2.8 Women and Demographic Change

• Education: women who stay in school longer tend to marry later and start families later, which leaves fewer years to have children. They also learn about health and family planning.
• Employment: when women work in paid jobs, having many children costs more in lost income, and careers give other sources of status and security.
• Health care: when fewer babies die, families don't need as many births to make sure some children survive.
• Contraception: access to family planning lets couples choose how many children to have and when.
• Changing social values: in many places, smaller families and women's careers have become more accepted.

Bangladesh's fertility rate fell from more than 6 children per woman in the 1970s to about 2 by the 2020s (UN estimates), even though the country was still poor. Family planning programs, girls' education and jobs for women in the garment industry all played a part. Iran's fertility fell from more than 6 in the early 1980s to about 2 by 2000 after a national family planning program. The Indian state of Kerala, known for high female literacy, has had fertility below replacement level since the late 1980s.

Better health care for women lowers maternal mortality (deaths from pregnancy or childbirth) and infant mortality. Educated mothers are more likely to seek prenatal care and vaccinate their children, so child death rates fall. Women in most countries live longer than men, which is why older age groups have more women than men.

In the 1880s, the geographer Ernst Georg Ravenstein studied British census data and proposed a set of “laws” of migration. Among them: most migrants move only a short distance; migration happens in steps; long-distance migrants usually head to big cities; every migration flow creates a smaller return flow; and rural people are more likely to migrate than city people.

On gender, he observed that women were more likely than men to migrate within their own country, often short distances, while men were more likely to move long distances or abroad.

Today the pattern has changed. Women make up close to half of all international migrants (UN), and many move on their own for work. Examples include nurses and domestic workers from the Philippines, and care workers from Latin America moving to Spain and the U.S. This trend is sometimes called the feminization of migration.