John Casterline CV [PDF]

During a four-decade research career, I have investigated the causes and consequences of fertility decline in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. The enormous decline – from six births to two births per woman on average – surely ranks among the most significant social changes of the past half century, transforming adult lives and childhood experience, and with major ramifications for the economic and social structure of societies. Relying primarily on survey data (some of it national, some localized), I directed multi-country multi-year projects on social diffusion models of fertility change, on unmet need for family planning, and on unwanted fertility (methods of estimation, consequences for parental and child well-being). In the course of pursuing these topics, with local collaborators I have engaged in fieldwork in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Ghana, and Nigeria. In the mid-1990s, I began collaborative research on demographic change in the Arab region that has continued to the present. More recently, I have turned most of my attention to reproductive change in sub-Saharan Africa, the last remaining high-fertility region on the globe. In analysis of hundreds of national surveys from the 1970s to the present, we are examining the nature of fertility decline to date in Africa, with an emphasis on childbearing desires. We are complementing this with ambitious qualitative data collection in Nigeria.