Modernization and Childlessness in the States of Mexico
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Begins by hypothesizing that, among the 32 states of Mexico in 1970, levels of modernization should be negatively related to childlessness. Since childlessness is mainly involuntary in developing countries such as Mexico, increasing modernization should directly and indirectly affect subfecundity, which is the more proximate cause of involuntary childlessness because of its influence in reducing disease and nutritional deficiencies. Sets forth a number of modernization variables reflecting structural economic development and health conditions, and hypothesizes that the health variables should be more highly associated with childlessness in the expected direction at the bivariate level. Then factor analyzes the input variables, obtains four factors, one of which clearly reflects health conditions; the other three are identified as various dimensions of structural economic development. When childlessness is regressed on these four modernization factors, the health conditions dimension is shown to have the highest standardized regression coefficient. The analyses support both the general hypothesis that modernization is related inversely to childlessness among the states of Mexico and the more specific hypothesis that the health conditions dimension of modernization is more influential than factors dealing mainly with structural economic development. -from Authors
