The demographic transition theory, though it may sound somewhat out-of-dated, still holds considerable relevance to demographic changes in many countries, including Japan and other non-European countries. Many country projections prepared by national governments or by the United Nations have employed the general conceptual scheme of demographic transition or the socio-economic threshold hypothesis of fertility decline, which imply that there will be a decline in fertility as countries make progress in economic and social development.
After some forty years since the original demographic transition theory was formulated, there emerge some refined theories of the proto-type of demographic transition theory. Notable are the studies based on the European Fertility Project of Princeton University and especially the one by John Knodell and Etienne van de Walle. As outcome of the historical investigation of European fertility declines these studies emphasize the importance of mechanisms relating to the diffusion of ideas and methods of practicing family planning. In Europe during 19th century, the declines in fertility occurred along with the lines of religious, ethnic and linguistic groups.
The following section tries to apply the idea of diffusion theory to Japan. Here two approaches have been taken. One is by comparing geographic maps by smallest civil divisions between the patterns of fertility changes in 1950 and 1960. The other approach is through perusing the tabulated results of the National Fertility Surveys taken place in 1940, 1952, 1957 and 1962.
The first geographic approach shows that the patterns of distribution with respect to fertility both in 1950 and 1960 and their decade's changes were considerably different from the patterns of distribution with respect to economic activities in the primary industries. The fertility distribution seems more by diffusion along with the railroad, coastal line and adjacency to cities.
The second approach scrutinizes the distribution of the numbers of children ever born for women cross-classified by age, husband's occupation, wife's education and economic status group. The tables shown by the 1940, 1952, 1957 and 1962 fertility surveys clearly indicate that the numbers of children did not vary considerably according to economic status group, but did vary appreciably according to husband's occupation and wife's education. In Japan, occupation and education are regarded as traits related more to of cultural groups. Hence, cultural differences gave a rise to appreciable changes in fertility, but economic status differences did not cause much variation in fertility. This also means to indicate that cultural factors through which fertility decline has been diffusing over classes are important in determining fertility behavior in Japan.
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