Infant mortality, social networks, and subsequent fertility

Abstract

The research presented here addresses a longstanding but previously unsupported theoretical proposition related to social learning in the demographic literature. This is that individuals should respond to lower (higher) infant mortality of socially proximate others with decreased (increased) fertility. On a more general level this problem directly concerns the translation of the effects of macro-demographic forces such as mortality into micro-level individual behavior through social interaction. Using unique data that combine identification of individuals belonging to women's social networks with direct measurement of these network members' mortality experience, this research demonstrates such a linkage. Information concerning the level and variation in infant mortality available to women from a small Nepalese mountain population in their social networks is seen to influence the tempo of their fertility. It is suggested that the methodology employed has important implications for quantitative analyses of reciprocal processes of social construction and micro-macro linkages more generally.