Fertility and Social Interaction: An Economic Perspective:Fertility and Social Interaction: An...

BOOK REVIEWS 127

with Forsythe's rebuttal of Fleck's critique, areply that, in the words of the volume's editor(p. xix), "remain(s) controversial to thisday." It is also evident in Diana's analyses (inchapters 8,9,10, and 12) of the nature of an-thropological work, including the assump-tions that underlie the ways in which anthro-pologists practice their craft and the ways inwhich others (especially AI researchers)have attempted to appropriate those prac-tices. Chapter 9, "Studying Those Wh«Study Us: Medical Informatics AppropriatesEthnography," from which the title of thecollection is taken, in particular focuses onthe problems posed for ethnographers andfor ethnography when informants are power-ful enough to challenge the interpretations ofthe anthropologists who observe and analyzethem, a situation that is increasingly commonas researchers "study up," whether in the do-main of science and technology or in othersin which the status (political, educational, orsocial) of informants is equal to or greaterthan that of fieldworkers. I would recom-mend these chapters to anyone interested inissues of anthropological theory and methodand in the writing and reading of ethnography.

Fertility and Social Interaction: An Eco-nomic Perspective. Hans-Peter Kohler.New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.xviii + 211pp.

PAUL VALENTINE

Department of Sociology and AnthropologyUniversity of East London

This volume provides a synthesis betweeneconomics and sociology in order to investi-gate one of the central social changes in his-tory: the decline of fertility. New data andempirical analysis of both historical and con-temporary fertility declines have weakenedthe standard theory of demographic transi-tion. Despite a plethora of new theories of

fertility change, the author argues that nonehas emerged as an alternative guide to em-pirical research or population policy. Theneoclassical economic approach facilitatesthe application of sophisticated consumerand household production theory to under-standing a couple's reproductive behavior.However, despite its theoretical appeal, it hasbeen eschewed by many critics because of itsneglect of cultural factors and its require-ments of "rationality" on the part of individu-als making reproductive decisions.

Kohler attempts to overcome these criti-cisms by emphasizing that demographic be-havior and decision making in a communitydoes not occur in autonomous couples buttakes place in a social context of relationsamong households. The decisions that otherhouseholds have made in the past or contem-poraneously are strong influences on otherfamilies' choices. The integration of socialinteraction theory with economic fertilitymodels in this book provides a powerful ana-lytic device to overcome the traditional ob-jections to rational choice models. The bookoffers a forceful integration of economic andsociological approaches to the study of fertil-ity. For economics, the work shows the ad-vantages of moving beyond individual deci-sion making and embedding the fertilitydecision in a local environment. For sociolo-gists and anthropologists, it emphasizes thatmost analyses of social networks are not suf-ficiently precise. The book's findings haveimportant implications for population pol-icy. The analysis suggests when family plan-ning is likely to be widely diffused and leadto rapid adoption of birth control. Further,the findings show that changes in social in-teraction patterns can lead to fluctuations inbirth rates that are swift and difficult to fore-see, and that spells of low fertility have con-siderably higher persistence than spells ofhigh fertility.