TOWARD A SYNTHESIS OF FEMINIST AND DEMOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES ON FERTILITY

In explaining fertility and reproduction and emerging patterns of chil dbearing, both demographers and feminists have centered their thinking on women's status (economic and social), women's changing roles and l ife experiences (increased labor for;ce participation, increased avail ability of reproductive options, declining marriage rates in many part s of the industrialized world, and the centrality of women to developm ent), and women as agents in micro- and macrolevel changes in family, fertility, and economic change. Although demography has recently begun to integrate feminist perspectives into fertility explanations, there is not yet a synthesis of feminist theoretical insights with demograp hic questions. Drawing from recent thinking on global and national pol itical and policy challenges in the less and more developed worlds, to the epistemological shifts in knowledge of reproduction/mothering, to changes in the technologies of reproduction, this article moves towar d an integration of feminist and demographic perspectives on fertility .