Changing Value of Children and Fertility Transition in Turkey

ENTRODUCTIONTurkey experienced a number of very significant social changes in the twentieth century, including a rapid decrease in fertility. Although its current total fertility rate of 2.2 (Turkish Statistical Institute, 2008, p. 74) is high in comparison to the west, it is much lower than in the neighboring countries to the east and south. Indeed, a rate of 2.2 is remarkable when one considers that only six decades ago, Turkish women gave birth to about seven children on average (Shorter and Macura, 1 982, p. 32). Analyses based on Turkish demographic surveys have revealed that the historically significant decrease in fertility is for the most part due to the lowered frequency of higher-order births (Klaus, 2008, p. 42), and the following analysis aims to explain this phenomenon. Prominent models and theories of fertility, which are often based on aggregated demographic or economic indicators, have provided broad empirical evidence that fertility is correlated with mortality level and socio-economic factors. However, these models cannot satisfactorily explain the decline of fertility because they offer no stringent conceptualization or adequate testing of mediating causal mechanisms. The goal of the following analysis is to fill this deficit using the value of children (VOC) approach.If one considers aggregate demographic indices only, the Turkish case is not surprising. It fits very well into the well-known and widely-accepted concept of the first demographic transition (Chesnais, 1992; Notestein, 1945), according to which a country's industrialization is expected to be accompanied by a shift from high to low mortality and fertility rates. It is evident that Turkey will complete the transition in the near future. Parallel to the demographic change thorough-going social changes took place (Nauck and Klaus, 2008). Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk founded the Turkish Republic in 1 923 and became its first president. This marked the beginning of a fundamental transformation of Turkish society. Atatiirk strove for western-style modernization and undertook far-reaching reforms. Before his ascension to power, an ambitious plan for the expansion of public schooling had been put forward during the great tanzimat reforms of the 19"1 century, but these experienced little success. Turkey's education system remained fairly limited in scope and demographic inclusion (Somel, 200 1 , p. 272). in 1923, the Law of National Education introduced compulsory, free education from the age of six and made access to education independent of sex and social background. This has contributed to a significant reduction of illiteracy. Even though sex differences remain, the share of individuals in Turkey who cannot read or write has decreased from 81% in 1935 to 13% in 2000 (State Institute of Statistics, 2003, p. 49). Participation in higher education has also increased (Koc and Hancioglu, 2004, p. 26), with resulting improvements in higher-paid employment opportunities.Parallel to educational progress, Turkey has experienced an increase in the supply of paid jobs and a transformation of the labor force. Liberal and free-market oriented policies opened the door to industrialization. In 1935, about 82% of the workforce was occupied in agriculture. By 2000, only about 48% of the total workforce were engaged in agriculture, 18% were engaged in industry, and service employment had risen to 34% (Buhbe, 1996, p. 244; State Institute of Statistics, 2003, p. 55). Although there is a great reserve of labor in the agricultural sector, Turkey has seen an increase in the automation of agricultural production, driven by the logic of capitalist production. Hoping for jobs and better pay in urban areas, masses of unemployed residents have migrated from the less developed rural countryside (mostly in the east) to the cities, the largest of which are in western Turkey. Some estimates put the immigrant population of Istanbul, for instance, at about 70% (Bayaz, 1997, p. …