Abstract: There is a universal trend of declining fertility since 1970s in virtually all countries of the world despite their large differences in the levels of fertility. This trend is likely to continue in the future and fertility rates of the countries are predicted to convergence to replacement level by the end of this century. Cross-country data indicate that a higher level of economic and social development leads to a lower level of fertility. Given HDI representing a country’s economic and social development level, statistical estimations based on data of 109 countries with over 5 million people in 2010 demonstrate a strong reverse relationship between HDI and TFR among the countries: an increase in HDI is associated a corresponding decrease in TFR; and when HDI is greater than 0.71, TFR drops to below replacement level. This relationship can be explained by an array of interplays of economic and social factors, among which a significant linkage is with the variable of urbanization.

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摘要： 自20世纪70年代开始，世界各国人口生育率不管存在怎样的差异，一个共同趋势是不断下降，今后这一趋势还会继续，并在本世纪末共同趋向更替水平。与此对应的是，世界上大多数国家都在经历经济社会快速发展过程。横向看，经济社会发展水平越高的国家，生育率越低，假设用人类发展指数HDI代表经济社会发展水平，总和生育率TFR代表人口生育水平，根据109个人口超过500万国家的2010年数据进行曲线拟合计算，结果显示HDI与TFR数值之间存在高度显著的反向变动关系：一国经济社会发展水平越高，该国人口生育率越低；当经济社会发展到一定水平，就会出现稳定的低生育率。经济社会发展促使人口生育率下降，这一实证量化分析的结果可以在事理上用经济社会发展中一系列相互作用的因素加以解释。

关键词: 经济社会发展, 低生育率, 人类发展指数, 总和生育率