Mencarini, Letizia and Salvini, Silvana and Vignoli, Daniele (2005) La fecondità nella Riva Sud del Mediterraneo: realtà urbana e rurale a confronto. Technical Report 2005/01, Dipartimento di Statistica "G. Parenti", Università degli Studi di Firenze.

Abstract

The fertility patterns of the South-East Mediterranean shore are very different from those of the lowest-low fertility countries of the northern shore but recently fertility decline has been spreading rapidly in the region, especially in Maghreb. In some countries, urban and more educated women show a period TFR under replacement level. These recent developments question the reputation of this area (apart from Turkey) as a bastion of family conservatism and a high fertility rate. But are these groups of educated women forerunners of a wide and generalised spread of fertility decline or only of a plurality of behaviours in the increasing heterogeneity of such societies, in the balance between tradition and modernisation? In our study we analyse individual data from surveys carried out in four countries of Southern shore (Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey) with the aim of highlighting different determinants and different models of fertility among groups of women, with particular attention to rural and urban contexts.