Recent Change in the Fertility Pattern in Korea

By examining Table 1, it is confirmed that the two model fertility scheduels for 1960 and 1975 are close agreement with the census data in Korea. The declines of age-specific fertility are more remarkable among older women than among younger, as exhibited in Table 3 and Fig. 2. A merit of this fitted model schedule as compared to fitted conventional frequency distributions such as the Pearson Type III curve, is that the model schedule incorporates combinations of intuitively understandable demographic factors. The value of m, a measure of fertility control, increased remarkably from 0.531 in 1960 to 2.429 in 1975. Considering the fact that the average value of m for forty-three schedules shown in the 1965 Demographic Yearbook was 1.0, and the value of m in England and Wales for 1965 was 1.91, the recent level of fertility control in Korea may be considered higher than generally believed.