SOCIOLOGY OF FERTILITY

The book is an outcome of a research study conducted with the prime objective of analyzing the correlates of fertility.
Fertility, the main dependent variable, has been measured in terms of number of pregnancies, live births and living children. But, here, only number of live births has been used for analysis. Fertility has been analyzed in terms of socio-economic status variables, demographic variables, family structure, value orientations and contraception, using bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques. The variables which contributed significantly towards fertility variation are duration of married life, experience of child and infant mortality, caste, ideal number of children preferred, family type, and knowledge and contraceptives. Demographic variables, viz., duration of married life and child mortality emerged as the prime determinants of fertility among rural women. This is because socio-economic differentiation is less marked in rural areas and despite economic development, a large majority continues to be dependent on agriculture and also continues to be guided by uniform values as far as fertility is concerned.