Reproductive Value, with Applications to Migration, Contraception, and Zero Population Growth

Abstract

When a woman of reproductive age is sterilized and so has no further children, the community’s subsequent births are reduced. When a woman dies or otherwise leaves the community, all subsequent times are again affected. Our formal argument need make no distinction between emigration and death, between leaving the country under study for life and leaving this world altogether. A single theory answers questions about the numerical effect of sterilization, of mortality, and of emigration, all supposed to be taking place at a particular age x. By means of the theory we will be able to compare the demographic results of eradicating a disease that affects the death rate at young ages, say malaria, as against another that affects the death rate at older ages, say heart disease.