Multilevel Effects of Socioeconomic Development and Family Planning Programs on Children Ever Born

This article describes an approach to an explanation of fertility that is sensitive to the dependence of the behavior of individuals or couples on social context and sets forth hypotheses about micro and macro determinants of children ever born (CEB). Data from 15 World Fertility Survey countries are used in a multilevel test of these hypotheses. The findings are that per capita GNP and family planning program effort affect not only country-specific average levels of CEB, but also the direction and magnitudes of the within country effects of two micro socioeconomic variables on CEB. These findings, which are largely consistent with the hypotheses, illustrate the utility of a multilevel approach.