1980 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Summary data (1984)

IX. THE DEVELOPMENT OF FERTILITY

were in the propagative age in the thirties and forties - and gave birth to already less children - and so inherited their parents' attitude towards family and have even less children. The only change in their behaviour was that in every age group decreased the proportion of those without children or with one child, and there was an increase in the proportion of mothers having two children, the proportion of mothers having three children increased also but only slightly. The proportion of married women having no children among all married women decreased in every age group in the past 50 years. The decrease was greatest among the 30 year old and older women, the decrease was more moderate among the 20-29 aged married women, and it was considerable among those under 2 0. The proportion of beyond the reproductive age married women with no children increased a bit between 1949 and 1970 relatively to 1930, in 1980 it was the same as in 1930 (13 percent). The direction of the change in the fertility can be characterized best in the past half century, by the change in the number of children of women 40-49 aged, the proportion of women having no children is half, the proportion of women with one child is more than two-and-a-half-fold, the proportion of mothers with two children is more than threefold, the proportion of those with three children stagnates, the proportion of those with 4 or more children is one sixth of that in 1930. The proportion of married women having one child or two children is higher in every age group than in 1930. Within this the proportion of young (15-24 year old) women with one child increased considerably, and the increase was also considerable in the proportion of women with two children among the 2 5-49 year old married women. The distribution of married women by the number of children and age groups Age groups, year Total 0 1 2 3 4-X Age groups, year Total children 15-19 aged 1930 100.0 60. 6 34. 1 4. 7 0.4 0. 2 1980 100. 0 49.7 42. 6 7. 1 0. 6 0. 0 20-24 aged 1930 100.0 29. 8 40. 1 21.1 6.7 2. 3 1980 100. 0 26.2 45. 6 24. 6 3. 0 0. 6 25-29 aged 1930 100. 0 17. 5 25.4 26. 0 16. 5 14. 6 1980 100.0 11.2 32.8 45. 9 8.0 2. 1 30-39 aged 1930 100.0 15. 2 15.6 19.7 16. 3 33. 2 1980 100. 0 6. 1 24. 3 51.8 12.8 5. 0 40-49 aged 1930 100. 0 13. 5 10. 0 13. 1 13. 0 50.4 1980 100. 0 6.8 27. 5 43. 4 13. 7 8. 6 50-59 aged 1930 100. 0 12.9 7.7 9.7 10. 6 59. 1 1980 100. 0 10.7 24. 0 35.2 16. 5 13. 6 60-X aged 1930 100. 0 12.3 6.2 7.7 8.8 65. 0 1980 100.0 15.9 21.4 26. 2 15. 6 20. 9 The fundamental determinant of the number of children is - besides the age - the marriage or the length of the marriage. The average number of children of women married 0-4 years has not changed in the past 50year% in 1930 there were 93 children per 100 such women in 1980 91. In the past half century there was no change in that women give birth to their first child in the starting period of their marriage, the problem is - the principle reason of the decrease in fertility - the decision about the birth of the second or further children. The outcome of these decisions and so the fundamental reason of the decrease in fertility is shown in the decrease in the average number of children per 100 married women parallel with the lengthening term of the marriage. This indicator decreased in the past 50 years by one fifth in the case of the 5-9 years term marriages, by one third in the case of the 10-14 years term marriages, and by about 50 percent in the case of the 15-19 and more than 20 years term marriages. 129