James F. Evans Collection, Participation in rural development programs that organize members into local cooperative groups can alter the decision-making environment facing couples to reflect some of the negative consequences of childbearing. This study uses data from Nepal, collected through a combination of ethnographic and survey methods, to test the effects of participation in such a development program on fertility behavior. Results demonstrate that program participants are much more likely to use contraceptives to limit their fertility than are non-participants. The study provides empirical support for theories linking this type of institutional change to fertility and indicates a policy option that can allow some negative consequences of childbearing to affect couples' fertility decisions. (author)
Phase II, Raises several questions about prevailing conception of adopters and adoption behavior. Specifically, the author argues that research has failed to take into account variations in farming environments, natural physical parameters, and the social organization of resources as factors influencing peasant farmers' adoption behavior. More attention ought to be given to the location specific constraints, characteristics and requirements of specific technologies, and to the general issue of whether identical technologies are equivalent innovations in different agro-climatic environments. Drawing on data from several villages in Nepal, the author shows that rates of adoption are location specific, that is, influenced more by agro-climatic conditions and socioeconomic organization than by inter-village differences in propensity to innovate. Ecological suitably and varying levels of farm resources have a direct effect on technology utilization.
