Should a Second Demographic Transition Follow the First? Demographic Contrasts: Canada and South Korea

PSC Discussion Papers Series, Dec 1997

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Should a Second Demographic Transition Follow the First? Demographic Contrasts: Canada and South Korea

1183-7284 South Korea Zenaida R. Ravanera 0 1 Rajulton Fernando 0 1 Byunh-yup Cho 0 1 National Statistical Office, Seoul, Republic of Korea 0 University of Western Ontario 1 Chosun University , Kwangju , Korea - Article 1 Should a Second Demographic Transition Follow the First? Demographic Contrasts: Canada and South Korea by Zenaida R. Ravanera* Hwa Young Lee** Fernando Rajulton* Byunh-yup Cho*** Discussion Paper no. 97-4 * Population Studies Centre, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada N6C 2A6. ** Social Statistics Division, National Statistical Office, Seoul, Republic of Korea. *** Department of Computer Science and Statistics, Chosun University, Kwangju, Korea. June 1997 A contributed paper to the formal session "The Demographic Transition: Similarities and Diversities" of the XXIII General Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, Beijing China, 11-17 October 1997. "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. ....But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!" (Rudyard Kipling) Introduction The main explanation for the fertility decline all over the world is the Demographic Transition theory. From a regime of high levels of mortality and fertility, countries have moved on to a situation of low levels of mortality and fertility as they developed economically and as social and cultural props supporting the pre-transition regimes weakened. In some countries like South Korea, the decline was so steep and so fast that their fertility levels now match that of the West (Coale, Cho and Goldman, 1980; Choe and Kim, 1995) . And, over the years since its inception, the Demographic Transition theory has been modified, refined, and quantified (Freedman, R.; 1979, 1982; Caldwell, 1976; Easterlin, 1983). We are still in the process of fully understanding the factors that bring about the transition (Mason, 1992; Burch, 1996) . In the meantime, the Western countries where the first demographic transition started more than a century ago have moved on to their second demographic transition (van de Kaa, 1987; Lesthaeghe, 1995) implying a further decline in fertility to below replacement level, a rise in mean age at marriage of both men and women, and a rise in rates of divorce and extra-marital births. Van de Kaa (1987) describes the sequences of changes toward the second demographic transition in European countries essentially as consisting of: (1) a shift "from preventive contraception to self-fulfilling conception", that is, contraception is used not merely to prevent unwanted births but to have children as an expression of self-fulfilment; (2) a shift "from golden age of marriage to dawn of cohabitation"; (3) a shift "from era of the king-child with parents to that of the king-pair with a child"; and, (4) a shift "from uniform to pluralistic families and households". Canada is one such country, even though the transition under consideration has set in somewhat later than in other countries. This paper compares and contrasts the demographic situations in Canada and South Korea. Using a few familiar indicators, similarities and differences in demographic changes between the two countries are highlighted. In particular, the questions addressed in this paper are: Given that South Korea went through its first demographic transition quite rapidly, would it then undergo the second demographic transition also? If yes, would its features be similar to those of Canada (or to any other Western nation)? What factors would influence such a transition? Similarities: Fertility and Nuptiality The main indicators of the second demographic transition in the West are: decline in fertility to below replacement level, rise in mean age at marriage of both men and women, and rise in rates of divorce and extra-marital births (Lesthaeghe, 1995). Of these indicators, those of fertility and nuptiality in Canada and South Korea have great similarities in the nineties; but all other indicators (of divorce, cohabitation, and extra-marital births) show substantial differences. The total fertility rate (TFR) in Korea was still at a high pre-transition level (6.0) in 1960, whereas in Canada it had already reached a low of 3.8 (Figure 1). From 1960 to mid seventies, both countries experienced a steep decline in fertility rates such that the TFR of Korea dropped to 3.6 and that of Canada to a below replacement level of 1.8. Since then, Canada's TFR has remained at about the same level whereas that of Korea declined further to reach a below replacement level of fertility (1.6) by 1987. Since then, the TFR in both countries have remained at below replacement levels although slightly higher than in 1987. The similarity between the two countries in total fertility rates masks the variations that exist in their age-specific fertility rates. As Table 1 rev (...truncated)


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Zenaida R. Ravanera, Hwa Young Lee, Rajulton Fernando, Byunh-yup Cho. Should a Second Demographic Transition Follow the First? Demographic Contrasts: Canada and South Korea, PSC Discussion Papers Series, 1997, Volume 11, Issue 4,