The decline of Arab fertility

Moslem society has so far vigorously resisted fertility decline, largely as a result of the roles played by women’s status and family structure [**]. But, contrary to pessimistic forecasts, this situation has begun to change, first in the Eastern Republics of the Soviet Union, as has been shown recently in Population [***], and later in a certain number of other countries.
The time is, therefore, ripe to present a more general picture of these new trends. Philippe Fargues [****] does so in the present paper, basing his observations on the most recent data. The apparently disorderly pattern of these first changes is reminiscent of the situation in Ancient France, where birth control had already taken root in some regions, when in others it had yet to appear.