Fertility Transition: East Asia

Japan, Korea, and Taiwan experienced rapid transitions from high to the replacement level of fertility in the earlier postwar decades, followed by further declines to well below-replacement levels of childbearing in the recent decades. While the earlier fertility transitions were due mainly to reduction of marital fertility through contraception and induced abortion, the more recent transitions to very low levels were due largely to decreasing marriage among young women. The declining marriage and fertility were associated with increases in educational attainment and paid employment among women at peak reproductive ages in the context of rapid economic transformations.