ABSTRACT
A curious myopia characterizes research on the value of children and its relation to fertility levels and trends in rural areas of developing countries. In the first stage, fertility adjusts to a new mortality regime. The second stage of fertility transition is triggered by change that reduces the target itself, that is, improvement in the environment of risk and/or development of alternative sources of insurance. In exceptional cases, postwar economic development will have been so rapid that the two stages merge together and produce an unbroken transition from high to low fertility. The decline in the reliance on children is traditionally thought to be one of the main ways in which economic development reduces fertility. In rural South Asia, where financial and insurance markets are poorly developed and where, consistent with the joint-household formation system, there is no tradition of extrafamilial welfare institutions, children have a number of desirable properties as security assets.
