title: A comment on 'social and economic factors in Hong Kong's fertility decline' by Sui-Ying Wat and R. W. Hodge.
abstract: Abstract   The recent article by Wat and Hodge appears to make incorrect inferences about the relation of certain social and economic indicators (infant mortality, employment opportunities for women, and education) to Hong Kong's fertility decline, based on a multiple regression of these variables to the crude birth rate of Hong Kong for 1951-1967. Such modernization measures probably have at least a long-run causal relation to fertility decline. It is also possible that the family planning programme ofHong Kong may have added little to the effects, as the authors suggest. However, I do not believe that their multiple regression analysis establishes these conclusions.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Freedman