IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ind/cdswpp/290.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regional heterogeneity and fertility behaviour in India

Author

Listed:
  • Christophe Z. Guilmoto

    (French Institute of Pondicherry)

  • S. Irudaya Rajan

    (Centre for Development Studies)

Abstract

This paper examines regional heterogeneity both from statistical and cartographic perspectives, using factor analysis of non-demographic data, models of fertility determinants and district-wise mapping to test out the presence of regional clustering. Regional analysis reveals that economic, social and health indicators display spatial patterns as strong as fertility rates. All recent models of fertility incorporate a significant geographical component (using dummy regional variables or auto-correlation measurements). The map of fertility decline spreading along culturally and spatially contiguous regions also suggests that diffusion mechanisms may play an independent role in the spread of new reproductive behaviour (small family norm). Though diffusion per se, no real explanation for the fast decline of fertility in Southern or Coastal India (what would then be the cause of diffusion in the first place?), it would definitely be important to understand how these mechanisms are facilitated by social and cultural homogeneity or by regional policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Christophe Z. Guilmoto & S. Irudaya Rajan, 1998. "Regional heterogeneity and fertility behaviour in India," Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers 290, Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India.
    • Handle: RePEc:ind:cdswpp:290
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cds.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/wp290.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pollak, R.A. & Watkins, S.C., 1993. "Cultural and Economic Approaches to Fertility : A Proper Marriage or a Mesalliance?," Discussion Papers in Economics at the University of Washington 93-11, Department of Economics at the University of Washington.
    2. Friedlander, Dov & Schellekens, Jona & Ben-Moshe, Eliahu, 1991. "The Transition from High to Low Marital Fertility: Cultural or Socioeconomic Determinants?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 331-351, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christophe Z. Guilmoto & S. Irudaya Rajan, 2001. "Spatial Patterns of Fertility Transition in Indian Districts," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 27(4), pages 713-738, December.
    2. N. Vijayamohanan Pillai, 2004. "CES function, generalised mean and human poverty index: Exploring some links," Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers 360, Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gunnar Andersson, 2000. "The Impact of Labour-Force Participation on Childbearing Behaviour: Pro-Cyclical Fertility in Sweden during the 1980s and the 1990s," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 293-333, December.
    2. Monica Das Gupta, 1999. "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite: Exploring the role of governance in fertility decline," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(5), pages 1-25.
    3. Monika Mynarska & Anna Matysiak, 2010. "Women's determination to combine childbearing and paid employment: How can a qualitative approach help us understand quantitative evidence?," Working Papers 26, Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics.
    4. Durlauf,S.N. & Walker,J.R., 1999. "Social interaction and fertility transitions," Working papers 28, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    5. Fogarty, L. & Creanza, N. & Feldman, M.W., 2013. "The role of cultural transmission in human demographic change: An age-structured model," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 68-77.
    6. Kendzia Michael J. & Zimmermann Klaus F., 2013. "Celebrating 150 Years of Analyzing Fertility Trends in Germany," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 233(3), pages 406-422, June.
    7. Thomas Baudin, 2015. "Religion and fertility: The French connection," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(13), pages 397-420.
    8. Paresh Kumar Narayan & Xiujian Peng, 2006. "An Econometric Analysis of the Determinants of Fertility for China, 1952-2000," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 165-183.
    9. Robert A. Pollak, 2004. "An intergenerational model of domestic violence," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 311-329, June.
    10. Sunha Myong & JungJae Park & Junjian Yi, 2021. "Social Norms and Fertility," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(5), pages 2429-2466.
    11. Susan Watkins, 1993. "If all we knew about women was what we read in Demography, what would we know?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(4), pages 551-577, November.
    12. Sandra González-Bailón & Tommy E. Murphy, 2011. "Social Interactions and Long-Term Fertility Dynamics.A Simulation Experiment in the Context of the French Fertility Decline," Working Papers 419, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    13. Seik Kim & Sam-Ho Lee, 2020. "Son Preference and Fertility Decisions: Evidence From Spatiotemporal Variation in Korea," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 927-951, June.
    14. Márton Varga, 2014. "The effect of education, family size, unemployment and childcare availability on birth stopping and timing," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 13(2), pages 95-115, August.
    15. Ciccarelli, Carlo & Fenske, James & Martí Henneberg, Jordi, 2023. "Railways and the European Fertility Transition," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1477, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    16. Stefan Boes, 2009. "Partial Identification of Discrete Counterfactual Distributions with Sequential Update of Information," SOI - Working Papers 0918, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich.
    17. Maria De Paola & Roberto Nisticò & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2020. "Fertility Decisions And Employment Protection: The Unintended Consequences Of The Italian Jobs Act," Working Papers 202003, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    18. Patrick R. Galloway & Ronald D. Lee & Eugene a. Hammel, 1998. "Urban versus Rural: Fertility Decline in the Cities and Rural Districts of Prussia, 1875 to 1910," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 209-264, September.
    19. Hill Kulu, 2003. "Migration and fertility: competing hypotheses re-examined," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2003-035, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    20. Julia Behrman, 2015. "Does Schooling Affect Women’s Desired Fertility? Evidence From Malawi, Uganda, and Ethiopia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(3), pages 787-809, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fertility; South India; diffusion; heterogeneity; family planning; reproductive behaviour; coastal India; infant mortality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ind:cdswpp:290. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shamprasad M. Pujar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdsacin.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.