The Continuing Fertility Decline in Taiwan: 1965

Family size expectations in 1963, as indicated in the preceding report in this series, were similar in the aggregate to those previously described for 1960 and 1962. However, the proportion of children expected already born rose steadily, if slowly, between 1955 and 1963. This may have accounted, in small part, for recent declines in age-specific fertility rates (see cover chart). At each survey date an increasing proportion of potential parents had already completed having the children they wanted and at relatively young ages. In this report we present a set of new data, previously unpublished, showing that in 1962 and 1963 the number of additional children expected in the ensuing five years was considerably less than it had been in 1960 and in 1955, and that these declines were especially large in the youngest age groups where age--specific fertility rates declined the most. These data suggest that changes in the timing of births-involving postponements--may be responsible for the recent declines at the younger ages