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The Determinants of Low Fertility in India

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Demography

Abstract

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.

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Notes

  1. In addition to the conceptual weakness of the B/P model in low fertility settings, we have also found that it does not have high predictive validity in these settings. In analyses not shown (available upon request), we estimate C c (contraception), C m (marriage), and C i (postpartum infecundability) from the classic proximate determinants framework for the states of India in 1992–1993, 1998–1999, and 2005–2006. We find that the association between observed and predicted TFRs is much stronger for the Bongaarts (2001) model (compared with the B/P model).

  2. Newer techniques use prospective fertility preferences to estimate unwantedness, thereby reducing biases inherent in the conventional techniques (Casterline and El-Zeini 2007). Our future analyses will explore these methods of constructing wantedness.

  3. Because the correlation between the two measures is modest in the survey years, we show final results from both in the article.

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Acknowledgments

The first two authors share first authorship and are listed alphabetically. Dharmalingam initiated the project and carried out preliminary empirical work; Rajan conducted all analyses reported in the article, wrote the first draft, and presented a previous version of the paper at the 2012 meeting of the Population Association of America, San Francisco. All authors contributed to the project’s conceptualization and to the interpretation of results and the writing of multiple drafts of the article. Two anonymous reviewers made excellent suggestions on an earlier version of this article. We are grateful for general support from the Carolina Population Center (R24 HD050924) at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill; Duke University; and the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, Melbourne.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Monash University, Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia

    Arunachalam Dharmalingam

  2. Duke University, 268 Soc/Psych Building, Durham, NC, 27708-0088, USA

    Sowmya Rajan

  3. Carolina Population Center, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516-2424, USA

    S. Philip Morgan

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  1. Arunachalam Dharmalingam
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  2. Sowmya Rajan
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  3. S. Philip Morgan
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Correspondence to Sowmya Rajan.

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Dharmalingam, A., Rajan, S. & Morgan, S.P. The Determinants of Low Fertility in India. Demography 51, 1451–1475 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-014-0314-9

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