Invited Paper The Determinants of Household Level Fertility in India (original) (raw)
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The Determinants of Household Level Fertility in India
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013
Using NSS data for 1993-94 and 2004-05 this paper highlights the impact of growing incomes, social and household decisions of households, and regional and ethnic factors on patterns of household level fertility in India. These have helped determine the composition of India's young (aged 9 to 34) today. Demographic transition is well underway in India with rising incomes associated with fewer children and smaller family size. The number of women in the childbearing age group significantly affects the number of children. Households with more women in the age group 26-35 have more children, are more likely to have children than not having them as well as having larger family size, ceteris paribus. Average education of females lowers household size whereas (instrumented) shares of expenditure on education and health have varying effects. The impact of a household being SC or ST varies by year and by the regression model chosen. Over both time periods Muslim households have more children and are more likely than the general population to have larger family sizes. Households in BIMARU states have more children and have larger family sizes as do urban households. Thus demographic transition has occurred unevenly across various groups in India.
The Determinants of Low Fertility in India
Demography, 2014
Using a conceptual framework focusing on factors that enhance or reduce fertility relative to desired family size (see Bongaarts 2001), we study fertility variation across time (1992-2006) and space (states) in India. Our empirical analyses use data from three waves of the Indian National Family Health Surveys. We find that this framework can account for a substantial portion of the variation in the total fertility rate (TFR) over time and across states. Our estimates focus attention on the critical components of contemporary Indian fertility, especially desired family size, unwanted fertility, son preference, and fertility postponement.
Convergence in fertility differentials by educational attainment of women in India
The study focuses on the educational differentials in total fertility and its wanted and unwanted components in the context of India and its selected states. The study has used the data from three sources viz. Census of India, Sample Registration System, and National Family Health Survey. Bivariate and multivariate techniques have been used for the analysis. The findings suggest that educational differentials in the TFR in the past were wider. Urban areas have experienced rapid decline in TFR than rural areas of India. Although gaps are narrowing down over the period but they remain substantial until date. To understand the change in unwanted and wanted fertility at different stages of transition, three Indian states viz. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu have been chosen. The analysis suggests that in Uttar Pradesh, the wanted fertility has reduced rapidly but unwanted has not. In Tamil Nadu, unwanted and wanted TFR have come down slightly. The findings suggest that as the country or the states move towards low levels of fertility, educational differentials narrow down and proportion of wanted fertility declines and that of unwanted fertility fluctuates.
Education and Childlessness in India
2019
In a developing setting like India, women have started their long way to emancipation both at the family and societal levels. In this context, we study what may be perceived as a key sign of emancipation regarding marriage and motherhood: childlessness. Using micro-level regressions, we show that the probability of a woman ending her reproductive life without children exhibits a U-shaped relationship with her educational attainment. This is indicative of the fact that poverty and sterility are not the sole determinants of childlessness, but that better economic opportunities and empowerment within couples also matter. This result is robust to the introduction of important control variables such as the development level of the state where women live, the husband’s education, age at marriage, religion, and caste. India seems to be joining a list of countries where adjustments to childlessness are much more than simple responses to boom-andbust poverty.
Finnish Yearbook of Population Research, 2010
Demographic interest in the explanations of the first fertility transition has receded considerably during the last decade. Despite the empirical evidence of global convergence in fertility, there is still no consensus on the factors which explain the swiftness of the change in some contexts and its deceleration in some others. From the policy perspective, it remains pivotal to locate the factors that affect the momentum of fertility transition. In this essay the fast decline to below replacement-level period Total Fertility Rate in South India will be examined as an example of fertility transition despite slow social and/or economic development. The analysis is based on a literature review of empirical studies on the determinants of regional fertility differentials in India. Some southern states, most particularly Andhra Pradesh, manifest below replacement-level fertility (TFR 1.79) despite low average age at marriage even in Indian terms, the resilience of womens universal marriag...
India’s date with second demographic transition
China Population and Development Studies
Using data from various sources, this paper discusses the recently documented below replacement level fertility in India in the context of the universality of marriage of girls, most of which are arranged by the parents, and increase in their mean age at marriage, mainly due to decrease in child marriage. There is virtually no increase in divorce rate, cohabitation, or voluntary childlessness, except for some anecdotal evidence from metro cities. The paper shows that the transition to small family in India is not due to cultural shifts towards post-modern attitudes and norms that accept and stress individuality and self-actualization. It is largely due to high aspirations among urban middle-class parents for children which can be fulfilled when they have one or at most two children in view of the rising cost of private English medium education and health care.
India’s North–South divide and theories of fertility change
Journal of Population Research, 2009
Economic condition and women's status have been considered important elements in understanding fertility change. In this study, we examine their influence on North-South differences in parity-specific fertility intentions and births in India using the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2) conducted in 1998-1999. The results show the persistence of spatial variations in fertility intentions and births, net of economic and women's status factors. The influence of these factors is more pronounced in the high fertility region. This study argues that changes in fertility desires and their actualization may be better understood when situated within the broader socio-political context.