Spatial Analysis of Low Fertility Rate in Taiwan
Date Issued
2008
Date
2008
Author(s)
Liu, Esther
Abstract
In the past researches, socioeconomic adjustment and innovation diffusion were two perspectives for explaining why fertility declined caused by the population transition. According to socioeconomic adjustment perspective, fertility transition is related to motivational forces stemming from changes in socioeconomic conditions prior to and during fertility decline. According to innovation diffusion perspective, an idea of less birth has been molded by social networks and interpersonal connection which makes people accept contraception. In other words, people live nearby have similar fertility behaviors, which is called the neighborhood effect. The purpose of this study is to verify whether Taiwan’s low fertility rate is influenced by the neighborhood effect or not. We use the Geographic Information System (GIS) to analyze spatial differences of Taiwan’s fertility rate after 1980s. It shows that the fertility rate divergences between “urban vs. rural areas” and “aborigine vs. non-aborigine areas” are both becoming homogeneous. Moran’s I increases when time passes, which proves that Taiwan’s fertility rate has high spatial autocorrelation. The LISA cluster map also shows that big cities like Taipei, Tainan and Kaohsiung have a stable low-low fertility rate cluster; a high-high fertility rate cluster generally exist in mountain areas where there is a higher aborigine population, which means ethnicity is an important factor that affects Taiwan’s fertility rate. Next, we build a matrix-spatial regression model of fertility to test the socioeconomic structure, ethnic distribution and the neighborhood relation factors, which considers both time and spatial dimensions. The results show that in 1981 and 2001, after adding spatial factors, R2 has a big increase which shows how the neighborhood effect plays an important role on fertility decline, supporting the view of diffusion theory. Near county’s low fertility creates a negative feedback mechanism, influencing the focus county’s fertility and leading the whole fertility rate downward. In 1991, regression model shows that the neighborhood effect does not dominant; fertility rate is effected by socioeconomic structure and especially ethnic distribution factors. Partial to the view of adjustment theory, the fertility rate maintains low but stable. Therefore, we point out that although the socioeconomic adjustment process might cause a low fertility rate, it was the neighborhood effect that bought fertility downward. We observe that Taiwan’s lowest-low fertility from 2001 till now wasn’t stable but continuing downward, so we conjecture that the neighborhood effect is still a very important factor to influence the fertility rate.
Subjects
TFR
The neighborhood effect
Spatial autocorrelation
Ethnicity
Type
thesis
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