• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.88-93
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• 2018

Objective: The aim of this study was to measure reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in the seminal fluid of the male partners in couples undergoing intrauterine insemination and to evaluate correlations between these values and their semen parameters. Methods: The study was conducted at Vamsam Fertility Center, Coimbatore, India and enrolled 110 male patients from whom semen samples were collected. ROS production was measured by a thiobarbituric acid reactive species assay, and TAC was measured by a 2,2-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl free radical assay. The differences in the TAC and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels between the subfertile and fertile groups were analysed. Correlations between sperm parameters and TAC and MDA levels were statistically analysed, and cutoff values with respect to the controls were determined. All hypothesis tests used were two-tailed, with statistical significance assessed at the level of p< 0.05. Results: A total of 87 subfertile and 23 fertile men were included in the study. The mean MDA level was significantly higher in the subfertile subjects than in the fertile subjects, and the mean antioxidant level was significantly lower in the subfertile subjects than in the fertile subjects. Seminal MDA levels were negatively associated with sperm concentration, motility, and morphology, whereas the opposite was seen with TAC levels. Conclusion: Measurements of seminal TAC and ROS are valuable for predicting semen quality, and hence predicting the outcomes of fertility treatment.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.143-177
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• 2020

This paper investigates how the provision of full child care subsidy to infants and toddlers differently affected female labor supply and fertility rate depending on the level of supply of child care centers in the place of residence. Our results on labor supply show that the higher the supply rate of childcare centers in residential areas, the higher the probability of career maintenance for multi-child mothers who are more likely to be admitted to a childcare facility. The results on the fertility rate show that the first child's fertility rate has increased since the support of childcare expenses in areas with higher rates of childcare centers. In the places where the supply rate of publicly-funded childcare centers is high, the second child's fertility rate has also increased significantly since the support of childcare expenses. This suggests that the quality of child care is an essential factor in determining the birth rate. Our results suggest that the effects of child care support on women's labor supply and fertility rate may differ depending on the priority of entering child care centers according to birth order and the degree of quantitative and qualitative supply of child care centers in the place of residence.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.30-41
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• 1986

It is worthwhile to compare the major social indicators between Korea the and Taiwan particularly focusing on population because two countries share close similarities in many aspects and gave access to the advanced level among the developing countries in recent years. Similarities or dissimilarities presented in this paper will be helpful to the researchers and the policy makers of the two countries by giving them insight on the situation. The similarities and dissimilarities between the two countries in the field of demography and social indicators are summarized as follows : 1. Similarity indicators can be found in fertility. One of them is Net Reproduction Rate and it was less than one in both countries in 1985. The past trend of fertility, in fact level and pattern of it, of the two countries from 1960 to 1985 has been very similar. 2. Level and pattern of mortality is quite different between two countries. Mortality level of Taiwan is lower than that of Korea. 3. The close similarity between two countries was shown in population structure and aging index. 4. On future population projection, the population structure and the level and pattern of fertility of the two countries are very similar. During fourty years, the period from the current population growth rate which is a little more than 1% to the zero growth rate, the annual population growth rate of the two countries is approximately 0.6% and that is similar to those of the current industrialized countries. According to the medium variant of the projection, Korean population will reach Zero Growth Rate between 2020 and 2025 whereas Taiwan between 2025 and 2020 5. Current level of contraceptive prevalence of both countries is very similar showing above 70% of the eligible women in 1985 and one of the valuable factors of achieving this high rate within short period must be the national program of the family planning. A close cooperation in the field of population policy formulation and its implementation is indispensable because Korea and Taiwan have similarity in many population indicators.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.113-136
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• 2010

Low fertility has become quite commonplace worldwide, and Europe has experienced below replacement fertility for several decades. In addition, lowest-low fertility, defined as period total fertility rate below 1.3, has rapidly spread in Europe during the 1990s and is likely to expand further. After the turn of century, lowest-low fertility started spreading in Eastern Asia. Korea's TFR of 1.19 in 2008 is lower than most European countries, although it is higher than the Hongkong(1.02) and Taiwan(1.09). The purpose of this paper is to examine the socioeconomic determinants of lowest-low fertility in Korea. In doing so, this paper discusses the effects of female labour force participation, labour instability on family formation and fertility. The data includes female labour force participation rate, unemployment rate, age at first marriage, and total fertility rate from 1980 to 2008. First, the economic recession hindered young people's economic independence and propensity to marry. Married couples were also depressed with uncertainty toward the future and avoided to have children. Second, the growth in female labor force participation had a negative impact on fertility, under the low level of compatibility between women's work and childrearing. Moreover, this paper argues that the rising cost of children including public and private educational costs is thought to be the main reason of the recent low fertility in Korea. Policy implications and some comments on population policies are also presented in the final section.

• Korean Journal of Animal Reproduction
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.36-42
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• 1981

This experiment was carried out to determine the optimum interval between inseminations in artifical insemination of hens. Two hundred and forty hens of Hisex commercial stock at 25 weeks of age and 20 cocks of the Rhode Island Red at 40 weeks of age were used for the experiment, and a total of 6,784 eggs were obtained. The intervals between inseminations compared in this study were: 3 days (T1), 5 days (T2), and 7 days(T3). Mixed raw semen was inseminated and the semen does was 0.03ml per insemination per hen. The inseminations were conducted at 15:00 at each time. The total number of insemination performed was 9 for the T1, 6 for the T2 and 5 for the T3, and eggs were collected over a period of 31 days, 32 days and 35 dyas, respectively. The average egg production of the hens during the experiment was 85.9% and the average temperature during the experiment was around 30$^{\circ}C$. The average sperm count was 3.69 billion per ml. The results obtained in this experiment can be summarized as follows: The fertility over the entire experimental period bythe treatment was 91.7% for the T1, 84.4% for the T2, and 75.2% for the T3. The difference between T1 and T3 in fertility was significant at 5% level. The average fertility on the second, third and fourth day after the insemination in the T2 and T3 was maintained at a relatively high level, but it tended to decline rapidly from the fifth day after the insemination. The average fertility for one week after the last insemination was 88.8% for the T1, 88.8% for the T2 and 78.6% for the T3, and none of the differences among the treatments were statistically significant. On the basis of the results from this study, it is recommended to adjust the insemination intervals within the range from the 3 to 5 days in order to maintain a highest level of fertility in the hens at an early stage of egg production as in the case of the hens used in this experiment. An insemination interval of 3 days is recommended, especially at an initial stage of insemination. For the hens with a low fertility, shortening, of the insemination interval to 3 or 2 days is desirable.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.89-113
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• 2006

Over the past four decades reproductive behavior has changed rapidly in much of the developing countries. The average total fertility rate has fallen by half from six or more to near three today. Between 1960 and 2000 the largest fertility decline occurred in Asia and Latin America. The mortality rate has also decreased in most developing countries. The purpose of this study is to review the pattern and characteristic of demographic transition in developing countries. At first, this study focuses on the regional fertility and mortality transition. Africa, the total fertility rate is still high, can be match to the second stage of demographic transition. Similar case is found in Southern West Asia areas. However, the fertility rate has therd stage of demographic transition. The same pattern is found in Latin America. The mortality rate has also decreased in most of developing countries. It is interesting to find that there is a clear difference among developing countries. In terms of crude death rate, Latin American countries show the lowest rate. while African countries remain still high rate. About mortality, African countries show a high level in terms of both crude death rate and infant mortality rate. African countries also show the lowest level of life expectancy in the world. One of the reasons for low level of life expectancy in Africa is the widespread of AIDS in this areas. This study suggests that we should include 'AIDS' in the study of mortality in African countries.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.67-90
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to analyze factors to affect low fertility and to investigate its implications to social welfare. For the purpose, I surveyed 360 married women and men in Gyeongnam province, and employed multi-regression, logistic regression model to process the data. I analyzed factors to influence low fertility in three aspects: demographic feature, socio-economic status, and personal sense of value. The results of analysis can be summarized as follows: (1) the period of marriage in demographic feature, income level in social economic status, and the necessity of children in personal sense of value are important factors to affect the current fertility level, (2) period of marriage, total numbers of children, gender of the first child are determining the future childbirth in demographic feature. Secondly, income level is interrelated to the future childbirth in socio-economic status. Thirdly, in the aspect of personal values, how much one needs to get married, how much one prefers son to daughter, how much one relies on one's children to realize one's dream are interrelated to the future childbirth, (3) the cost of bringing up a child as well as he expense of private education, lacking of a day nursery, and economic difficulty are causes to make people to postpone or give up childbirth. These results suggest that development of population policy to promote women's social participation and to strengthen family welfare as well as social welfare is necessary. These also implicates that if we pursue integrated policies on women, childcare, and education, we can get much more effective population welfare policy.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.14
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• pp.29-36
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• 1996

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of the application of complete fertilizer on the yields and quality of leaf tobaccod grown in soils with different fertility levels. The contents of inorganic nitrogen, organic matter and available phosphorus in the soil with high fertility level were shown to be more than those in the soils with medium and low fertility levels of the experimental fields. The contents of total nitrogen, nicotine and reducing sugar in the tobacco leaf were more than those in the cutters tobacco. The contents of total nitrogen and nicotine in the leaf tobacco increased as the application amounts of the fertilizer(10:10:20) increased, however, the reducing sugar contents in the leaf tobacco decreased. The increase in the yields of leaf tobacco was detected at the application amount of 75kg/10a in soils with high fertility level, but for high yield of leaf tobacco in the soils with low and medium levels the application amount of the fertilizer was found to be over 100kg per 10a. The quality (price/kg or price/kg ${\times}$ yield) of the leaf tobacco was known to be excellent at 50~75kg/10a of the application amount of the fertilizer(10:10:20) in soil with high fertility level and over 100kg/10a in the other soils in the experiment.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.45-72
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• 1996

The main purpose of this study is to analyze the level of fertility of Koreans in China in comparison to Hans. From the demographic perspective, this paper attempts to develop explanation for Korean immigration to northeast China since the mid 19th century. Of interest are the trend of population growth and geographic distribution of Koreans in China Attention is also given to the comparison of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics between Koereans and Hans in China. The research is based on the raw data files of the 1990 Population Census from Jilin Province and Yanbian Korean Prefecture. The findings of the analysis suggest that the level of fertility of Koreans in China is substantially lower than those of Hans and other ethnic minority. This appears to be particularly true for Koreans residing in the regions densely populated with Koreans. The results of ANOVA and MCA confirm that the ethnic factor does have significant effects on the level of fertility. The lowest fertility of Koreans is found to be consistent after adjusting the effects of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the couple and the household. Despite the recent uprising of the sex ratio at birth in China, it is found in this study that the pattern of sex ratios for Koreans in Jilin Province and Yanbian Korean Prefecture has been fairly balanced and stable. Finally, Koreans are found to have higher level of child mortality than Hans and other ethnic minority.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.97-116
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• 2007

As the fertility level in Korea continues to drop with detrimental implications for the society, it has regained much attention of academics and policy makers. This study, building on the previous research on fertility behavior, attempts to explore the plan of young married women to have an additional child. While such plan is not always put into practice, it is still closely related to fertility behavior. In addition, it can provide useful clues to understanding behavior in the future. Utilizing a recent nationwide survey on marriage and fertility, the study analyzes the plan of further birth among young married women according to the number of their children. The results show that the plan for first child is quite universal as no difference is found by their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. However, having plan for second child differs by the work status of husbands, presence of mother of young married women, and the sex of first child. The effects of first two factors suggest that young married women take into consideration stability of home economics and availability of care sharing. As for the plan for the child, the present and ideal sex composition of children appear most important. The results indicate that the mechanism of fertility progression differs by the current number of children. Thus, consideration of such differential would help us deepen our understanding of fertility behaviors and need to reflect in the study. The study also argues that comprehensive and systematic qualitative research should be accompanied by to capture complexity of fertility decision making process.