Explaining Very Low Fertility

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目采用创新的多学科方法和尖端理论，通过关注意大利来寻求对极低生育率的更好解释，意大利是过去15年来世界上生育率最低的国家之一。它的目的是通过提出多方法推理的策略，在方法上有益于人口研究，同时提供新的方法来理解转型后社会的人口动态。如此低的生育率的社会、经济和政治重要性无论如何也不可能被夸大，它导致人口迅速老龄化，社会层面的抚养比显然无法支撑（以及国家层面人口的前景，如果没有大规模移民，人口将迅速减少），同时对人们的生活产生重大影响。意大利的案例之所以引起学术界的关注，不仅是因为它的生育率极低，还因为它与流行理论的预测大相径庭。在经济上，意大利是欧洲女性劳动力参与率最低的国家之一。此外，意大利那些拥有最好的社会服务，包括公共托儿服务的地区，也是生育率最低的地区。意大利的情况也不能用主流文化理论来解释，主流文化理论认为世俗化和个人化是生育率极低的关键，因为意大利可以说是欧洲最注重家庭的国家。本研究结合了人类学、社会学和人口统计学的方法和理论，基于这样一种信念，即尽管调查数据非常有价值，但仅靠调查数据无法让学者充分解释非常低的生育率。它认为经济和制度力量主要通过文化过程的透镜对个人行为产生影响，拒绝简单地将经济和文化“变量”分开。“理解这些文化过程需要分析当地的社会背景，以及人们如何构建现实，操纵规范，以及人们所说的和他们所做的之间的差异。这些数据只能通过系统的民族志来获得。四位人类学家将花15个月的时间，在意大利四个不同的城市进行人种学研究，重点是生殖文化，两个在北部（博洛尼亚，帕多瓦），两个在南部（那不勒斯，卡利亚里）。特别注意父母对其子女生育决策的影响以及同龄人的影响。每个民族志学者将遵循一个共同的参与观察指南，将在工人阶级和中产阶级社区进行研究，并采用一个共同的协议，包括生活史矩阵。每个地点将对50名年龄在23-42岁之间的妇女及其母亲进行访谈。此外，还将采用生命过程方法，通过纵向和多层次技术，审查意大利的一系列国家级调查。我们还研究了妇女的生殖生活课程，结合他们的工作历史，控制个人和夫妇层面的特点，以及社区和区域层面的特点，揭示新的光之间的关系，妇女的工作和生育率，并对影响这些关系的文化和社区背景。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project employs innovative multidisciplinary methodology and cutting-edge theory to seek a better explanation for very low fertility by focusing on Italy, a country that for the past 15 years has had one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. It aims to benefit population studies methodologically by suggesting strategies for multi-method inference, while offering new approaches to understanding demographic dynamics in post-transition societies. The social, economic, and political importance of such low fertility can hardly be exaggerated, producing rapidly aging populations and apparently unsupportable dependency ratios at the societal level (and the prospect of national-level populations that, barring massive immigration, will rapidly dwindle), while having major implications for people's lives. The Italian case has attracted scholarly attention not only because of its extremely low fertility, but because it so dramatically contradicts the predictions of prevailing theories. Economically, Italy has one of Europe's lowest rates of female labor force participation. Moreover, those areas of Italy with the best social services, including public childcare, are among those with the lowest fertility. Nor is the Italian case explained by the predominant cultural theory, which identifies secularization and individualization as the keys to very low fertility, for Italy is arguably the most family-oriented country in Europe. This study, combining anthropological, sociological, and demographic methods and theory, is based on the belief that, while extremely valuable, survey data alone will not allow scholars to adequately explain very low fertility. It views economic and institutional forces as having effects on individual behavior primarily through the lens of cultural processes, rejecting any simple separation of economic and cultural "variables." Understanding these cultural processes necessitates analysis of local social context, and of how people construct reality, manipulate norms, and the difference between what people say and what they do. Such data can only be obtained through systematic ethnography. Four anthropologists will spend 15 months each doing ethnography focusing on the culture of reproduction in four different Italian cities, two in the north (Bologna, Padua) and two in the south (Naples, Cagliari). Special attention is paid to the impact of parents on their children's fertility decision-making, and to the impact of peers. Each ethnographer will follow a common guide to participant observation, will conduct research both in a working-class and a middle-class neighborhood and employ a common protocol including a life-history matrix. Interviews are to be conducted at each site with 50 women aged 23-42 and with their mothers. In addition, a series of national-level Italian surveys will be examined through longitudinal and multi-level techniques, following a life-course approach. We also examine women's reproductive life courses in conjunction with their work histories, controlling for both individual- and couple-level characteristics, as well as community- and regional-level characteristics, to shed new light on the relationship between women's work and fertility, and on the cultural and community contexts that affect these relationships.