities subject to long-standing outmigration of the young, but for whole countries, the now-emerging age distributions are unprecedented. Population ageing is well understood as a demographic phenomenon and the likely problems it will present are widely acknowledged. Less well known are the details of how older persons are being and will be supported. The options, in some combination, are self-support from the person s own income and assets, private transfers from family members and public transfers through pensions and benefits, principally for health care. Family support has been especially important in most Asian countries, but it is widely believed that traditions requiring such support must be eroding in response both to changing values in a consumer society and the increasing burden placed on a diminishing number of progeny. (A countervailing trend is the increased scope for social support to older persons from even distantly located family members 126

133 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia permitted by the rapid spread of cell-phone technology. See Knodel and others, 2007.) Yet many countries are apparently reluctant to socialize the economic burden the course generally pursued by Western welfare States and, equally, most people would probably be reluctant to trust in promises of State support decades ahead. Of course, socialized or not, the underlying economic problem of rising dependency is the same. There are two main avenues of research into this question, both offering a comprehensive picture of transfer patterns. One is through survey research and quasi-anthropological investigation, tracing the networks of transfers, public and private, supporting older persons. There are case studies of this kind in a number of Asian countries but at the national level the picture remains murky. 7 The second approach is through a careful disaggregation by age of existing national accounts data. This is the aim of the National Transfer Accounts project, a major international research operation now under way. 8 Its strength is that of national accounts themselves: that the estimates have to show internal consistency. Countries can be distinguished by their particular weighting among the sources of old-age support. Systematic information on existing patterns of support for older persons is one necessary input to policy debate on the subject. Another input is the appraisal of policy responses in other countries whether seen as potential models or as cautionary tales. Assuming that diminished family support is inevitable, that international experience not just from the region can inform policy debate on how to reach a sustainable balance between public and private sources. Relevant country experience would include Chile s progressive shift from pay-as-you-go pensions to a funded scheme; Europe s wide variety of welfare state institutions; Japan s recently adopted compulsory long-term insurance system; and Singapore s massive and comprehensive Central Provident Fund. China, which tends to conduct its own policy experiments rather than follow those of others, has various trial programmes under way in social security. As the country showing in starkest relief the predicament of becoming old before becoming rich, China s policy deliberations on this topic should be of major interest to other countries in the region. Entrenchment of ultra-low fertility? In the low-fertility regimes that now prevail in most of East Asia, large families have become rare. The likely prospect is that the vast majority of women will have 0, 1, or 2 children, with an average between 1 and 2 but very possibly closer to 1. It is entirely possible, for example, that China s fertility might remain 1.5, or even below that level, even if the current restrictions on child numbers are abandoned. Delayed marriage and non-marriage has been a notable recent trend in much of East and South-East Asia China being the main exception. Jones (2007) foresees 15 per cent or more of women in these countries 127

134 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 never marrying levels comparable to those in Western countries, but differing significantly in that in Asia cohabitation has been slow to emerge as a marriage-substitute. The retreat from marriage has been seen particularly among educated women. 9 Family patterns may also be affected by the persistence of son preference. Strongly male-dominant sex ratios at birth are seen in a number of countries, leading, over time, to significant deficits of women in the marriage market. (Deficits of that kind are not unprecedented: they were experienced in the history of many New World settler societies. ) In the Asian case, it is plausible that son preference will gradually diminish along with gender inequity more generally, with sex ratios falling back to more normal levels over the next decade or two. Such a declining trend, for example, is evident in the Republic of Korea, where the sex ratio at birth peaked in the 1990s (Chung and Das Gupta, 2007). Entrenched very low fertility before long results in actual population shrinkage. At a continuing total fertility rate of 1.5, after temporary age-distribution bulges are ironed out, the population will diminish by one quarter each generation; at a fertility rate of 1.3 (Japan s current level), the fall per generation will be over one-third. These possible futures pose stark policy challenges. It is possible that the demography will correct itself. In Western countries, for example, very low fertility in the early decades of the twentieth century was followed by the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s. Some part of ultra-low fertility is a transitory tempo effect of rising ages at childbearing. However, that correction cannot be assured. The three remaining alternatives are replacement migration, measures that somehow induce a rise in fertility back to near replacement level, or living with and adjusting to shrinking numbers. Immigration on a substantial scale, especially from culturally disparate regions, would be a novel experience in many Asian countries, but may become part of a policy response in some cases. However, as a famous United Nations report made clear, replacement migration at levels sufficient to maintain close to a constant population size is not a plausible policy at very low fertility levels. 10 The second option raising fertility potentially offers the best outcome. However, the possibilities for engineering a rise back to nearreplacement level appear to be either very expensive or politically untenable. Direct family allowances of various kinds are the most obvious route. However, the evidence from European countries suggests that they yield very modest fertility effects at a high cost (Rindfuss and others, 2010; Thévenon, 2011). Demeny (1986) has proposed several ingenious institutional reforms designed to realign incentives so that they better reward childbearing. (One proposal, for example, would link the size of a person s State pension to the combined incomes of his 128

135 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia or her children.) Political feasibility, at least until the demographic situation becomes more dire, is doubtful. Were it not for the ageing effect, adjusting to a smaller population might not be very difficult although less easy in Asia than in Europe s ultra-low fertility countries, most of which are sheltered within the common labour market of the European Union. There might even be some environmental benefits. The original estimates underlying the one-child policy of China, for instance, were premised on the country s population eventually dropping back to some 700 million, a level then considered by these planners to be optimum in terms of economic and ecological sustainability (Yu and others, 1985; Greenhalgh, 2008). An entrenched population decline, however, may be difficult to halt. Here, then, is a major emerging societal challenge, at the junction of population studies, public economics and policy analysis, where demographers should be taking a lead in setting out the nature, scope and timing of the problem. Population dimension of climate change Despite some significant areas of controversy, there is a broad scientific consensus on the facts and causes of climate change and on the potentially grave problems it presents for humanity and the natural environment. Another reality is the inability at the international level to reach agreement on concerted action on a scale large enough to slow and ultimately perhaps halt that change principally by limiting greenhouse gas emissions to slow atmospheric warming. No resolution has yet been found on how the costs and responsibilities for emission control should be shared, particularly between developed and developing countries. For poorer countries, understandably, development takes precedence. In these circumstances, climate change will very likely proceed with only marginal mitigation and countries must seek ways of adapting to it. The anticipated environmental effects of climate change include rising sea levels, melting glaciers and altered patterns of precipitation, shifting crop zones, more frequent extreme weather events and damaged ecosystems. These effects may begin to be noticed in the near term but, in most climate model scenarios, a serious impact will be felt only later in the century. In each case, the adaptation called for is likely to have a significant demographic component. In the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, high confidence is attributed to its prediction of heightened flooding risks from rising sea levels in the heavily-popu lated mega-delta regions in South, East and South-East Asia (Population and Development Review, 2007). Many of Asia s cities, including some of its largest ones, lie in these low-elevation coastal zones. In some countries, significant proportions of the rural population also live in such zones. In 129

136 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Viet Nam, for example, they contain more than half the population, including much of Ho Chi Minh City. There are few signs that concern about vulnerability to flooding has slowed migration to Ho Chi Minh City or will do so in the foreseeable future. At the same time, there is scant evidence of preparations for the consequences (population displacement, environmental contamination, infectious diseases and so on) by government planners (see, for example, Costello and others, 2009). Retreating glaciers are another cause for concern, although the time scale of this trend has been in some dispute. The glaciers of the Himalayan region are the headwaters of the Ganges-Brahmaputra, Indus, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, governing streamflow and therefore water supply for both irrigation systems and industrial and domestic consumers over a vast area and a population of billions. Droughts and floods resulting from long-run shifts in rainfall patterns are difficult to distinguish from cyclical changes, such as those associated with the El Niño phenomenon and from random weather extremes. Over the longer term, however, there are potentially major implications of such shifts for food security and for outmigration from the worstaffected areas the migrants falling into a category often referred to as environmental refugees. Finally, climate change has adverse implications for the quality of ecosystem services, the (typically unpriced) benefits humans receive from the natural environment, such as pollination, erosion control and water purification. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a major international study involving many hundreds of scientists, in its 2005 synthesis report, warned of the ongoing degradation of such services a trend it predicted to worsen over future decades (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The degradation was especially pronounced in d ryland regions, home to one third of the world s population but with only 8 per cent of the world s renewable water supply. Clearly there is much important work for population specialists to do, in collaboration with other social scientists and environmental experts, to understand population environment interactions and to explore possible means of lessening their negative impact. That work should underpin and motivate efforts to inform both the public and policymakers about those interactions, their import for human societies and, more tentatively, to suggest the range of policy responses available. The role of public demography For decades, a key element of the research-to-policy link has been the participation of senior population scientists on various advisory committees to address issues related to population size, growth 130

137 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia and distribution. Population experts have been advisors to national statistical offices, to departments of labour, and to family planning and reproductive health programmes in ministries of health. From time to time, they would prepare a memorandum or policy brief or otherwise engage senior bureaucrats or political leaders about a particular policy or programme strategy, often drawing on their own research findings. These interactions were sometimes the start of an important policy and programme evolution, and represented an effective transfer of knowledge between researcher and policymaker. They could happen at various political and administrative levels responding, for instance, to some particular concerns of a provincial governor. This policyoriented, translational effort was at times consequential, but it typically lacked any significant public dimension. It played to a bureaucratic audience. Today population scientists have a new opportunity to play a public role in discussions of population-related policy issues. It is both easier and more appropriate to take on such a role now than it was two or three decades ago. There are two reasons for this change. First, there is a more literate and informed public gauged, for example, by gains in newspaper readership and, now more importantly, in access to electronic media. Internet penetration rates vary widely about 80 per cent in Japan and Republic of Korea, 38 per cent in China, 10 per cent in India averaging about 26 per cent region-wide (end-2011 estimates; see Internet World Stats, 2012). In absolute numbers this represents a huge potential audience to learn about significant demographic issues of the sort discussed above. Second, populations are more politically engaged. Over the past 25 years, the region has seen a widespread growth in democratic institutions and an increase in democratic polities. In those societies the public as well as policymakers have an opportunity to contribute to the shaping of public policy. 11 In view of these developments, Asia s population scientists have an opportunity perhaps even an obligation to help their fellow citizens understand the nature and implications of the remarkable demographic transformations that are taking place across the region and, no less important, understand how public policy might influence them. The social role of the population scientist should extend beyond communication to his or her scientific peers and bureaucratic sponsors as was typically the case in the past. It should include also a component that serves the needs and interests of the public and its representatives. It is not enough to write exclusively for scholarly or academic publications, or to prepare reports that end up swelling the largely unread grey literature. Population specialists can and should do more. Asia needs a vigorous public demography. 131

138 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Public demography is the effort to reach a public audience with demographic analysis and summaries of research results, discussions about what these results mean, and what, if any, action the public and its elected and appointed officials ought to take based on what we have learned (Donaldson, 2011). In other words, public demography is the informing of informed opinion on population-related issues (Reed, 1989). Public demography presents information to non-specialists about such things as the relationships between migration and environmental degradation or the impact of changing economic conditions on health. Public demography includes any activity that brings population-related information and analysis to the public, to politicians, and to policymakers and programme managers. It includes popular newspaper and magazine articles, contributions to websites and blogs, appearances on talk radio and speeches before service organizations. Public demography acquaints people with population data and research results and spells out their implications in a way that can be understood and used. Such presentations, it may be hoped, help to shape a national or even international conversation about an issue and guide the design of more effective policies. The assumption underlying them is that the public would benefit from more facts, more analysis and more discussion of population-related topics. Public demography presents no risk to sound demographic research. That research is aimed at increasing knowledge of the causes and consequences of population processes. Public demography is concerned with communicating that knowledge. Its practice deserves the respect of researchers and indeed the two roles are typically taken by the same person. Too often, public discussions of important population-related topics resemble boxing matches between opposing advocates. The best public demography can provide a more measured and factually grounded argument and thus better serve the societies in which we live. The future agenda of policy-oriented population research will be as large, as rich, and no doubt as controversial as the population policy agenda has been in the past. In some respects it may be more demanding. In most of Asia, family planning was the direct concern of a particular woman, her husband and perhaps her immediate family. The population issues now emerging will involve the wider community and entail costs much greater than those needed to provide family planning services. The opportunities are correspondingly greater to influence public policy. 132

139 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia Endnotes 1 United Nations projections, however, have always taken achievement of the demographic transition for granted. Projected global population totals for 2000 made in the 1960s came close to the actual figure. (Errors at the country level were often larger.) 2 The population research landscape in the 1960s and 1970s is described and appraised in Berelson (1976). 3 The contraceptive methods IUDs in early projects in the Republic of Korea, for example were often new to the country s health-care system. 4 For example, on the supply side, see Bongaarts and Sinding (2011) and on the demand side Pritchett (1994). A brief historical account is given in Demeny and McNicoll (2006). 5 Recent major studies include National Research Council (2003), Jones and Douglas (2008) and Birch and Wachter (2011). Investigative instruments in urbanization research now extend beyond conventional demographic data-collection to encompass satellite imaging. 6 In contrast to the process of urbanization, in dealing with the resulting urban problems, planning clearly can be effective. 7 A model for a large-scale study of this kind, from Europe, is the multi-country Kinship and Social Security project (Grandits and others, 2010). 8 See Lee and Mason (2011). The Asian economies for which these accounts have so far been produced are China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Taiwan Province of China and Thailand. 9 This is discussed in The flight from marriage, The Economist, August Exceptions are city states such as Singapore. Throughout history cities have often been population sinks, reliant on in-migration for population maintenance. 11 These overall regional trends do not reflect uniform or consistent changes across the region or within countries in either access to information or participation in a democratic process. Economic and social development is typically uneven, and in most Asian countries large segments of the population, especially the poor and rural residents, have not experienced the benefits of development that the burgeoning urban middle class is starting to enjoy. 133

140 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 References Berelson, Bernard (1976). Social science research on population: a review. Population and Development Review, vol. 2, No. 2, pp Birch, Eugenie L. and Susan M. Wachter (eds.) (2011). Global Urbanization. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Bloom, David E. and David Canning (1999). The health and wealth of nations. Science, vol. 287, No. 5456, pp Bongaarts, John and Steven Sinding (2011). Population policy in transition in the developing world. Science, vol. 333, No. 6042, pp Caldwell, John C. (1998). Malthus and the less developed world: the pivotal role of India. Population and Development Review, vol. 24, No. 4, pp Chan, Kam Wing (2011). The myth of China s urbanization. East Asia Forum. August 19. Chung, Woojin and Monica Das Gupta (2007). The decline of son preference in South Korea: the roles of development and public policy. Population and Development Review, vol. 33, No. 4, pp Coale, Ansley J. and Edgar M. Hoover (1958). Population Growth and Economic Development in Low-Income Countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Connelly, Matthew (2008). Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Costello, Anthony and others (2009). Managing the health effects of climate change. The Lancet, vol. 373, No. 9676, pp Demeny, Paul (1986). Pronatalist policies in low-fertility countries: patterns, performance, and prospects. Population and Development Review, vol. 12 (Supplement), pp and Geoffrey McNicoll (2006). World population : perception and response. Population and Development Review, vol. 32 (Supplement), pp Donaldson, Peter J. (2011). Toward an engaged public demography. Population Reference Bureau Occasional Paper. 134

141 Repositioning Population Research and Policy in Asia Dyson, Tim (2010). Population and Development: The Demographic Transition. London: Zed Books. Grandits, Hannes and others (eds.)(2010). Family, Kinship and State in Contemporary Europe. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. 3 vols. Greenhalgh, Susan (2008). Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng s China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gugler, Josef (ed.)( 2004). World Cities beyond the West: Globalization, Development, and Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Internet World Stats: Usage and Population Statistics (2012). from Available Jones, Gavin W. (2007). Delayed marriage and very low fertility in Pacific Asia. Population and Development Review, vol. 33, No. 3, pp and Mike Douglas (2008). Mega-Urban Regions in Pacific Asia: Urban Dynamics in a Global Era. Singapore: NUS Press. Kim, Son-Ung and Peter J. Donaldson (1979). Dealing with Seoul s population growth: government plans and their implication. Asian Survey, vol. 19, No. 7, pp Knodel, John, Jiraporn Kespichayawattana, Suvinee Wiwatwanich and Chanpen Saengtienchai (2007). Migration and Inter-generational Solidarity: Evidence from Rural Thailand. UNFPA Country Technical Services Team for East and Southeast Asia, Papers in Population Ageing Series, No. 2. Bangkok: UNFPA. Lee, Ronald and Andrew Mason (2011). Population Aging and the Generational Economy: A Global Perspective. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. and Timothy Miller (1999). Savings, wealth, and the demographic transition in East Asia. In Population Economics, Demographic Transition, and Development: Research and Policy Implications, Andrew Mason and others, eds. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: Synthesis. National Research Council, Committee on Population (1986). Population Growth and Economic Development: Policy Questions. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. 135

142 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 (2003). Cities Transformed: Demographic Change and Its Implications in the Developing World. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press. Population and Development Review (2007). Projected regional effects of climate change from the Fourth IPCC Assessment. Population and Development Review (June), vol. 33, No.2, pp Preston, Samuel H. and Peter Donaldson (1986). Population and economic development. Asia-Pacific Population Journal, vol. 1, No. 2, pp Pritchett, Lant H. (1994). Desired fertility and the impact of population policies. Population and Development Review, vol. 29, No. 1, pp Reed, John Shelton (1989). On narrative and sociology, Social Force, vol. 68, No. 1, pp Rindfuss, Ronald R., David K. Guilkey, S. Philip Morgan, and Øystein Kravdal (2010). Child-care availability and fertility in Norway, Population and Development Review, vol. 36, No. 4, pp Studies in Family Planning ( ). Population Council, Nos. 1 to 25. Thévenon, Olivier (2011). Family policies in OECD countries: a comparative analysis. Population and Development Review, vol. 37, No. 1, pp United Nations (2000). Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations? (Sales No. E.01XIII.19). (2010). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision. Available from (2011). World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. Available from Whyte, Martin King (ed.) (2010). One Country, Two Societies: Rural-Urban Inequality in Contemporary China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 136

143 Editorial management Editor-in-Chief: Editor: Advisors: Srinivas Tata Marco Roncarati Jerrold W. Huguet, Bhakta Gubhaju and Ghazy Mujahid EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD BENCHA YODDUMNERN-ATTIG, Associate Professor, Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, Nakorn Pathom, Thailand GRACE CRUZ, Director, Population Institute, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines JOHN KNODEL, Professor, Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, United States of America NIBHON DEBAVALYA, Secretary-General, Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand, Bangkok RABBI ROYAN, UNFPA Representative in Pakistan SHIREEN JEJEEBHOY, Senior Programme Associate, Population Council, New Delhi SUREEPORN PUNPUING, Director, Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand and Executive Secretary, Asian Population Association VIPAN PRACHUABMOH, Dean, College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok WASIM ZAMAN, Executive Director, International Council on Management of Population Programmes, Selangor, Malaysia 137

144 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Vol. 27, No. 1 Asia-Pacific Population Journal Guidelines for contributors Original contributions are invited, especially papers by authors from or familiar with the Asian and Pacific region. Ideally, such papers would discuss the policy and/or programme implications of population issues and solutions to problems, reporting on experiences from which others could benefit. All material submitted for the consideration of the Editorial Board should be in the English language. Manuscripts should not exceed 6,000 words, including tables, figures, references and other material. Consideration will also be given to shorter technical and policy papers and notes on areas of specific policy interest and value. Manuscripts should include a short abstract ( words) of the issues addressed and the most important policyrelated findings. The manuscript should be prepared in one of the major word-processing programs and be double- spaced. The margins should be at least 3 cm (roughly 1 inch) wide, preferably more for the left-hand margin. If possible, please submit the manuscript as an attachment to the address given below. If attachment is not possible, send a hard copy (a singlesided print copy on A4-sized paper), together with an e-file of the text on CD-ROM or floppy disc. A complete list of references arranged alphabetically by author should also be included at the end of the manuscript together with a few keywords. Please refer to examples in any issue of the Journal or contact the Editor for a copy of the editorial guidelines. Figures and tables should be supplied separately either as attachments or in the e-file, preferably in Microsoft Excel or any major spreadsheet program. Manuscripts are accepted on the understanding that they may be edited. Contributors should submit only material that has not previously been published or submitted for publication elsewhere; and they should so state in their covering letter. A brief introduction about the author(s), including title and affiliations, should also be submitted. All manuscripts will be submitted to double-blind peer review. The name(s) of the author(s) or other identifying information should therefore be placed only on the title page in order to preserve anonymity. Manuscripts may be sent by to the Editor, APPJ, at escap-population@un.org; or by airmail post to: Editor, APPJ, Social Development Division, ESCAP, United Nations Building, Rajadamnern Nok Avenue, Bangkok 10200, Thailand. 138

145 ESCAP is the regional development arm of the United Nations and serves as the main economic and social development centre for the United Nations in Asia and the Pacific. Its mandate is to foster cooperation between its 53 members and 9 associate members. ESCAP provides the strategic link between global and country-level programmes and issues. It supports Governments of countries in the region in consolidating regional positions and advocates regional approaches to meeting the region s unique socio-economic challenges in a globalizing world. The ESCAP office is located in Bangkok, Thailand. Please visit the ESCAP website at for further information. The shaded areas of the map indicate ESCAP members and associate members. UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATION Sales No. E.12.II.F.99 Copyright United Nations 2012 All rights reserved Manufactured in Thailand ISBN: e-isbn: ISSN: X ST/ESCAP/2651 Copies of this publication may be obtained from: Social Development Division Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) United Nations Building Rajadamnern Nok Avenue Bangkok 10200, Thailand escap-sdd@un.org 139