Female Status and Fertility in Pakistan

Observations and interpretations of the demographic transition in Western Europe indicate that among the plethora of forces influencing the transition, one of the factors that played a significant role was the variable generally known as the ‘status and roles of women’. During the period of socio-economic change in the Western societies, extraordinary changes took place in the roles of women. Not only did new opportunities open up to women but also new familial patterns of parental control, interspouse relationships and planned parenthood emerged that affected the lives of women in a variety of ways. There is a concensus that this all occurred during the course of economic and social development [2, 14, 25, 27].