台灣地區生育率逐年下降，從1985年起總生育率即低於替代水準2.1；近幾年更快速下降，2005年降至空前的1.12，僅有1960年的1/6。為瞭解台灣地區生育率的未來趨勢，本文研究婦女生育年齡、勞動參與率、教育程度及胎次生育率，與世界各國比較，以分析生育率的變化。我們發現近年台灣、日本及法國各年齡組對生育率的貢獻幾乎相同，但法國的總生育率卻有2的水準。比較台灣地區大專以上及高中以下教育程度的婦女，兩者的生育情況在早期是有所差別的，但近年兩者的生育行為非常接近；大學以上及高中以下的婦女生育率均同時降低，生育率的下降似乎和婦女教育程度關係不大。除了以年齡別的角度進行分析，本文也在胎次別生育率的研究上探討及驗證過去的模型與理論，提出模型以修正Feeney的胎次進級模型，從台灣地區資料的計算結果來比較，兩者相差不大，建議在資料允許的情況下可以使用我們提出的計算方法。

The fertility rates in Taiwan decline rapidly. The total fertility rate has been lower than the replacement level 2.1 since 1985 and it reached to 1.12, the historical low in 2005, only 1/6 of which in 1960. In order to explore the fertility trend in Taiwan, several variables were used to compare with countries in the world, including women fertility rate by age groups, female labor force participation rate, fertility of women with different educational attainments and fertility rate by birth order. We found that Taiwan, Japan and France share a similar fertility pattern, unlike in the U.S., while the young female groups still have significant contribution on fertility.
For the variable of highest education attained, the group of senior high school and below have higher fertility before 1970’s comparing to that of education with college and higher. However, the gap narrowed down in recent years. Also, for the fertility rates by birth order, we proposed a new model estimation for the parity progression model. We found that the results of proposed method are almost identical to those of the original method, but the computation is much easier.

中文部分
內政部統計資訊服務網，http://www.moi.gov.tw/stat/index.asp。
內政部(1949 ~ 2004)，中華民國台閩地區人口統計，內政部編印。
行政院經濟建設委員會，http://www.cepd.gov.tw/index.jsp。
行政院經濟建設委員會人力規劃處(2006)，中華民國臺灣民國95年至140年人口推計。
教育部全球資訊網，http://www.edu.tw/index.htm。
余清祥與藍銘偉(2003)，“台灣地區生育率模型之研究”, 人口學刊, vol. 27, 105-131。
黃意萍與余清祥(2002)，“台灣地區生育率模式的推估研究”, 人口學刊, vol. 25, 145-171。
陳世璋(2005)，近年我國婦女總生育率之遽減與其可行對策。超低生育率：法國經驗以及亞洲國家之對策國際學術研討會。

英文部分
Bongaarts, J. (1999) The Fertility Impact of Changes In the Timing of Childbearing In the developing World, Population Studies, 53, 277-289.
Bongarrts, J. and Feeney, G. (1998) On the quantum and tempo of fertility, Population
And Development Review, 24(2): 271-291.
Council of Europe, http://www.coe.int/DefaultEN.asp.
Feeney, G. (1985). Parity Progression Projection. East West Population Institute, Honolulu, Hawaii.

______. (1991). Fertility Decline in Taiwan: A Study Using Parity Progression Ratios. Demography 28(3): 467-479.
______. (1992). Indirect Estimation of Period Parity Progression Ratios from Time Series of Births Distributed by Order. Program on Population. The East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
Hinde, A. (1998). Demographic Methods. London: Arnold.
Lewis, C. D. (1982). Industrial and Business Forecasting Methods: A practical Guide to Exponential Smoothing and Curve Fitting, Butterworth Scientific, London.
Mathews, T. J. and Ventura, S. J. (1997). Birth and Fertility Rates by Educational Attainment: United States, 1994, Monthly Vital Statistics Report, Vol.45, No.10(S).
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, http://www.oecd.org.
Statistics Japan, http://www.stat.go.jp.
Sullivan, Rachel. (2005). The Age Pattern of First-Birth Rates Among U.S. Women: The Bimodal 1990s. Demography, Volume 42(2), 259-273.
The World Bank, http://devdata.worldbank.org/data-query.
United Nations. (2004). World Fertility Report 2003. New York: United Nations.
Zeng, Y. and Land, K. C. (2001). A Sensitivity Analysis of The Bongaarts-Feeney Method for Adjusting Bias in Observed Period Total Fertility Rates. Demography, Volume 38(1), 17-28.