Past Research Projects

Research on Declining Fertility in East Asia

Since the late 20th century, fertility rate started to decline in developing countries. The decline has been especially remarkable in developing East Asia which includes developing South East Asian countries(*1).

On the other hand, in the most developed countries in early 2000s, the modest recovery of fertility rate was observed. Many studies have been conducted to explain this phenomenon. It is now generally accepted that the governmental support to achieve work and family balance, and the changes in people’s values concerning gender are the important factors for the recovery.

The purpose of this study is to examine the applicability of the recent theories concerning the fertility recovery in developed countries to developing East Asia.

(*1) In this research, "East Asia" is defined as a broader term including Southeast Asia, in addition to the narrow sense of East Asia such as Japan, China and Korea, unless otherwise noted.